By Cynthia Ruchti
Three whiteboards plus several file folders bulge with ideas for books, blogs, articles. As a new idea hits--from something I've read or heard, a snippet of conversation, the way a frozen branch resists moving even when the wind is strong, from a fresh heartache or news item--I scribble it into the margins of the already full whiteboard or jot it in a notebook or shove it in a file folder.
When writing fifteen minute radio scripts for a Monday-through-Friday broadcast that aired for thirty-three years, I was often asked, "Don't you run out of ideas?"
My response was two-fold. "Do people run out of problems? No. And there's no end to what God can do."
God has no dearth of ideas. Scarcity is not the position from which He operates. He's never said, "What do I do now?" or "Sorry. I got nothin'," as the world might say.
Psalm 106:2 not only fortifies His followers with an immutable truth that changes our attitude when faced with an impasse, it also fortifies writers when they wobble from a seeming dearth of ideas.
"Who could possibly repeat all of the Lord's mighty acts or publicly recount all his praise?" CEB.
Elsewhere in God's Word, He reminds us that if everything He's done were written down, the world wouldn't have enough pages to contain it all.
No matter the diagnosis, the unique-to-you challenge, the exhaustion of all our resources, no matter the depth of the despair or the emptiness of the cupboards or the blankness of the computer screen, He is not depleted of ideas. Ever.
He's constantly writing in the margins of our lives. A new thought. A different attitude. A fresh approach. A solution that we couldn't have invented no matter how long and hard we pondered.
And He urges us to keep our pens and notebooks at the ready. Because He doesn't keep those ideas to Himself.
Cynthia Ruchti is an author and speaker who tells stories of Hope-that-glows-in-the-dark through her novels, novellas, devotions, nonfiction, and speaking engagements for women and writers. You can learn more about her and her heart for tapping into the ideas God whispers at cynthiaruchti.com or www.facebook.com/CynthiaRuchtiReaderPage.
Love this! I do this same thing - put snippets of paper into file folders. People always ask why I don't run out of ideas. I'm thinking - I don't have enough years to write all of the ideas I have saved, much less the ones I keep adding. You worded it so beautifully how God is just waiting to give us ideas because He never runs out. He whispers an idea into the ear of a child He has gifted in a certain way and given certain experiences so that those ideas are turned into unique messages. Thanks for the post.
ReplyDeleteAmen.
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