From The Heart… Why I Write
I’ve read a lot of books over the years. A lot. And there’s been one theme that’s consistently run through my mind as I’ve read: There’s a lot of “hope deferred” and “buts” in most of these books! In other words, it is rare that an author inspires me from beginning to end without eventually switching gears and inserting something that causes me to feel doubt or shame or fear or just plain hope deferred – as if the real answers I’m seeking will never come in this lifetime.
                   
But I can’t live with that. So I write. I write things that I desire to read – that I desire to hear someone say to me or even verbalize to another. I want to read of a God who calls me up into a story so large, so grand, so “not about me” that it slowly, completely, sets me free. And when I say “sets me free” that’s a whole book in itself. I guess I’m alluding to all sorts of things.

I’m talking about reaching the freedom of embracing with heart and soul what my mind periodically gets a glimpse of – that I’m desired by God, wanted, passionately yearned for and pursued. I want the reality of those thoughts oozing from every pore of my being. Because when I read of his love, that’s the way I feel about him, too.

I want to write books that give God the glory by not being schizophrenic in saying, “God is good and God saves but you better do X, Y and Z just to make sure.” If God is love and perfect love casts out all fear, then I don’t want to make people afraid. I want them to see the higher motivation that comes from being convinced they are loved.

I’m thinking that by this point in our lives most of us have gotten the messages about what is right and what is wrong. What we haven’t always gotten is the story that is so grand and inescapable that Paul could only describe it as that which is beyond comprehension. This, of course, is the story about nothing less than the love of God. And this, I believe, is also the greatest power in the universe. It is the greatest power for changing our wills, our desires, and in helping us establish new habits and patterns for living that more closely reflect his nature.

Yeah, I want to read about that story. I want to read those books. And I’m hoping that you do too… because those are the books I most want to write.

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