A Way to Write Better that You Haven’t Tried. Confess Your Sin Then Write in the Spirit. I’ve written before that if you’re going to write, write in the Spirit.  I pointed out then that Abraham Lincoln claimed that if he had six hours to chop down a tree, he’d spend four of them sharpening his axe. Getting in the Spirit is sharpening the axe for the Christian artist. I still stand by this.

I don’t mean to say that I always do it. Sometimes I simply wake up and start writing. But it goes remarkably better when I am in a place of oneness with God.

I’m bringing this up again, because I’ve realized something that I didn’t understand before.

Confession…

Confession is one of those things that can get me there faster than anything else.

Inspired writing is the best writing. Writing in the Spirit is how to write inspired. Confession is the best way I know to get in the Spirit.

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. - Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)

Try it and verify. God likes truth. Confession pushes the “reset truth” button on your mind and heart.

What normally is going on in the average human creature is that there are some misalignments. Just yesterday, we didn’t quite say what we ought to. We kind of did some things that we ought not do. We compromised just a little bit here, and we overshared just a little bit there. We ignored a prompting from the Spirit, and we let an old pattern, just for a minute, take over. We lost consciousness and we very well may have sinned in the process.

We haven’t figured any of this out yet, because these are the little sins that don’t do immediate harm that we can recognize. They just make us feel off and guilty. They stoke the fires of our shame, but they do so in a way we wouldn’t always notice.

They are nothing we sat down and planned to do deliberately. They are the micro expressions, lilts of voice, and fidgets that cause others to slightly mistrust us. And they definitely make us mistrust ourselves.

You may be protesting now, because you’re doing it this very minute.

All right. It’s unfair of me to judge you. Let’s understand one another. I’m talking about myself here. I’ll leave you out of it from this point on.

So…

Anyway…

My point…

Is that this is no place from which to write your best work. You need to be in a solid place. Excuse me. I mean I need to be in a solid place to write well and in the Spirit.

I can pray all day for the Spirit’s presence, but as long as I have not come clean on all these little adventures in missing the mark, I won’t get there. He’ll be there, but I won’t.

So the first minutes of sharpening my axe have to be confession. “I love you, Lord. I’m sorry I wasn’t true all day. I want to be. I’m sorry I wasn’t abiding in you. I’m sorry for hiding the truth in that conversation, I’m sorry for pretending to be something I’m not. I’m sorry for letting them think this, when I really thought that. I’m sorry for anything I’m not currently conscious of but I still did.

I’m sorry for…(whatever He mercifully brings to mind).”

Then, if I wait just a second, I will hear Him say, “I forgive you. I love you. I always do.”

I feel all put back together and whole.

I feel like solid matter and that there is weight to my thoughts, which want to get onto the screen as truth for someone else to read.

Aren’t you glad that Jesus died on the cross so you could write better? (Freedom from damnation is nice too!)

If you take the time to confess and write from that place, let me know.

Jeff

‍