No Shadow of Turning

photo credit Tiffany Nuessle 2024

‘But when they came to the edge of the camp of the Syrians, behold, there was no one there. For the LORD had made the army of the Syrians hear the sound of chariots and of horses, the sound of a great army…so they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses and their donkeys…’ – 2 Kings 7

Had dinner with a dear friend Monday and was telling him Phil Vischer’s new philosophy (see previous blog post), about ‘If God isn’t leading the way, the runners are headed off a cliff’ as it were, and he had a challenge for that. “I don’t believe,” he said, “God has everything worked out, so we’re just supposed to sit around and do nothing.”

I don’t believe that either. One of the pervasive teachings, the Bible is shot through with it, is the principle of sowing and reaping.

I can’t do a blessed thing to make a seed grow. I can facilitate the process what with fertilization and watering and so forth but no amount of effort on my part will turn seed into plant; that’s in God’s hands.

All the same, if in the entire history of this troubled world a seed sprouted that wasn’t planted, I ain’t heard tell of it.

He has the Lion’s share of the effort but if I do nothing, nothing will happen.

So to those, and they are many, who are sitting around praying for a miracle, hoping to win the lottery or be handed a promotion or find a magic lamp to rub and are not pursuing God, not delighting themselves in the Lord, quoting “God works all things together for good” without including “for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose”… (Romans 8)

…yeah, you might be in one of those parked cars God’s not gonna move.

Please note I say ‘not gonna’, not ‘can’t’; plenty of evidence that when needed He is perfectly able to rattle a person’s cage, get their attention.

But even so God didn’t make Jonah go to Nineveh. He would have let the prophet drown if he so chose. He warned Nebuchadnezzar what was coming if he didn’t get his act together. Saul and David both had opportunities to repent when they screwed up; I submit one of the enormous differences between the two was how they responded when confronted.

Anyway—for those content to sit in the stands, you can probably stay there. Love isn’t love without a choice and He always lets us choose.

But nobody scores points that isn’t in the game. All I’m saying.

Meanwhile as thoroughly stated I’m waiting for my chance to jump back in, and even as I read ‘Me, Myself and Bob’ (last reference, I promise, maybe) about all the things Phil Vischer did to get VeggieTales off the ground, before I reached the part about how far out ahead of God he got and how bad a move that was, I remembered.

How in 2007 and 2009 and 2011 when I sent sample DVDs to every dance company in/around the greater Denver area in order to encourage them to hire my videography company. Actions which every time bore fruit; it was a good plan and my business grew.

That was doing something.

Which right now I’m…not.

Huh.

I mean—I don’t want to get out ahead of God but just the same, I mean, I’m not doing anything.

‘Could I be ruining everything?’ that little voice inside me often wonders.

One of the things God especially through regular Scripture study reminds me of is His faithfulness. ‘Great is Thy Faithfulness’ is possibly my favorite hymn and recently as I was meditating on the Fruits of the Spirit from over in Galatians, one of which is of course faithfulness, the Holy Spirit nudged me behind the ear like He does.

“Paul said you flawed vessels should expect faithfulness to result from your relationship with Me—how much more should I, who is without flaw, be expected to act faithfully?”

Couldn’t even write that sentence without tearing up. As I do every time I’m reminded how much I’m loved.

If my kid, the one in that picture up there, pushes me away, gonna put his shoes on himself and insists that he’s got them on the correct way when he totally doesn’t, yells at me if I try to show him…he’s made his choice and can experience the resulting pinched feet if he refuses to listen. I’m willing to leave him to his results.

But if that same child asks if he’s getting it right and he’s not and I don’t say anything…

I’d be a terrible father.

God is not a terrible father.

Am I missing something crucial? Possibly. It’s always on the table; I’ve never done anything perfectly, what are the odds I’d start now?

But He is faithful and I am 100% submitted to His plan and constantly in Receiving Mode, willing at any time to hear from Him and regularly checking in.

If I’m missing something crucial He’ll tell me.

Going back to that 2007/2009/2011 example: I absolutely did reach out to dance companies, promoting the video business, getting out there…

after God revealed that there was business to be had in filming dance recitals by virtue of the dance company my sister was with coming to me, asking if I’d film for them. Same goes for elementary/middle/high schools; I pitched them too, with some success, after the first elementary school fell right the heck into my lap.

All the effort I went to before those moments, pitching real-estate companies and leaving flyers on local doors and filming on spec at a motorcycle shop, spent no little time putting a 20-minute pitch together for them to play on the monitors they already had in the store which surely they would buy from me…

…I accomplished nothing. Gained a little experience, lost time and money so in the end it was a wash.

Everything I did in my own strength did nothing but frustrate me.

Then the first elementary school and the first dance company came to me.

Am I saying the writing success is gonna come to me?

No idea.

It’s not my call.

But if the people on the sidelines can’t score points in the game, neither can any of the players before the game starts. During halftime.

Don’t remember the details but had a book on Dumb Sports Moments as a kid; there was a game once, might have been NFL, where the star linebacker made a fantastic flying tackle to save the other team getting a touchdown.

Only problem being that his team’s offense was currently on the field; he jumped up from the bench, ran out on the field to do so.

Still remember the storyteller describing this guy, after he realized what he’d done, silently walking back to the bench, sitting down and putting his head in his hands.

Can spend all the time/effort/energy I want getting out there but if the game ain’t started yet (three months til football!) the points don’t count. Used a drag-race analogy last week; any street-racer will tell you if you jump before the flag drops, you lost.

This is encouraging because I learned this week that Disney is looking for folks.

Apparently they’ve done this every year for decades; put out the word for aspiring screenwriters (of which I am definitely one) who have at least two scripts (two? I gots six) to apply for…unsure of the specifics, fellowship? Internship? I didn’t read too closely.

Because, thing is, setting aside their stated goal of diversity and my being a Christian, married, middle-aged white guy probably not being high on that list…while there’s nothing stopping me from putting in an application, I just, well…

I don’t want to.

No, really. I’m not saying I’m of two minds about it, or I feel a tug in my Spirit but fear in my Soul, I really truly have zero desire to jump into that particular pool.

Much like how yet another week on I’m still not writing, because He hasn’t instructed me to and I still have zero desire for any particular project, He hasn’t spurred me toward this opportunity and I have zero desire to even go ask if He would be okay with it if I did.

Could I be missing something?

Absolutely.

Is He faithful to smack me upside the head if so?

He certainly has been in the past. No reason to think that’s changed.

I’m not saying I expect the breakout opportunity to come to me, although that’s exactly what has happened every time before—God can do this however He wants.

But regardless of how good a chance might seem, if there’s no desire in my Spirit to pursue it and He hasn’t spoken…it’s not for me.

And one way among many I’m certain of this is the peace.

I still, unexpectedly, have complete peace about not writing, a month into doing so.

I also have complete peace about this. At any point if God wants to redirect me I’m redirectable; I long for His word more than silver or gold. Truly, madly, deeply do.

But as I sit here not pursuing yet another possibility anymore than I’m pursuing all those other possibilities, in essence still doing nothing in the natural…

Complete peace. I’m still right where He wants me doing just what He wants

and in the meantime, unlike when I asked him to arrange my marriage, unlike when He told me He would give me a video business, unlike all those times where I was a big help…I’m not out there wasting time or energy or effort.

I’m right here.

Right where He wants.

Ready when called.

One last thought for those sitting on the sidelines.

Talked about seeds, how God alone makes them grow; have heard that a Pharoah’s tomb was opened and four-thousand-year-old seeds found. Out of curiosity, one imagines, somebody planted some.

                             They sprouted. They grew.

                             Four-thousand-year-old seeds.

                             It’s never too late to get in the game, Best Beloved.

Don’t forget to write

Tuned, Fueled, Pointed

‘Here’s the deal, and this is important, so listen closely: If I am a Christian—if I have given Christ lordship of my life—where I am in five years is none of my business. Where I am in twenty years is none of my business. Where I am tomorrow is none of my business.’ – Phil Vischer, ‘My, Myself and Bob’

When we last left Phil Vischer, previous post, he had received a definite Sign from God that the VeggieTales idea was a good one; that he shouldn’t give up. And anybody paying attention in the mid-90s, even if you were strictly based in the secular world, could hardly fail to note that Phil’s idea took off. I mean, The Simpsons bothered doing a VeggieTales parody. They don’t notice just anybody. (Although their David and Goliath joke in the episode where Homer’s skipping church remains one of my all-time favorites.)

Despite a great deal of turmoil and struggle, Vischer talks about being thrice hospitalized for stress-related issues VeggieTales grew by leaps and bounds, seeing 3300% growth in just a couple years. It was unprecedented, it was amazing, it certainly seemed to be God.

The creators, in addition to VeggieTales, had 3-2-1 Penguins, Larryboy cartoons, a live-action show, a feature-film in the making, Big Idea Productions bought an entire building in downtown Chicago to make into a VeggieTales-themed haven.

Then everything unraveled.

No, really. Everything.

The overreaching, overdrawn, overbuilt company had to default on the downtown Chicago building plan. The live-action show lost money despite being a sold-out ‘success’. Though Bob and Larry were selling millions in merchandise and books and videocassettes Big Idea had gotten so big that millions more were being spent than made.

