Writer’s Block and Tested Hearts

Sitting down to write this post has been extremely challenging for me. I have sat down time after time to begin writing it or to finish writing it yet somehow the words just wouldn’t come together. As crazy as it sounds, it has been truly impossible for me to put my thoughts down on the page. This task that I have enjoyed doing time and time again has been so daunting. I asked a friend to pray for me as I was working on the blog post, and she has been sweet enough to pray for me and to continue to follow up with me. Yet a week later I am still overwhelmed at the thought of even trying to put something together. I began to ask the Lord, “Why am I still struggling?”

Each morning as I work through the In the Garden study and I come to the “Confession” section, this verse jumps out at me on the page.

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting! (Psa. 139:23-24)

The issue is, I often don’t want to ask the Lord to search my heart. It can get pretty messy in there. When I get to the second verse my flesh tenses up a little more. “Try me and know and my thoughts.” For me to truly ask the Lord to try me means that I have to be ready for Him to actually send trials my way. And I have walked through the Lord’s trials before, and they aren’t always fun. To be honest, I really would rather not ask the Lord to know my thoughts.

The Lord has been revealing to me that my thought life is not pleasing and honoring to Him. I have somehow convinced myself that if I am not sinning on the outside or if I don’t say my thoughts out loud then it isn’t really that big of a deal. No one knows about it anyway, right?

As I got to the confession portion of the study this morning, the Lord continued to want to show me the reason I’ve been struggling to put this post together.
It is because of my pride. As I would attempt to write I kept thinking about how I wanted it to make sense so that others would read it and think it was a really well written post. My pride wanted others to read my post and think it was great. My pride wanted the words I wrote down to sound perfect and flow together. Yet the Lord taught me this morning that none of that matters because this is all for His glory alone. It really has nothing to do with me, and if I trust Him as I share my thoughts that He has given me, that is all that matters. I don’t always have the words to put together a great post but thankfully our great God is the provider and lovingly helps His children when they are weak.

James 5:16 says, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

So I confess right now that my pride has gotten in the way of allowing me to fully trust the Lord as I tried to put these words on the page.

I am praying that the Lord would give us all much grace to be honest as we ask Him to search our hearts and know our thoughts. It isn’t always fun and it can get messy, but the eternal blessing of letting God bring the truth to light is far greater than remaining in ignorance of our own hearts.

Standing on the Word