I don’t have to scroll very far on any social media platform before I run across a fellow Christian writer who is talking about how God told them to delay publishing their book or how writing their current manuscript was written in obedience to God.
I recently saw a Christian author who debuted before becoming a mother say that “God called me to stop writing fiction.”
She explained that God convicted her to stop writing fiction because fiction was unhealthy spiritually and that she would be closing her author socials and stepping away forever to focus on raising her child, but didn’t want to judge or shame anyone who continued reading or writing fiction. Less than a year prior she had posted that: “God called me to be an author.”
I don’t think I’m venturing too far out on a limb to say that: God doesn’t call you to be a writer on January 1st, and then call you to give it up on December 31st.
A “Calling” is a life-long purpose, and it remains even when it feels like you’re not fulfilling that calling. We can’t waffle between “God called me,” and “God un-called me to call me to something else.” Not every little thing you’re led to take up or try is a calling. Sometimes it’s a season of preparation, or stepping stone for growth and discovery. God takes us through seasons to equip us. Moses’s forty years in the wilderness were his training and preparation for leading the children of Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness for forty years. Can you imagine Moses telling everyone, “God called me to shepherd my father in law’s sheep!” about a year before he comes back from seeing the burning bush and having to tell the family, “God’s calling me to Egypt to take my people back to our homeland.” Moses was God’s chosen deliverer from birth, and that never changed. Moses went through different seasons that shaped and prepared him to fulfilling that calling. And when his purpose was fulfilled, God took him home.
I asked myself why this young mother couldn’t admit that raising a child is a very demanding life season and that she needed to step back from being an author to focus. Many other authors simply talk about how hard it is to write while raising multiple children. She could have said she was taking a few years hiatus and hoped to pick it up again when her children had more independence. Assuming that God did convict her to not write fiction, it was probably too difficult for her to admit that God had never called her to write in the first place. Maybe God had called her to be a mother, and publishing a novel was part of the preparation. But when you spiritualize everything, admitting that you undertook the writing of a book outside of “God’s Will” would be very humbling to do.
I wondered why she felt the need to unpublish her book and couldn’t just be happy to have published. Despite it being squeaky clean, she admitted in her “God is calling me to leave this” post that her book didn’t hit the spiritual mark that supposedly pleases God. Never mind that our most righteous works are as filthy rags before Him. But if she believed that God called her in the first place, and that He was simply calling her away from writing to something else, whether permanently or for a season, the book should have remained published.
A couple of years ago, I spent a few weeks searching for answers about artists having spiritual gifts and trying to figure out why so many Christian artists struggle to find an audience or support with the church. And I wonder if many of us are falling into hyper-spiritualizing our craft because we crave acceptance from the Body of Christ. We crave a purpose and a way to contribute spiritually through our art.
In my own artistic journey, I’ve craved validation from the church and Christian community, but after much rejection and criticism of my work as not “Christian enough,” have turned to writing and producing art for the secular market. The first of that fruit is my “Birthright of Scars” duology, a revolutionary dystopian story about a masked rebel fighting to save his people from state oppression and falling in love with his bounty hunter, a slave-soldier torn between conviction and duty.
Writing for the General Market doesn’t mean that my work sucks up to anti-Christian worldviews. It simply doesn’t preach to the choir the way Christian audiences like any work of art wearing a Christian label to do.
Pulling the God Card
I know that this is an awkward space for any Christian creative to work in. There’s little approval from the Church toward creatives who choose to market widely, and even for authors writing explicitly for the Christian community there is a lot of judgement, condemnation, and criticism.
So I can see how the need to feel called and anointed, the over-spiritualization of a work of fiction or the sacredization of the novelist’s office may be a form of self-protection and validation for many creators. It’s a way to say, “God told me to do this, so you can’t question it.” We’re pulling the God-card on our critics.
Pulling the God-card grants the God-card holder a bit of spiritual authority and even superiority. And one of the dangers is that they may turn to judging others they deem not-called. “God would never call someone to write that.” or “Their content doesn’t reflect what I think a God-called writer would write, so they’re (insert judgement here.)”
Over-spiritualizing your work has the potential to blind the artist when they begin to decide what pleases and displeases God, without realizing that God might’ve “called” one person to write chaste and encouraging stories full of light and hope, while asking another author to serve him by handling heavier themes and darker life situations that will reach people who have lived similar experiences.
I want to encourage any young Christian artist reading this by saying that: artistic-ness is a gift and a calling. It is a craftsmanship gift (Exodus 31:1-5) and in some artists, may be coupled with discernment, wisdom, faith, knowledge, or prophecy. You may be called to edify the Church. Or you may be called, not to make shoes with little crosses on them, but to make the best shoes. (Paraphrasing C S Lewis.)
Your art can be simply beautiful and still glorify God. It doesn’t need to be deep and prophetic. It only needs to be your very best, done to the Glory of God and it needs to add value in some way to someone’s life. The culinary arts nourish the body in such a way that someone with a gift of hospitality can serve the hungry and the sick. A pretty picture can nourish the mind and renew the spirit.
And if your calling is to write books, that doesn’t bar you from baking and decorating cakes for the nearby nursing home’s monthly birthday party. Just like, if your calling is to serve in charity work or raise your children, it doesn’t bar you from writing and publishing a book for fun. Many times, those with gifts and callings live and serve in ways beyond the scope of their calling. It’s okay if writing is one of your favorite ways to share pieces of yourself and who God is with others. You don’t need to be called upon to share your testimony. You don’t need to be called to share the story on your heart with an audience.