“When the VeggieTales Jonah movie comes out, if it makes eight million we’ll be okay.”

The movie did far more than anybody expected, something like six million, but it wasn’t enough.

“When the videocassette drops, if we sell three million, we’ll be okay.”

They sold 2.5 million, which is a lot, but it wasn’t enough.

Then there was the lawsuit brought by an overseas distributor.

“They’re lying. They’re completely misrepresenting the situation. Surely God will step in and when He does we’ll be okay.”

The jury awarded Lyrick Studios everything. Lock, stock and Larryboy.

Me, Myself and Bob is a fantastic read, not least because Vischer is completely honest and vulnerable. Would recommend the book for any business owner; I won’t go into detail but after explaining how the house that Bob built crumbled in his hands, Phil outlines in one chapter all the corporate mistakes he made, and very clearly states that in the end the responsibility for money lost, jobs lost, damaged dreams and hopes and lives were in one person’s hands. Himself. ‘I dusted the body for fingerprints; they were all mine.’

Thing of it is, this is the second time reading his book and, probably because I’m in a different spiritual place than I was last time, in transit I noticed something that I had missed before.

From the very beginning, as Phil describes his faith-based childhood, his Bible-college hijinks, the budding world of computer animation and his growing place in it, something was missing.

He started playing around with a new computer animated idea, changed the initial candy-bar character into a cucumber, the planted seed started growing and yet…

People agreed with his vision, bought into the Big Idea, VeggieTales came into being and started gaining momentum but…

Throughout the story, despite Phil’s excellent and detailed narrative style, not once did he say anything like “So God told me to…” or “God’s plan involved…” or “What God wanted…”

No question Phil’s heart was after God; every moment of the story is saturated with a love for Jesus and a desire to serve Him. To tell the world about the wonder of the gospel and fight back against capitalism-driven media. To have a better message. To be, I’m not exaggerating here, a Christian Disney.

But although last week’s example showed God’s encouragement, at no point in the story from birth to death of VeggieTales did Phil say anything about asking God’s counsel.

Until Chapter 21, ‘Dreams, Part II’ which I’m tempted just to type up verbatim because it’s so honest and humble and there’s so much good in it but—Vischer reiterates all the places where God could absolutely have stepped in to save the company…and didn’t. He tells of the loss, of everything, of the lights being turned out on the last hope of his Big Idea, to the point that he was (as of the book’s 2006 writing) a freelancer working for the very company he created.

“For a while of course, I just lay at the bottom of the stairs” metaphorically speaking “and moaned. Then I started asking questions. ‘Why, God? Why did you let that happen, because—I mean—wow—that hurt! And I was doing so much good1 Didn’t you notice? Didn’t you see it? Why?’

And then, very quietly, he started whispering to me.”

Can’t speak too highly of Phil’s willingness to humble himself, to be vulnerable; here he records that eighteen months earlier some woman he didn’t know had emailed him, kept it up on a monthly basis, words of encouragement that nonetheless always ended with “keep an eye on your pride.” Words he did not listen to.

He talks about God trying to get his attention in the save-the-company pre-trial prayer meeting.

In a tape featuring a sermon from a Bible conference his mother gave him, one he was too busy to attend personally. About God-given dreams that nonetheless die, and a Shunammite woman and Elisha and the woman’s son.

Deserves a sermon or two, that story, and if you’re not familiar with it might be worth studying 2 Kings chapter 4—to read about someone given something they had stopped hoping for, who then lost that same something, and showed where their heart was. Not with the dream. Not with the gift. With God.

Like Abraham, and his willingness to sacrifice Isaac.

Like Jairus, in Mark chapter 5. “Do not be afraid, only believe.”

The chapter is so chock-full of good, the whole book is and I’m trying to reduce it to a bite-sized version and I’m not doing it justice. Get ‘Me, Myself and Bob’ and be blessed but as Phil was telling his story, relating what God was saying when he was finally willing to listen as compared to the church he grew up in, he said something that I really noticed.

In relating his Protestant upbringing with its go-go-go work ethic, the need to be constantly serving the Lord, he said one of the phrases thrown about with abandon was “God can’t move a parked car.”

I know that one.

Roughly twelve years ago word got out in the Christian singles’ group I was part of that I had laid down my dream of marriage before God, backed off of dating. In the seventeen years I’d been trying to help Him find the right woman for me I’d accomplished a whole lot of nothing. Been hurt. Hurt others. If He really cared about me and if His plan for my life included marriage it seemed reasonable, seemed Wisdom, to back off and let Him tell me what He wanted.

A well-meaning member of that group took me aside. “God can’t move a parked car.”

When God told me back in 2001 that He was going to give me a video business, any thought I might have had to consult with Him about where to look for work, any thought of keeping my attention on Him rather than getting busy making things happen might well have been shunted aside by those six serious words. Not sure anybody needed to tell me; probably told myself at the time. “God can’t move a parked car.”

Do I even have to say that in this current season of Waiting, where I’m not pursuing agents, not pursuing film producers, doing nothing to promote myself because, best of my understanding, that’s what God has asked of me, more than one well-meaning person has reminded me of that important chestnut?

“You’ve gotta be out there. You’ve gotta be busy. God can’t move a parked car.”

After he (thoroughly) recounts his failure and talks about the Shunammite woman, and Abraham, and C.S. Lewis, “He who has God plus many things has nothing more than he who has God alone,” Phil compares incredibly ‘successful’ Christians like D.L. Moody and Bill Bright with ‘limited’ folk like Mother Teresa and Henri Nouwen, people who could have done so much more if they’d just dreamed bigger, just had better systems in place.

I put ‘successful’ and ‘limited’ in quotes for a reason and I’ll come back to them.

Anyway, after these examples and some wonderful wisdom from Henry Blackaby, Phil returns to his original point: “The problem with the saying ‘God can’t steer a parked car’ is that, while it’s cute, it isn’t biblical. When people of great faith in the Bible don’t know what God wants them to do, they don’t just run off and make stuff up. They wait on him.” I’ll add that when they don’t, every time in Scripture somebody takes it upon themselves to make God’s will happen…bad things result. Every. Time.

Phil mentions Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no vision the people perish” which can be, has been and still is taken to mean “We need to get out there, brothers and sisters! We need to be doing a work! We need to get busy!”

Absolutely.

Assuming we’re reading that verse right.

‘lack of vision’ is indeed one translation but we need to remember our current contextual understanding of vision was not around when the King James was created. Another and for my money much more accurate understanding is the NIV: ‘Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction.’

There’s an enormous difference between our visions, our plans, ‘we’re going to make Big Idea Productions the most trusted media company in the world’ and waiting on God, letting potential opportunity pass by, not getting out there busily doing, not until we know what His vision happens to be. Until we have revelation.

Phil talks about the hundreds, thousands of students fresh out of Bible college or film school or art school who are anxious to get to work, with visions of, say, Noah in their minds. “Where’s my ark! I wanna save the world too!”

“…I started to get it. The Christian life wasn’t about running like a maniac; it was about walking with God. It wasn’t about impact; it was about obedience. It wasn’t about making stuff up; it was about listening.

“Noah walked with God. He waited on God. …and when God needed someone at a specific time in history to advance his will in a specific and dramatic way, he knew who to call, because he knew who was listening.”

He knew who to call because He knew who was listening.

Big Idea’s mission statement, mentioned earlier, was about being the most trusted media company in the world.

Jellyfish Labs, the company Phil created after Big Idea went to pieces, their mission statement is Doing whatever God wants. “Where do you see yourself in five years?” “In the center of God’s will.”

Said I’d come back to this; in the natural world while Mother Teresa is held up by most of us as a paragon of virtue and selflessness if, you know, she’d just had a better system in place, how many more people could have been fed? She could have overseen a feeding ministry with a much better infrastructure. Henri Nouwen was teaching at Harvard, that Harvard, with the potential to reach thousands of students for Jesus and he left to care and feed some disabled guy. Who, sure, needed him but there was such potential!

Regular readers will know that I’m dreaming all kinds of big. I’m hoping to bless millions, hundreds of millions of people with my writing.

The dream is as big as it is, far beyond anything I can accomplish and far beyond anything I would have embraced, because as of right now God has said this is what I want to make happen. I’m going to take care of 99% of the work—stand ready to move when the time comes.

All the same if before I finish writing this sentence He says Hey, new plan. Let all that go, it’s gone. He who has God and a writing career blessing and influencing untold millions has nothing more than he who has God alone.

And in no small part because of His patience and faithfulness I’ve got God, Best Beloved.

I have the exact same mission statement as Phil Vischer did in 2006 and hopefully still does today. Whatever God wants.

And that parked car? My brilliant wife came up with the perfect analogy just last night as we talked about all this.

Yes, technically, you could say that my ‘car’ is ‘parked’ right now.

But I’m not on some side street with my feet on the dashboard and my head back, nodding off while a fly circles my head. (That shot up there, toy cars on the shelf, you’ll never know how hard it was to not dust that shelf off before I took the picture…but the setting, dust and all, fits the example)

I’m at the starting line.

My engine is tuned to the point of highest performance.

My gas tank is full.

I’m wearing my firesuit, my racing gloves, my helmet, my five-point racing harness and I am ready

for that green light. For His green light.

