Called by God to Write

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. – Ephesians 2:10 NKJV

It’s funny how often I’ve read that verse and only applied it to the spiritual side of things – a call to a specific ministry within the church. But this time I sat down and thought about what that verse means when applied to all areas of my life. It means: I am called to be a writer. I am called by God to be a writer.

I was feeling a bit burned out when I read this verse due to being in the middle of my final editing round for Tiger’s Paw and prepping to get it ready for release. But this verse reminded me in the middle of my writer’s blues that my gift of creativity isn’t just happenstance. It was given to me by God and He is the one who has called me to be a writer. I write fantasy, which I and many of you know is not always considered a real call by well-meaning Christians, and God can and does use fantasy to reach people.  My stories don’t usually fixate on the salvation experience, right now I only have two planned stories where a character coming to God is written into the plot; instead, my stories focus more on the Christian journey. My characters are flawed but I don’t want to write them in a way that seems to glorify their flaws. I acknowledge the grittiness of a fallen world but I don’t dwell on it. I want to write stories about hope, about the light in the darkness, not the darkness around the light. But most of all I want to write the stories God has called me to write. For me that’s fantasy with a focus on epic and urban, right now urban fantasy is at the fore.

Every Christian is called to do something for God. Our natural talents and inclinations can point us in that direction. For writers, whether we write Christian or secular fantasy, we are called by God to write stories that glorify Him. That doesn’t mean we have to focus on the salvation experience or include the “come to Jesus” call or even have our beliefs up front and center in every single story. It means that we are called to write the stories we need to and those can range from allegory to the grittier side of writing. But ultimately our writing is for God because He is the one who called us to this craft.