How can I know God has called me to write? It’s an important question to be answered and the first chapter of my book, Write His Answer – A Bible Study for Christian Writers. You can read the chapter online by clicking here.
Betty Lethcoe, one of my At Home Writing Workshop students, wrote the following about her call to write. Because I believe it will encourage you I asked permission to share it.
Am I Called to Write?
Betty Lethcoe
Why do I feel that if God called me to write, it should be easier? Isn’t a calling a mystical anointing of favor, enabling me to sit down and easily tap out beautiful words that evoke passion for our Lord or instant clarity of a complex theological concept? If I am called to write, shouldn’t fabulous story ideas be pouring forth like a gushing stream, without a lot of effort on my part? Calling is defined as a vocation, work, mission or passion. There is nothing about “easy” in those definitions. To write for publication requires a great deal of faith. Faith that I’ll eventually be successful. Faith that the time I spend thinking and nurturing my imagination wouldn’t be better spent serving the homeless, helping the sick, or working in a crisis nursery.
If I was attending college, I could work hard and complete assignments. Regularly I would be evaluated with a grade, A through F. When I finished all my assignments, I would have something tangible—a degree. There is no wondering if I will achieve the goal. I just have to work hard. There is no wondering if I have what it takes as I am graded all along. If I am failing, the teachers will tell me!
I could work hard and write for years and never sell anything. I could invest hundreds of hours and never touch a single person’s life. Is the ease in which I sell my work the gauge I use to confirm God’s call?
Paul was called to be a missionary to the Gentiles, but living out his calling was anything but easy. Consider the persecutions, shipwrecks, imprisonments and all those difficult people he had to deal with! Of course, he had the visit from Jesus on the Damascus road. Did he ever wonder if he heard right?
I feel as though I want God to assure me, before I start, that it won’t be a waste of time. I need to know that it isn’t my ego, wanting me to “be something” but it is God wanting my writing to “be something” that glorifies Him. But that wouldn’t be faith, would it?
Someone I respect once told me they thought writing was a very self-centered activity and not a service to the Lord. I quit writing and thinking about writing for a couple of years. But I love to read others’ writing, and as a child I loved to read fiction. I believe children need fiction that glorifies and recognizes the Creator God of the universe.
So I will continue to believe I am called to write. I believe my trustworthy God will not waste any time that is offered to Him in faith, and He will use it all to build my faith, to edify me and one day others, and to bring Him glory. I am called to obedience & to trust God with the outcome!
© Betty Lethcoe 2010
Write His Answer 
I would like to thank you very much for blessing me with the contents of Betty Lethcoe’s article. I am a VERY new writer who never really considered it until April 2010 when my job of 20 years (proofreader) was outsourced. I had no time to consider where to go from here as my mother broke her hip the week before and my husband was ill on disability. Racing around trying to keep households up and moving, an interesting thing happened…almost immediately words, phrases, lines began to pop into my head and I’d jot them down on whatever was handy…mostly scrap paper, napkins, back of receipts…I’d wake at 2am, fumbling for a pen and something besides the pillowcase or cat to write on. “Lord, what is?… this as poem after poem took shape” In early May I also became ill and spent every two weeks in the doctors’ offices while they threw spaghetti at the wall hoping something would stick. In late August part of the answer fell into place…too exhausted to look for a “real” job, I’ve continued to write and recently went to my first writing seminar and writer’s group. I too have been praying and asking the question, “Lord…is this just therapy for me or do you have bigger plans that have yet to unfold? Betty’s article coupled with our sermon this morning on Noah’s faith, is a real encouragment to me, that at the “write” time God will reveal to me His plans for my future as I continue to seek and pursue Him, first and foremost.