The one God will give me in His time, at His pleasure, in accordance with His will.

“The impact God has planned for us doesn’t occur when we’re pursuing impact. It occurs when we’re pursuing God.” – Phil Vischer, ‘My, Myself and Bob’

“All eyes are on You, expectant…” – Psalm 145 MSG

Don’t forget to write

Standing, Waiting

‘When I consider how my light is spent, ere half my days, in this dark world and wide

And that one Talent which is death to hide lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present my true account, lest he returning chide;

“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?” I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need either man’s work or his own gifts; who best

Bear his mild yoke they serve him best. His state is Kingly.

Thousands at his bidding speed and post o’er land and ocean without rest;

They also serve who only stand and wait.”’ – John Milton, ‘Sonnet 19’

Minister I listen to regularly, like a few hours a week regularly, often mentions an encounter with God he experienced in 1968, how for several months he was “gone somewhere”, so caught up in understanding of God’s love for him that he hardly slept more than an hour or two at a stretch, ate only enough to sustain himself, hardly noticing he was eating.

That experience has been a cornerstone for what is right now a celebrated, 55-year ministry touching millions of lives around the world.

A student in his bible college asked this man “Do you ever doubt that experience? Doubt that it was real?”

In a very gracious response that, to double down on the graciousness AW mentioned in one of his own teachings that any who hear it might be blessed by, he responded “Every day.”

Every day.

God has been so faithful, in this season and every other in my life. He has proved Himself over and over and over and I’m not asking Him to do so again, lately if I ‘put a fleece out’ (see Judges 6) it’s for direction, not for God to prove anything to me. He needs never prove anything to me.

But it’s still mildly frustrating that I must keep continually course correcting. That the needle moves off true throughout the day. That the ‘living sacrifice’ He’s called me to offer keeps, well, crawling off the altar.

All the same when I do start to wonder, when His list of faithful promises seems faded, like maybe I’m just kidding myself about all this, and to sit here not pursuing agents, not pursuing film producers, not working on the next writing project so I’m at least doing something…

He is always always always faithful to remind me that I’m on track. Right where He wants me.

For example a writing friend and spouse, who have been missionaries in a foreign land for some decades. Who had told me, as recently as a few weeks ago, that the chances of ever coming home were slim to none. Who had, if I’m telling the story right and I’ll print a retraction if not, kind of resigned themselves to living on the other side of the world until they were called Home. Even considering aging parents, this friend said “an emergency plane ticket” fund was the most they had found faith to put together.

That same couple will be back here anytime now, if they haven’t landed in the States by the time I write this.

They were hoping just to be able to visit, for the sake of others, and in the last seven days God arranged, beyond any expectation on their part, a miracle that has brought them home. To stay.

Remembering that He does that, things out of nowhere that we hadn’t even imagined possible, was encouragement this week.

As was the following, taken from excellent book ‘Me, Myself and Bob’ by Phil Vischer, recounting the rise (and fall) of VeggieTales.

‘I couldn’t believe my ears. They still weren’t willing to put any money into my talking vegetables—even after seeing Bob and Larry talk and hearing Mike and me hum “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” What more did they need? I drove back home confused and depressed. To make matters worse, all the time I had put into producing that film was time that hadn’t gone into generating any revenue. I didn’t have any money to pay Mike, so I told him he should probably start looking for work elsewhere. Several family members advised me to do the same. Mike found a job at another production company, and I found myself working alone once again.

A week or two later, I was sitting at the kitchen table in our small loft apartment assessing our finances. Things looked really bad. Our checking account was overdrawn. We were late on rent. I had no leads on VeggieTales and no leads on new commercial jobs. In my wallet was a ten-dollar bill. That was it. All the money we had in the world.

“We’re out of dog food.”

“What?” I turned to see who had spoken. It was my wife.

“We’re out of dog food,” she said again. Oh, great. A twenty-five pound bag of Purina was about ten dollars. I looked at the ten-dollar bill in my wallet and looked at our dog, Max. He looked hungry. Reluctantly, I handed the bill to my wife, who headed for the store, leaving me alone with my thoughts. The apartment was still and dark. Our daughter, Shelby, now eighteen months old, was sleeping in the next room. I couldn’t afford to give her health insurance. I couldn’t afford to pay her rent. Now I didn’t even know how I would feed her.

“You fool,” a voice inside me said. “Look at what a mess you’ve made. No one can rely on you. You can’t even take care of your family. And for what? This stupid kids’ show dream? This thing you think God told you to do?” My eyes welled up with tears as the doubt grew louder. “What if you were wrong all along? What if all this wasn’t from God? What if all this was just your idea? Just you? Man, would that ever make you the fool of the year!”’

Not sure why exactly this passage struck me so forcefully. Not like I was possibly potentially having these exact same thoughts about my own vision, my own dreams, as I was reading.

‘For the first time, I doubted. For the first time, I wondered if perhaps I had made the whole thing up. My “call”—everything. “God,” I called out, “tell me this isn’t just me—tell me you’re in this, too!”

A friend stopped by. He noticed the desperate look on my face and asked what was wrong. I told him about our state, and he immediately pulled out his wallet and offered me everything he had. “No, thank you,” I heard myself say. Something told me this wasn’t the answer I needed. My friend left. I turned back to the stack of mail on the table in front of me, looking for something to distract me from the screaming doubt. Bill. Bill. Bill. Wait…what’s that?

There was a letter tucked among the bills, hand-addressed to us, with no return address. I opened it. Inside was a cashier’s check for $400, with a handwritten, unsigned note that simply said, “God laid it on my heart that you might need this.”

My heart stopped. Four hundred dollars wasn’t necessarily going to turn our lives around, but the message was crystal clear.’

Just for the record, my kids have health insurance. The dog has food. The family is not in crisis and this is not a plea for help. Though the burden of the finances has been on my wife’s job as I pursue a full-time dream that has, to date, earned us roughly ten dollars a year over the past six years God has blessed us tremendously. We’re okay.

‘God was there in the room, at the table, with me. He was with me in my darkest hour, when voices were screaming “Give up! This isn’t God, it’s just you, fool!” There he was. Sitting beside me at the black laminate table in our loft apartment as my daughter slept in the next room and my wife hunted for dog food with our last ten dollars—God was there, quietly whispering, “I’m with you. Don’t give up.”

That wasn’t the end of our “hard times,” of course. We had many more crises to face, and we still do. But since that day, I have never once doubted that God has called me to use my gifts for him, and that he will supply whatever resources I need in his perfect timing.

And I will never give up.’

Phil speaks for me. Not that I can claim I’ll never doubt again, the wind and the waves crop up at times and the ship needs regular course correction.

But I know that I know that I know that I’m right where He wants me and for all it looks in the natural like nothing happened again this week, in the Real we’re a week closer to whatever He’s planning

and I wouldn’t be anywhere else.

Rule of three being what it is, not unreasonable if anyone reading is wondering if I have one more example of God’s encouragement.

Of course I do.

One morning this week, might have been Wednesday, I woke up with Ephesians 6:13 in my ears.

‘Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.’ (NIV)

After having done everything.

Two weeks into I don’t have anything to write besides a weekly blog post and this is only coming out of my fingers because I wanted to; had something to say…

I’m not pursuing agents and not pursuing film producers and not trying to kick doors down and not even working on a novel or screenplay or Sarcastic Fairy Tale

because God said if I wanted His best to let Him handle such things

so it could be argued that this week at least I’ve done everything.

Except stand

And wait.

Like I say that verse bounded up the stairs and wrapped itself around my neck, I received it, reminded myself of it as I went into my day.

That minister I mentioned earlier, the one who was willing to admit his heart doubting “every day” the hand of God in his life over the course of a fifty-five year ministry?

I put on, that same morning, one of his sermons in a series about Staying Positive in a Negative World

and darned if he didn’t, in the course of that message,

mention Ephesians 6:13.

‘They also serve who only stand and wait.’

Never worked so hard in my life and I’ve also never had so much fun.

Wouldn’t be anywhere else, Best Beloved.

Not anywhere.

Don’t forget to write

Trusting – Delighted – Committed

‘Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the LORD and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the LORD and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him and He will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the LORD and wait for Him…’ – Psalm 37, MSG

Thinking about something from four years ago and something else from twenty-three years ago.

This week was the first of But I Don’t Feel Like Writing Anything and I’m surprised and pleased to say that not having work to do was not a struggle.

My Spirit continues in peace and (this is the unexpected part) so did the rest of me. The ever-constant what if I’m doing something wrong/missing something important buzz hovered, but it was background noise, mostly.

This week was the first time in the five years since God gave me the words back that I wasn’t either working on a writing project or waiting out ‘mandatory vacation’ time, as it were, until I could get back to writing. As mentioned last week there’s a half-dozen potential novels I could be researching, several screenplay projects I could be thinking about…but there isn’t anything I want to do next, at least there wasn’t this week, and God didn’t spur anything.

For the record one of those half-dozen, not the one I had kinda expected to be working on right now, involves a tornado-chasing-tour family and I couldn’t turn around without somebody referencing tornadoes this week.

Which puts me in mind of the ‘four years ago’ story.

Regulars will (possibly) remember that five years ago The Feud leapt out of my fingers. Speaking of not waiting super well, the five weeks right in the middle of the first draft when I had too many Dance Recitals to deal with, wasn’t really free to write, kinda drove me crazy – and after it was given out to the world I wanted to jump into the next thing.