Writing and publishing a book doesn’t require you to have an ordained ministry. When we over-spiritualize our craft, we risk discouraging younger writers who will undoubtedly wonder why they haven’t experienced the same Thunderclap-From-Heaven calling or “laying on of hands” from other artists. We risk others noticing when our “calling” gets interrupted by motherhood, a job change, or God Himself giving us a burning bush moment and sending us back to Egypt.
Who can argue with, “God told me to write this book?” Or, “I had to write this book to be obedient to God.” Can you imagine a five year old handing you her crayon drawing and saying, “This was SO difficult to draw, but I had to be obedient to God.” Or, “My red crayon broke and smudged the picture, and all along it was God telling me to throw this drawing away. It just wasn’t good perfect enough for Him to let me publish it.”
Childlike faith isn’t like that. It’s us handing God our scrappy little drawing or novel, knowing it’s the best we can do at this moment, and saying, “I love you God, and I hope you like it!” And trusting Him as we grab the next blank sheet of paper and create again and again and again.
I won’t act like writing a novel is a completely mundane, carnal, self-indulgent effort. I’ve always likened the artistic flow to prayer and communion. Sometimes it does feel so Divinely collaborative and sacred. But the line between the sacred and the mundane is one you choose to draw, if at all. Like the act of copulation, the day to day of motherhood, pregnancy, giving birth. For some, it is nothing but mundane. For others, it is nothing short of sacred. But in truth, these acts are not mutually exclusive. And when we over-spiritualize our craft as writers, we ignore the mundane and create an idol. The other extreme, treating art like a self-indulgent fleshly pursuit, takes all of God out of human creativity. There is a balance.
Sometimes, making art is a struggle, just like prayer can be a struggle before there is breakthrough and it feels holy. Sometimes, making art is like Jacob wrestling with God more than it feels like an anointing and tongues of fire. Sometimes, it’s making tents with Paul and building roadside lavatories with Jesus more than it is preaching to crowds on Mars Hill or making blind eyes see.
Humanity’s first calling was to multiply and replenish the earth. To tend to the garden. Our next calling was to fulfill all 10 commandments by loving our neighbor as ourselves, by becoming the lowliest and meekest servant. Our third calling was to preach the Gospel to every creature by living the Life of Christ before others. And somewhere in-between the second and third calling, Jesus called us to take up our cross and follow him.
Your work in the art studio or writer’s cave is an echo of these callings. And we tend to spiritualize our author platforms and works of fiction for the glamorous allure of social media influence. For OUR voice to be heard. For OUR story to be the one that gets purchased and read next.
You don’t need God to call you to grab a sketch book, sit down, and draw. You don’t need God to call you to write a book that you feel like writing. It’s okay to play in the sandbox! And build sand castles at the beach! And decorate a cake for all your friends’ birthday parties because you love doing it.
It’s okay to share your artistic work, and make money from it on the side. It’s okay to do it seriously and full-time! If God is calling you to do it, you will see success in one way or another. And if He isn’t, you’ll still have so much fun handing God your scribbly crayon mess and watching His face light up at what you’ve made. You didn’t need your parents to give you a “calling” before you made something “fridge-worthy.” So why do we expect it now before we go forth and produce a novel?
Yes! Ask God to lead you in your writing. Pray before every writing session. Give Him your best and see how He multiplies your efforts. God calls us to live for Him. And everything else we choose to do is part of the living, part of the calling. My writing is one of the many ways I serve. And God might be calling some writers to write but not to publish. Imagine that. A calling that is completely private… like a prayer ministry. Someone who is called to fast and pray and tell no one.
God has certainly given me an introverted, intuitive, deeply feeling, melancholy INFJ personality that lends well to a writer’s lifestyle. He’s given me many life experiences that shape my writing. But He isn’t micro-managing what I write about and when I publish. If anything, I’m more amazed in hindsight to see how what felt mundane at first had God’s hand in it all along the way. I’m fairly skilled in music, painting, cooking, and just about any other craftsmanship task I put my hand to. I’m what you call a jack-of-all arts. Surrendering all of my skills to God is my calling, for whatever season a specific gift is needed in. I don’t need a special calling from God before I cook a meal and host dinner for my husband’s grandparents because that act falls under my calling to serve and love others.
If anything, God steps in at pivotal moments in our lives. His hand is often unseen. Your publishing delay might be a spiritual lesson on patience and trusting God. The criticism you face from the church or the Christian reading community might be God developing character in you and preparing you for something outside of the writing world. Or the delays, frustrations, and publishing hiccups might be very natural things that happen to just about every writer in the business.
Spiritualizing our work as writers often stems from our desire for quick and easy answers, our need for validation and self-protection. Don’t let it pull you away from humility and make it harder for God to use you.
About Laurisa Brandt
Laurisa Brandt writes speculative fiction with a dash of romance. Her award winning Birthright of Scars duology has appeared in the Susquehanna Style magazine.
When not writing emotional, thought provoking, high-action stories with deep spiritual themes, Laurisa can usually be found baking scrumptious sourdough bread or enjoying the outdoors.