Another book. Please, God, let me write another book.

Didn’t know then what I know now—thought, worried about if I’m honest, that I had to choose the right project or be getting it wrong. Be outside God’s will, ruining the plan, blah blah blah.

Thing is—I’m anointed to write and if what I’m creating honors God, and it’s something I have a desire for, it’s the right project. Whether screenplay or blog post or novel or grocery list.

But I wasn’t aware of that, so I agonized. Didn’t want to get it wrong.

And while finishing up The Feud, I happened to drive up into the Colorado foothills, stop at a little place for lunch, got served by a Cassandra.

Could probably count on one hand the number of times in my life I’ve met anybody named Cassandra and this one had no idea, don’t recall mentioning it to her, that one of the potential books I was considering, one that could be next, involved twins then named Casey and Cassie.

Short for Cassandra.

Having met one half of the Baker twins I figured, in the silly way I have of doing math sometimes, that when I met the other half, when I ran across a Casey, that would be God telling me it was time to start A Pair Apart.

The Feud got finished. Got published. I might have taken a week or two off to enjoy the success but I was ready to get going.

And believe me, as soon as Andromeda’s story was anywhere near complete I started looking around. Made a point of going back up the hill to that specific little hole-in-the-wall…wasn’t served by a Casey. Started asking, every time I went out to eat, the server’s name. Guy or girl, would have been fine. No Casey.

I even, not making this up, debated which food court kiosk to go to when at a mall because what if my Casey was working at Chipotle and I went to Del Taco instead?

Got to the point where any Casey, no matter where I met them, would have done—honestly I’m not sure I’ve run into anybody by that name in ages. Like there was a really specific rapture; they seem to all be gone.

In the meantime, and don’t think I wasn’t foolishly desperate, about missing it, about what I was surely doing wrong that would result in total failure…….

Figured research on another book might be allowed, might not be disobeying God’s as-yet-unrevealed-plan and I knew by then that when I got around to Jessie’s Species there would be a falcon. Didn’t know falcons from  budgies so I bought T.H. White’s Goshawk, from the library I borrowed Helen McDonald’s Falcon and in reading that, noted that she had written another book on birds of prey, H is for Hawk.

Was planning on getting that one, too, and then one day in October or so I needed a new book to read. I have a shelf of books I’ve never read, picked up at thrift stores or yard sales because they look interesting, and at the time that shelf was groaning under double-stacks. I couldn’t even see the ones in the back so I moved a whole pile to see what lurked behind and what was waiting for me, completely forgotten about, but

H is for Hawk.

And thusly did William know exactly what book he was supposed to write next.

Wrote Jessie’s Species in 2020, wrote Symphony Alexandra in 2021, still didn’t run across a Casey despite having my radar up pretty much constantly, and either I figured God could stop me if I was wrong or I just got over it but wrote A Pair Apart that same year.

And, you may have been saying this all along, what was I thinking, twins named Casey and Cassie?

Exactly the sort of thing real-life parents do (Katherine and Kathryn is one real-life example—do they just call one and figure they get both everytime?) but what a hassle for a reader! I had people refuse to even start reading the book when the two names were that close, I realized in the editing process that even I the writer had gotten confused a few times…

…and so for various reasons I decided to change Casey (had already met Cassandra) to Abigail.

And immediately ran into an Abigail. In fact I started tripping over them, nearly. Church worship leader’s daughter. Old friend’s oldest daughter. My kid’s kindergarten teacher. Somebody took all the Caseys and switched them out for Abigails, apparently and occasionally I wonder if God teases me a little. When He knows I’ll get the joke.

Anyway.

Point of the long-winded story is that (a) I don’t agonize over the right project anymore and (b) to illustrate the difference between then and now.

Where there isn’t anything I want to work on and I can’t prove that I’ll ever write again.

Be astonished if I didn’t; this is what God put me here to do and I have zero reason to think we’re done.

But as I sit here I don’t have direction from Him or passion for anything specific.

All those tornado references – could be God is telling me something and being real subtle about it; also could be He’s teasing me again—if so I definitely get the joke.

And given how I’ve been and not all that long ago, I’m extremely very thankful that this was a good week. My wife has expressed surprise and pleasure that it wasn’t hard for me—if she was braced to deal with Mr. Cranky Writingpants I don’t blame her for a second; I was braced to deal with Mr. Cranky Writingpants.

But it was a good week. I didn’t have to fight to believe, which I was willing to do. For the most part I was just…at peace. Content.

Trusting. Delighted. Committed. Being still. Waiting patiently.

My Bible in a Year version is mid-Psalms at the moment; wonderful encouragement there today.

‘Yet I am always with You; You hold me by my right hand. You guide me with Your word, and afterward You take me into glory.’ – Psalm 73 ESV

‘Blessed are those whose strength is in You, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage’ ‘Blessed is the man who trusts in You.’ – Psalm 84 ESV

‘May the favor of the LORD our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes establish the work of our hands!’ – Psalm 90 ESV

I’ve been highlighting passages that speak to me; that last one was circled before I got there. Accompanied by a handwritten note from a time-traveler, speaking the faith he had available at the time.

‘4-28-2001 as I pray + believe for editing equipment + work’

The handwriting is mine; twenty-three years ago I was just hoping to afford a computer with an editing program and find somebody, anybody, who would pay me to produce anything on such.

On one hand it would be another six years before Ninja Boy Productions was really humming along

but on the other…God certainly answered that prayer.

‘Not to us, o LORD, not to us but to Your name be the glory, because of Your love and faithfulness.’ – Psalm 115

Don’t forget to write

Hocus Pocus by Focus

‘It wasn’t the fun, the novelty, the magic that mattered anymore. What mattered was that Little Bear should be happy. For that, he would take on almost anything.’ – ‘The Indian in the Cupboard’, Lynne Reid Banks

Mentioned ‘movie magic as a result of chancy budgets’ previously; this week I learned that the baby carriage scene in The Untouchables? (If you know, you know) That whole ending scene was supposed to be a big, runaway train kind of setpiece but…budget. And maybe folks would talk breathlessly to this day about the big, runaway train but say The Untouchables and see if you don’t hear “Oh, that baby carriage!”

Also the General Lee was supposed to be a Chevrolet Chevelle, but Dodge Chargers were cheaper…

Editing: almost three months after hanging out my shingle I’ve had one client—and thankful I was to hear, this very morning, from the writer that my input has been ‘invaluable.’ Especially considering how (unfortunately) little chance there is that the guy whose story is being told will make his money back in sales. I make certain to warn potential clients about this before taking anybody’s money but still – getting paid in circumstances where people hoping to then make a profit almost certainly won’t…doesn’t sit super well with me. I don’t feel I’m being dishonest but it just…doesn’t sit well.

Meanwhile the guy who prompted all this back in February, telling me (as I had asked God to have somebody do, if He wanted me to even start offering) “I’ll pay you if I have to”, found out last night that he lost his job, has no money for editing. I don’t desperately need his project or any other, we’re blessed, but for the record, uh, one client in three months and all the people who were ‘definitely going to hire me’ when initially pitched have, as of right now, fallen by the wayside.

I’m wrestling with that one—feeling simultaneously like I’m kinda failing and also glad to not take people’s money when I think they’re throwing it away. I’ll be glad when harvest comes and my own writing is paying off and Tiffany and I can talk about “remember when you were available to edit people?”

My writing: as of about thirty minutes ago Hawkstone is written up, twenty-seven words shy of 80K; after this blog post I’ll be taking the rest of Saturday off, Sunday off, and then…

Well.

A lot can happen in forty-eight hours so I don’t know what to think about Monday but if nothing changes, Monday morning I’m…

…not sure how to describe it. On sabbatical? On standby? On strike?

Not on strike. That implies I have waiting work I refuse to perform.

And I’d love to jump into the next thing. Busy Season doesn’t start for another month, two of three children still have four more weeks of school, I really don’t want to sit around watching old I Spy episodes.

But though Monday morning I could absolutely start writing Silent Skater the screenplay, or put together a scene list for The Kid the screenplay, comb online libraries for research information on fighter pilots or stuntmen or Olympic training or tornado chasing or indy bands or stand-up comics or building fighting robots, that’s seven different potential novel bases which do not in any way represent all the percolating ideas…

Right this second and like I say a lot can change in two days, well, God hasn’t directed me to a next thing

and for the first time in five years, I got the words back five years ago yesterday,

for the first time in five years after eight novels, three screenplays, two miniseries and 225 blog posts

there’s nothing, right this second, that I want to work on.

Sabbatical. Standby.

The last two novels I’ve largely jumped in, with God’s encouragement, not knowing how they’d end.

Right this second this feels like that, in a way—whereas I was ready with those books to face a blank page, trusting my writing partner to hand me the story as I needed it, looks like Monday I get to sit with life a Blank Page, at least where the Vision is concerned,

trusting my writing partner to craft my story as needed.

Maybe I’ll wake up on fire for something, morning of the 22^nd.

Maybe some time off will allow for fresh tread on worn tires.

Maybe this is all about a deeper trust in Him.

Maybe something really big, an unexpected and important project, is just around the corner which God can see and I cannot, and He knows I wouldn’t want to put down something lesser when it arrives.

I don’t know.

What I do know is that as and if I submit to this facet of the Waiting it’s up to me where I put my focus.

The pictures accompanying this post – apologies for the never-great picture-of-a-picture screenshots but they aren’t my pictures, so I’m posting in a (hopefully) Free Use kind of way to illustrate my point.

Nothing against that dragonfly up there at the top but right now, to say nothing of Monday morning, I could narrow my focus to five years and still no harvest or three months and one client or any number of little, annoying disappointments or setbacks or frustrations flitting about. They’re always flitting about.

Or I can take it upon myself to open my eyes further, see the forest around, bigger troubles like what if I’m doine writing again or if God doesn’t move this doesn’t happen or what if God never moves

Or…or I can lift mine eyes even higher, take in the full picture, for all I’m focusing at that point on things over which I have little to no control or authority, and remember just how good He is

And enjoy the view.

Somebody recently said author Kristen Hannah is worth reading. I don’t know what her writing is like but I do know, having looked her up on Amazon, that she’s not hurting for fans.

In a writing world where 99.999 percent of the books out there have zero reviews, getting 100 reviews is relatively rare and hard to accomplish, and 10,000 marks the folks you’ve heard of, the ones having novels optioned for movies, Kristen Hannah has hundreds of thousands of reviews. Without actually checking on, say, Grisham or Clancy or Crichton or King I’ve never seen books with that much approval.

And when I saw that I had a choice. There’s always, always, always a choice.

In this case I could see hundreds of thousands of reviews and, well, despair.

‘Look how well she’s doing. I don’t have one ten-thousandth the approval she’s got and this road seems endless and if God doesn’t move nothing is going to happen

Or I can look at the exact same information, the exact same picture, and think

‘WOW! Who says nobody reads anymore?’

In the natural there are circumstances I can magnify, elevate, give all my attention to and quite reasonably find depressing. Frustrating.

But God does not change, God is ever faithful, He’s promised and I am doing everything He’s asked me to do

and it’s my choice, it’s always my choice what gets my attention.

I mean, with apologies to Gertrude Stein, I’ve been depressed and I’ve been encouraged and encouraged is better. It’s not easier, not by a long shot, but definitely better.

Honestly, what point noticing the wind and the waves? Walking on water wouldn’t be any more possible, any more under my control and authority if the Sea of Galilee were perfectly calm.

So I might as well lift up mine eyes, for all it takes more effort, and keep them on Him

where they belong.

It’s not magic, Best Beloved, and it’s not the easy thing to do. It takes effort.

But I always have the choice.

He’s well pleased with me – that’s the only thing that really matters today

“I look to You, heaven-dwelling God, look up to you for help. Like servants, alert to their Master’s commands, like a maiden attending her lady, we’re watching and waiting, holding our breath…” – Psalm 123 – MSG

It’ll only be a moment…

Don’t forget to write

Action Verbs

‘Abruptly the teacher, who had been perched on a desk, stood up and went to a cupboard. Omri was not surprised to see a magnifying glass in her hand when she turned around.’ – ‘The Indian in the Cupboard’, Lynne Reid Banks

‘So that’s fun;’ this week ‘Hero’s Eyes’ dropped, an episode from season three of the Blind Play Podcast. A Blind Play (buzzsprout.com)

Just wanted to mention it because the actors involved in the recording are reading my words, performing characters I created and for the first time I got to experience what it’s like to release a creation to someone else who might see/hear it differently. The actor reading for my beloved falcon had a different vision than what I’ve always had in my head but also for the first time I got to hear other people reading my words and I’ve been waiting three decades for that.

It was marvelous. Link above has the ten-minute story plus the forty-or-so minutes we all spent talking about the story; both free for the listen if you’re into that sort of thing.

Often when I’m beta reading for someone, I’ll get on their case about passive voice. “They were walking” – “the mouse was chased by the cat” – “the safe was blown up by the robbers” – there’s a time and a place for all storytelling tools but the passive voice is almost always a drag on a story, an unnecessary handicap. They walked, the cat chased the mouse, they blew up the safe and so forth, brings the action to the forefront.

More on that in a minute.

Have heard it preached—and fully buy into, hard as it is in the moment sometimes—that we get to choose how we feel. What we focus on. When Scriptures, and there’s more than a few, talk about magnifying the Lord…it’s not just praise or worship though that certainly helps the process in my case, but determining that no matter what is going on in the natural, I’m going to focus on Yahweh. Make Him the important part and weirdly enough, the bigger I make Him (and have I ever comprehended one-thousandth part of the real? One millionth?) the smaller the problem gets by comparison.

Being incredibly faithful as He is, sometimes God even helps.

This morning I read a Psalm out of my Message-based collection, as I’m wont to do, and today it was Psalm 105.

And something tugged at me while I was reading. I’m always ready for anything God wants to tap me on the shoulder—or hit me between the eyes—with; always looking to be encouraged or strengthened or even rebuked. If it’s what He wants me to see I want to see it.

What struck me about Psalm 105, for perhaps the first time despite multiple readings over the past few years, were all the action verbs. The Psalm is about God’s faithfulness, specifically with the Israelites back in the land of Egypt. And for whatever reason, instead of seeing the whole picture, it was all those things God did that pointed themselves out to me. I bothered writing them down.

He rendered – He remembered – He made – He swore – He established – He permitted – He told – He called – He broke – He sent – He confirmed – He sent – He gave – He turned – He sent – He spoke – He turned – He made – He gave – He substituted – He stabbed – He wasted – He brought – He struck down – He led – He spread – He brought – He filled – He opened – He remembered – He led – He made them a gift – He helped them – He told them…

Yahweh did quite a bit, actually – and looking at it like that…I was blessed.

Because, I’m not ashamed to admit, when I manage to swing away from I must be getting it wrong somehow and ruining everything the pendulum tends to veer over into maybe God’s forgotten me territory. Maybe He’s not going to do anything to help me.

Given that these dreams, these enormous, ridiculous dreams require God’s help, if He doesn’t move I’m utterly without hope here…the fear which is never from Him that maybe He’s got better things to do with His time, that maybe I haven’t really been keeping up well enough to warrant His attention…

These thoughts can become burdensome.

They’re not from God; thanks to what Jesus did for me all the blessings in Deuteronomy 28 are mine by right of adopted sonship; I never have to earn them which is great because I can’t. The whole point of the law was to show us how high that bar is. Nobody but Jesus ever cleared it, I’m not going to be the first so if God would bless, say, David or Moses or Abraham or Peter or Joshua or Gideon…I can have faith that He will bless me.

Remember me.

As I read Psalm 105 this morning (writing this on Monday for all you won’t see it until Saturday, Best Beloved) just looking at that laundry list of action verbs blessed me. Comforted me. He’s a God of action and He’s promisedto act on my behalf. In time.

I’m not religious about it by any means—God forbid I’m religious about anything; it’s a dirty, nasty word—but most mornings in addition to the Message-based Psalm I also take a couple minutes to read, meditate on one chapter out of my English Standard Version.

As of last fall I’ve also started, usually do this around lunchtime, adding in whatever chapters comprise the daily reading in one of those Read Through The Word In A Year Bibles.

The one-chapter-a-day ESV Bible, on January 1^st I was in Exodus or Deuteronomy, somewhere in the Great Wildnerness Excursion with the Israelites while meanwhile the Bible In A Year started (you’ll never believe this) in Genesis 1.

Still, with the BIAY giving me several chapters every day, I knew the two would line up sooner or later, have been waiting for it as in the ESV I’ve been reading Samuel and the BIAY last week had done with Joshua.

They caught up last Saturday, with 2 Samuel chapter 2 in both, and…God showed me something.

Something I’m going to keep to myself for now, in that pondered these things in her heart kind of way, but for the record—it’s very cool and I’m excited.

Anyway. Given that BIAY was humming straight through the Old Testament to where ESV was moving more slowly, as it were, I knew they’d sync up as I’ve said.

What I did not anticipate was that my BIAY would match up with my Message Psalm.

My version of the Bible In A Year is also chronological, so with most of the Psalms being David-related, they’re coming up shortly, little over a week instead of waiting until after Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, etc.

All the same, most of them, like I say are a couple weeks away.

Except for a few where they stuck them right when they happened.

For example the Psalm David sang when the ark was returned to Jerusalem, chronicled in 2 Samuel 6.

Also known (I know this now) as Psalm 105.

Which they stuck in today’s BIAY reading.

No lie and most definitely no coincidence, the Holy Spirit wanted to make sure I got it so doubled down on those action verbs today.

Remembers, commanded, made, swore, confirmed, allowed, called, destroyed, sent, proved, made, turned, sent, turned, spoke, turned, struck, shattered, spoke, struck down, brought out, spread out, brought, satisfied, opened, remembered, brought out, gave…

Worth noting, I certainly have, that remembered is in there twice.

God is not passive. He’s not out there somewhere wringing His hands.

He is at work and anybody who would choose to give up, well, everything (no less than what He gave up for us, may we never forget) can join Him in the adventure. (see also Psalm 107, 111, etc)

“And now, O Lord God, confirm forever the word that You have spoken concerning Your servant and concerning his house, and do as You have spoken. And Your name will be magnified forever…” – 2 Samuel 25, 26a – ESV

Dreaming with our eyes wide open, Best Beloved

Don’t forget to write

This is Different

              ‘“For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place…”’ – Esther 4:14 ESV

photo courtesy Tom Sweeney 2023

              Friend of mine mentioned that passage in Esther yesterday, as regarding a challenge in his own life—and the Holy Spirit flicked me on the ear after about ten minutes when I hadn’t realized. “Think about that verse.”

Not that God has confirmed we’re moving on to Plan B, that my Hollywood Associate’s chance for obedience has elapsed…but if it has, while I grieve on his behalf for what could have been, I haven’t lost out. God will bring up something else, someone else, and His plan is still in effect.

Which was very comforting, especially after I had one of those 12:37AM realizations yesterday that I wouldn’t have asked for if I knew it was coming—though it was worth the couple hours’ lost sleep in the end.

              Because God’s faithfulness is always worth being up for.

              Was trying to get back to sleep after a certain almost-three-year-old insisted on coming into Mommy and Daddy’s room. For some reason as my brain defaulted back to the words and I considered how late April will mark five years since writing again, when I had thought I was done with this fiction stuff forever, an unwelcome thought struck.

              You did stand-up comedy for five years too.

              Really could have done without that one.

              Because that experiment didn’t end well.

              What started as something I was Just Gonna Do Once and blossomed into a full-blown ambition, a yearning to headline and get paid and maybe earn free cruise passage because I was one of the ship’s entertainers…fell to pieces in my hands. The pieces were sharp, too, saw-toothed with failure that left a few minor scars.

              Mid-2016, near eight years now, since I got up on stage to make people laugh save for annual command performances at a YMCA Campfire. And while I’ve learned to be careful saying never again, I missed writing when I didn’t think I’d do that anymore. Nearly eight years later the memory of those last few stage attempts, even getting back to the easy, coffee-shop-open-mic opportunities where I still couldn’t find the funny…

              Anyway. If the guy on-stage isn’t having fun neither is the audience, and it would take circumstances currently unavailable to get me back up anytime soon.

              But I don’t care. I don’t miss it – I’m writing now.

              Except.

              Late April of almost five years ago when God tricked me into starting up The Feud again, in all those intervening months I’ve been excited about the next project. Even as I finished one thing, I was already excited about the next. Whether novel or screenplay or collection of Sarcastic Fairy Tales.

              Until, uh, now.

              Had to admit to myself early this morning that I’ve been putting off typing up Hawkstone not just because I had screenplay punch-up to do, not just because I thought I would have an editing project to work on this week—but also because once the second book in the Chronicles of Wystfalia is in a format anybody-but-me can read…

              There isn’t anything else knocking on the door. Waiting in line. ‘Pick me! Pick me!’

              Not to say I don’t have potential projects. I wrote up a scene list for The Silent Skater the screenplay. I’ve made notes for several potential Next Novels. While I wait to see what my friend DH comes up with for his movie, he gave me another that I could tinker with.

              …but right this second I…don’t wanna.

              Right this second and several weeks from now when Hawkstone gets wrote up is a long time; a lot could change.

              But at 12:37AM when I realized my stand-up dreams fell over dead around the five year mark and that this is around the five year mark and wondered if I could burn out with this too, wondered if maybe that was why I’ve been dry-mouthed at the prospect of getting to the next turn and finding…nothing waiting…

              Really could have done without that one at 12:37AM.

              But God is faithful and sometimes I’m not an idiot.

              I didn’t allow that feeling to take me, nor did I start fighting it in the confines of my oft-feeble mind.

              I said, like immediately, ‘God—help. Please.’

              The simple prayers are often the most effective.

              Because God did help. Like immediately.

              He didn’t say anything, not even in my Spirit. He didn’t have to.

              He just showed me three ways in which this situation is different, completely different, than that one.

              For one thing—me doing stand-up was my idea. It wasn’t wrong, it wasn’t evil, but it also wasn’t something I ran past God. Would you mind if… because that first time was going to be the only time. And then that first time was such fun I figured why not go again, and again, and before I knew it I’d had opportunities that I probably shouldn’t have, moved too far too fast, next time I turned around I had produced three different comedy shows, was headlining my own performance doing an hour of stand-up with a little over three years’ casual experience…

              Ambition is great; big dreams are great.

              But there’s a significant difference between doing something because it’s good and doing something because it’s God. And my designs on a stand-up career were the former. It wasn’t evil, I prayed for blessing and God blessed the work of my hands but it was always my thing.

It wasn’t ever God’s thing.

              Whereas the words – and this is the second thing He gently reminded me of – are anointed.

              I don’t know what He’s going to do with all this but I do know, I’m saying I know that I know that I know that God and I are working on something together here, it’s what He has called me to do, more than that it’s what He put me here to do and He has anointed the work of my hands on this one.

              This very blog you’re reading which is the 218^th episode, it was His idea.

              Going to bed on a Tuesday roughly eighteen months ago, if you’d said “So, screenplays?” that evening I likely would’ve replied “Oh, maybe someday, been ages since I even tried” and then I woke up Wednesday morning burning to turn The Feud into a screen story…that was Him.

              And lately, you might remember me mentioning it, when I have wanted to write a novel, where I had The Feud (2019) and Jessie’s Species (2020) and Symphony Alexandra (2021) mapped out within an inch of their lives…I only had a third of the scenes in A Pair Apart (2021) when I started, trusting that God would give me the second act. Had only a list of the races Tori was likely to attend in Victory Lane (2023).

              Last fall I started Hawkstone and knew virtually nothing. Would admit to being a little terrified but God urged me to trust Him and He proved Himself faithful.

              Which is another thing. The third thing the Holy Spirit gently rolled past me as I hugged a pillow to my chest at 12:37AM.

              Stand-up…I was trying so hard to make things happen. Didn’t know where to find open mics so I produced my own shows. Like the one two other comics and I paid the Lakewood Cultural Center to put on, October of 2015. I made sure to get the whole thing videotaped with plans to put together a DVD, send it out to conference centers. Churches. Look, clean comedy. Hire me.

              And I probably would have, and it very likely would have been disastrous because unbeknownst to me, I was about to lose the funny. Burn out. Push too hard and break through into No Man’s Land and praise God I only bombed in five-minute open-mic chunks and not for an hour in front of a paying audience.

              Why did I not make/send out a DVD? My voice broke at the end of the opening number. Had not happened any of the dozens of practice hours, hasn’t happened since, but that one mistake, especially so early on…wasn’t going to turn that into a Watch-Me Special. Had to get it right before anybody considered hiring me as a stand-up.

              Before I could I figured out I wasn’t doing stand-up anymore.

              Anyway – from Just One Time to Overwhelming Ambition happened pretty quickly and it was all me kicking doors open, forcing reality, taking advantage of opportunities…without ever checking to see if God wanted me to say yes. It’s a great chance, why wouldn’t He want me to say yes?

              This is different.

              In addition to being God’s idea, and anointed, this whole writing thing is in His hands. Has been for more than five years now – from the humble beginning, Maybe somehow my self-published stuff could bless people since, you know, I don’t write anymore to eight novels, six screen projects, two stories picked up by a national podcast (Watch This Space, Best Beloved) and the chance to punch-up a screenplay for an old friend.

              Plus this. Blog blog blog.

              Had an hour with a friend this week, guy who loves God, has his own writing ambitions and he expressed some surprise when I said The Story So Far is presented solely in blog form. “You don’t create videos? Why not?”

              The answer is so simple it eluded me in the moment, had to text him later. There’s two reasons.

              Because (a) I don’t want to and (b) God hasn’t told me to.

              He said ‘write a blog’; He has not, to date, said anything about presenting it on video and honestly—I don’t have the slightest desire to do so. (And my friend may find when he gets out there that just because anybody can create a YouTube channel doesn’t mean there’s all kinda people clamoring to watch it)

              If God wants me to turn this into a vlog, He’ll tell me.

              But that’s one of many benefits to doing this His way.

              If I have a strong writing-related desire, see earlier when I spoke on waking up with screenplay burn, I don’t have to check that God’s cool with it. He already told me the work is anointed; I just follow the passion. Should I wake up tomorrow burning to find an agent, that God and I would sit down, have a conversation about, because He’s previously told me not to take that on—and I would need to confirm that it’s okay now.

But if it’s writing and I want to…He’s already told me to write. I’m free to run and play.

And similarly if there’s something everybody else is doing that I have no interest in, like regular self-promotion or author websites or selling my firstborn child for a chance to get my name out there…you think it’s a good idea, talk to my partner. He’s calling the shots and anything He says do I do.

              But otherwise I couldn’t care less. I really could not.

              And I don’t have to, is the fun part.

              I spent an hour this morning mulling all this over, writing a blog post in my head—but basically all of the above slid past my heart in about three minutes.

              This is different, my spirit understood. All three reasons why. They were right there.

              But since we were talking anyway, God opened up another quiet leaf for me to consider.

              As I said when it was time to write Hawkstone, He gently challenged me to trust Him for the story, let Him tell it to me in the moment. As far as this ship out on the open ocean, I don’t have a hand on the tiller. The sails are open for whatever wind He would send, whatever direction He would take me, and if He directs—well. When God says jump I say “How far?”

              And since I’ve already trusted Him to give me the last novel’s plot, and every day I’m trusting Him to tell me if there’s something I’m supposed to be doing, for crying out loud…

              …in this uncomfortable season where I don’t know what’s next, where I’ve been putting off the last thing on my To-Do List for fear that once it’s crossed off there, well, won’t be another thing…

              He’s challenging me to trust Him there as well.

              If I get to the end of Hawkstone the second draft, look around and I don’t want to write anything that day.

              Or the next.

              Through April, May and June, maybe.

              To trust that the next story will be there when the time comes.

              That it really truly is Different

              this time.

              The header picture up there. It could be a sunrise or a sunset. I didn’t take it and I don’t know.

              But that’s the thing.

              I’m moving in the direction God has called me to go and I don’t have to know

to enjoy the beautiful view.

              Everything I set my hand to prospers, Best Beloved.

Don’t forget to write

Button Down

              “Be glad, Zion Mountain; Dance, Judah’s daughters! He does what He said He’d do!” – Psalm 48 MSG

photo credit Tom Sweeney C2020

              Trivia time; don’t Google it unless you’re a lousy rotten cheater…which stand-up comic’s album was the very first to ever hit #1 on Billboard’s Top 100 list?

              Adam Sandler? Eddie Murphy? Steve Martin?

              It happened in 1960 if that’s a clue.

              No, not Cosby or Carlin. Not Steve or Woody Allen.

              I’ll let you think about it; we’ll come back.

              “He set us at the head of the line, prize-winning Jacob, His favorite.” – Psalm 47 MSG

              Mentioned a couple weeks back that God gave me the green light to hang out my Edit-for-Hire shingle. Have officially done so (if you know anybody) and feedback has been quite positive. Several people have lined up for my help as soon as they gather the funds or finish the manuscript or what-have-you. Several others in addition to saying I will be contacting you when I have need have also, of their own volition, spread the word to writers they know.

              Which is validation of the idea for certain.

              Thing is, and as I’ve said many, many times the way I feel about things doesn’t necessarily reflect reality in either the natural or the Real (read: God-oriented) world…

              While I am glad response has been positive and look forward to charging people money to suggest ways to make their writing better—noticed, specifically as I walked hand-in-hand with my almost-three-year-old toward library storytime on Tuesday, a certain feeling.

              Rather an overwhelming one. Had to work during said storytime to focus on singing along and paying attention and engaging rather than being swallowed by the feeling

              that this new venture, this Editing thing, is…

              my Participation trophy.

              My consolation prize.

              My copy of the Home Game.

              “Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, Yahweh of the angel armies protects us.” – Psalm 46 MSG

              Don’t know that this is a thing anymore, especially as game shows seem to appear and disappear like soap bubbles nowadays but last century those that lost on Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune or Family Feud were consoled in their loss with a free edition of the game they were just humiliated by losing on national television.

              Random thought as I struggled to sleep at 2A.M. this morning—did any runner-up ever take pleasure in playing that home version? Being reminded of their loss?

              Kind of a backhanded gift, now that I think about it. Wouldn’t surprise me if 20^th century game show producers had a Production Assistant shadow the contestants when they left, to retrieve the immediately-tossed-in-the-garbage Home Versions to hand to the next losers.

              Anyway.

              This feels, and believe me I am regularly reminding myself that the way I feel does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Almighty God—like my, well, safety school.

              ”It’s not the job I wanted, but beats flipping burgers for a living.”

              I’d far rather edit for folks than flip burgers—pay’s better, don’t have to put pants on if I don’t want much less wear a nametag plus I would do any job to provide for my family but right this second

              it feels

              like it’s over.

              Wrote up Victory Lane the screenplay last week. Could, very well might if I don’t have an editing client to take care of next week, start typing up Hawkstone, volume two in The Chronicles of Wystfalia.

              Despite the feeling, assuming I feel Monday morning the way I do right now, that it’s kind of a pointless exercise.

              Looking back, setting aside last week when I celebrated my wife and our tenth anniversary, every blog post so far this year has mentioned this feeling.

              The road is…really stretching out right now. Appears endless.

              “I’ll make you famous for generations; you’ll be the talk of the town for a long, long time” – Psalm 45 MSG

              Cross-country trip back in 2012, astride my newly acquired used Harley to visit Mom and Dad, I took Highway 50 across Nevada. Called The Loneliest Road in America for good reason; two lanes, six-inch-wide shoulder, at one point long after I’d left I-70 behind I decided “Hey, next time I can I’m gonna pull over. Need a break from riding.”

              Was ready at any moment to stop and yet an hour, no exaggeration, a full hour at 65 MPH passed before an abandoned gas station appeared and I could get off the road.

              This winter feels like that. The road

just

keeps

going

              and I’m so tired.

              I’m so tired.

              “We didn’t fight for this land; we didn’t work for it—it was a gift! You gave it, smiling as You gave it, delighting as You gave it.” – Psalm 44 MSG

              God encouraged me on the Christmas roadtrip to meditate on the blessings in Deuteronomy 28, start speaking them over myself, that discipline has helped lately. A lot.

              Not in terms of feeling better but I believe I can say that despite acknowledging how I continue to feel I haven’t spoken any disbelief. I’m speaking His words, His truth, although I can say that sometimes saying that everything I set my hand to prospers feels as ridiculous as saying “two plus two equals Lon Chaney Jr.”

              Feels like nonsense.

              But the way I feel, much as I’m struggling to slough it off at the moment, does not reflect even the natural world to say nothing of the Real.

              And He promised.

              He promised.

              And it’s not like there are no stories of people succeeding, writers succeeding despite the odds. Despite effort on their part or indeed a lack thereof.

              The Smothers Brothers were this close to calling it, going to college, becoming teachers or something before they got a gig in Aspen they spent all the dough they had to show up for. One that put them on the map.

If Red October hadn’t happened to end up in President Reagan’s hands, through (far as I know) no effort or design on Tom Clancy’s part, nobody’d ever have heard of Jack Ryan.

Fresh Prince of Bel-Air would have been off the bel-air after a couple episodes, rather than running for six seasons, if the NBC president’s daughter hadn’t begged him not to cancel her favorite show.

Best Original Screenplay Oscar winner William Goldman couldn’t get the college paper he was one of three editors for to accept his stuff.

Joss Whedon turned (basically) failed movie Buffy the Vampire Slayer into a successful seven-series television show and then failed television show Firefly (sob) into a successful movie; two things that never happen.

Stephen King’s wife fished Carrie out of a trash can, convinced her husband to get out there one more time.

Theodore Geisel was contemplating pitching Mulberry Street into the fireplace when he just happened to get a visit from a friend who just happened to have a publishing company looking for children’s books.

              “Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul? Why are you crying the blues? Fix my eyes on God—soon I’ll be praising again. He puts a smile on my face. He’s my God.” – Psalm 43 MSG

              And, speaking of the Smothers Brothers, recently read David Bianculli’s excellent Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and heard about another accidental success.

              Bob Newhart, you might remember him from The Big Bang Theory or Elf or, well, The Bob Newhart Show, in 1960 he was a thirty-year-old accountant who could make his family, his coworkers laugh their socks off, and recorded his routines “for the fun of it”. No indication, according to legend, that he had any aspirations beyond local guffaws.

              “…the tape eventually made its way to a Chicago disk jockey, who forwarded it to a record executive from Warner Bros. The label offered Newhart a contract and agreed to pay to have his next nightclub appearance recorded for the album. The only thing was, Newhart had no nightclub appearance booked.”

              He’d never officially performed anywhere. Had no plans to officially perform anywhere.

              “So they found a club with an open date, two weeks later in Houston, and Newhart stepped out as a professional stand-up comic for the first time.”

              They called the resulting album The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, released it in May of 1960 and it became the first comedy album in history to hit number one.

              The second album in history to do so?

              The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back! – released in September of that same year. (Pre-dating Star Wars Episode Vby twenty years, he mentioned in passing) The two albums were Number One and Number Two for a brief, shining moment.

              An accountant makes a recording for the fun of it having, near as I can find, no expectation that he was creating a six decade career.

              Couldn’t tell you what Bob Newhart believes in. Whether that accidental success had God’s hand in it or if he was just lucky

              but I do know that I don’t need luck.

              God knows what He’s doing and maybe this road doesn’t look like what I had in mind but I’m right where He wants me regardless of how I feel just now.

              Which is the right place to be.

              “Why are you down in the dumps, dear soul? Why are you crying the blues? Fix my eyes on God—soon I’ll be praising again. He puts a smile on my face. He’s my God.” – Psalm 42 MSG

              Everything I set my hand to prospers, Best Beloved.

Don’t forget to write

Just So Story

‘He grabbed the hat off his head. “Um, I figure five days is long enough, I can learn the lines.”

“You’re serious.”

“Completely.”

“We find you a wig, shove you in Sharon’s costume and you play Juliet’s Nurse. In front of the whole school and based on ticket sales, half the community.”

“Yes.”

She twisted in her seat to look at him. “You’d do that for Shakespeare?”

“No. But I’ll do it for you.”’ – The Feud

It’s dance recital season and last night I had the honor of filming at the prestigious Arts Center in the picture – as I was driving up, I noted (I often do) the humble Rec Center across the street. I filmed there once, maybe twenty years ago. Was just the one time and I couldn’t tell you the company name for love nor money; don’t even remember what style of dance it was. (Irish? Ballet?)

But I do remember turning right to park at the Rec Center, getting out of the car, looking across the street and thinking ‘I wish I could film over there.’

As I recorded last night I imagined going back in time twenty years and walking up to myself, in the back of that Rec Center with a borrowed Canon Gl-1. “Hey, 2002 me. I’m 2022 you. First and foremost, yes, you will get married. Three kids and everything. You really need to chill out about that.”

Then I could go on to say “And you are going to film across the street. It’s not going to be all that soon but God’s totally got this and by now you film all the dance and summer kids’ theatre productions and have for years.”

I had no idea. But He knew.

Mentioned last week that I’ve been asked to teach in essay-type format how I create characters, which is apparently something I do well. Have written about fourteen thousand words on that subject this week (roughly the word count for the first full story I crafted back in ninth grade, none of whose characters are memorable) and one thing I did was compare 1997’s The Feud to 2019’s The Feud.

Only meant to read the first ten pages or so of Andy’s story, but after I had compared the two I couldn’t stop mid-chapter, so read all of Chapter Two. Then Chapter Three. (Whilst changing diapers and disputing arguments and feeding the constantly hungry blessings, as per usual)

Four hours later I was well over a hundred pages in by the time Tiff got home from work. Yesterday after a beta-reading project and more Character Creation essay I dived back in, getting within five chapters of the end before I had to go film. I’m frankly trying to get this done so I can go finish before I leave for work today. (Dance recital season, baby!)

The story is so good. It’s so good.

All (five, now) of the books since I picked this stuff back up again are really good, so much better than what I was coming up with in my twenties. And I think I’ve figured out why.

Initially I thought, after The Feud and then Jessie’s Species and Symphony Alexandra just… flowed out of me like nothing I’d ever experienced before, initially I thought that God had done something supernatural, a miracle, and given me ten years of practice and experience that I didn’t have. As though I hadn’t quit the game in my thirties.

I don’t think that’s it.

Pretty sure, and I’m not about to test this to find out so we’ll have to assume, that I’m not any better than I was in 2008. Which wasn’t bad; good enough to get agent attention at a conference and a brief contract offer from a tiny but nonetheless real New York publisher.

But an order of magnitude less than the level that’s coming out of me now.

‘Yeesh, Will, we get it. You’re God’s gift to novel writing.’

That’s the thing. The books are that good.

I don’t think I am.

I firmly believe, worth saying again, that if I told God to leave me be, let me try writing something without Him, that I would still be working at that 2008 level.

The reason why it’s been so good, and so easy, (last month with Victory Lane I think I hit an average of eight, maybe nine pages in my six-page-per-day goal because I was just having too much fun to stop, I’ve experienced that occasionally in the past but this was day after day after day, for the fifth time!) is because God is doing most of the work.

I wish (irony warning; brace yourself) I had the words to describe this properly—I recently read Charles Swindoll’s biography of Joseph and in the Afterword he talked about how the writing hours flew by, how he put something on the page that made himself laugh (that he didn’t know was coming), how often during the process it felt like he was writing down ideas, sentences not from his own imagination but what was being given him.

That’s what writing has been like for me these past three years. One time, one time that I can recall between age ten and age thirty, in the twenty years that I pounded out short story collections and novelettes and novels and screenplays—nearly one million words of chained-together-prose—there was one time that I went into a scene and the characters told me something I didn’t know.

Last three years? It happens every time I sit down. Almost every page. It’s not like I’m crafting the story so much as taking dictation. Somebody Else is doing most of the work.

It’s God’s gift all right, but it’s not me.

I just get to be the first one to read what He’s coming up with.

Can you blame me for drumming my fingers, as it were, throughout June and the dance recital filming, because I’m so excited to type up Victory Lane? I’ve only read it the one time and I know there’s stuff I didn’t get on the first go-round.

And while I thought last night about popping back to 2002 and reassuring my twenty-three-year-old self that good things are coming, maybe me from six weeks or nine months or five years from now could have done the same thing. “Hey, 2022 you. I’m 2027 you. Family’s great and so is the writing career. You can chill out about that.”

It’s not just my stories He’s better at writing than I ever could be.

‘”Yahweh is great—everything works together for good for his servant.”’ – Psalm 35, MSG

God would love to help write your story too.

He never forces His way in; He has to be invited.

But it’s where real Adventure is, Best Beloved.

Don’t forget to write…

Another Step

“The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.” Psalms 19:7b

             

              Wrote last week’s blog on Friday, and then during twenty stolen minutes before a filming engagement Saturday officially kicked off Victory Lane with two full spiral notebook pages. Had planned on taking Sunday off and did, all the while itching to get back into the story Monday morning.

              Except before I could get there I did something stupid.

              If a person is going to express an opinion on social media that person, let’s face it, better expect to be disagreed with, decried, denied, lectured, etc. The School Hallway of our modern world, it’s a place for quick thoughts and even quicker opinions, not one for deep discourse. To be all that heard.

              I forgot this fact Sunday evening, and expressed an opinion. The stupidity is mine and the fault mine; to switch metaphors, anybody running across the highway at 2PM is likely to be mowed down. The nature of the game.

              Super annoying part is how after the responses to my post rolled in, being blindsided by the feeling that my words, my opinions were unimportant in the greater scheme of things spiraled me into a day-long funk. The gloomy skies didn’t help, but—I said something on Facebook, was roundly informed how wrong I was, and thusly did I waste a day feeling depressed because I didn’t matter.

              Ridiculous.

              The 2PM I-25 Frogger player can’t fault the driver that knocks him silly. Nobody but me is responsible for my feelings and if being heard is that important to me, I need to stop talking in a place where nobody listens.

              Anyway.

              As my loving and patient wife reminded me yesterday while she tried to encourage me in my foolishness, it’s not how we fall down, it’s how we get back up. In the midst of that school hallway experience I tried not to reply to the responders with passive-aggressivity. I tried not to make my feelings their fault. I managed (barely) not to quote to one lecturer that bit from St. Francis about how it’s better to understand than be understood.

              And when I’d had some sleep and asked the Holy Spirit to gig me if I’d messed up more than I realized in my reactions, God graciously revealed that in my desperate hope to be heard, I had completely failed to listen.

              Better to understand than be understood?

              Nuts.

              So at 4:30AM in the morning, knowing I wouldn’t sleep again until I attempted to fix it, I went back to that pointless school hallway conversation and endeavored to show the responders that I (finally) cared about what they had to say. I went to people’s Facebook pages directly to try and encourage them, show them their words matter to me.

              In Matthew 5, His well-known Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about the way folks who follow Him are supposed to respond when we feel aggrieved. Even when we actually have something to complain about.

              “‘You have heard that it was said, “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.” But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.’” Matthew 5:38-41

              “I’m going to sue the shirt off your back.”

              “Cool; you look cold, can I also give you my coat?”

              At the time in which Jesus said these words, any Roman soldier could, by law, force an Israelite or any foreigner to carry his pack for a full mile. Jesus commanded that once the mile was up, His followers offer a second mile out of the goodness of their hearts. He’s not saying “Listen, this would be really nice of you.” No, He says “Do this.”

              I’m not great at it.

              “He cut me off and then brake-checked me, now I’m supposed to leave enough room so he can merge in front of me again?”

              “She claimed my idea was hers and got promoted over me; now I’m expected to hand over the next idea I come up with? So my work can get her further up her stupid ladder?”

              “I spent two weeks trying to memorize his endless script and we finally filmed the stupid video and he stiffed me the $500 he promised and now I’m supposed to volunteer to work next time for free?”

              …yes.

              I don’t like it either.

              But those of us who are trying to follow Him are commanded to do this.

              And I will say that in so doing, by taking action that could be considered certifiable, (“You figured out I cheated you and now you’re giving me even more? What’s wrong with you?”) we offer a solid, concrete example of where our security and trust really lie.

              While I was trying not to feel depressed Monday after my truly terribly horrible experience, reminding myself that Scripture says Rejoice in the Lord always, and In everything give thanks and that Jesus himself, scant hours before he went to the cross, told the disciples and all who would follow them “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” making plain that I really must have control over how I feel, regardless of how impossible that might seem…

              I tried not to be really angry with myself. About feeling that terrible over something that unimportant. A couple people didn’t listen to me. Who cares? God always listens, no matter how dumb my thoughts. If it matters to me it matters to Him, always. Who gives a rip what man thinks?

              Why do man’s opinions carry so much dadblasted weight with me? Why am I still so childish and fragile that being dismissed/lectured over a stupid Facebook post can throw me to the four winds?

              How am I going to react when I face actual persecution?

              But it’s not how we fall, it’s how we get up.

              As one minister is fond of saying, “I haven’t arrived, but I’ve left.”

              I failed.

              But I’m trying.

              Far as going that extra mile…I took one step, in my terrible horrible no-good very bad social media experience. Did what I could to offer hearing where I felt unheard.

              A medal? For me? Please, no…you really shouldn’t. It was nothing, really.

              Only what I’m supposed to be doing every time.

              Journey of a thousand miles and all.

              Don’t forget to write…