It’s My Platform! By Kathleen McAnear Smith

                 

://www.nationalgallery.org.uk

Belshazzar’s Feast, my photo taken with permission of National Gallery London

It’s My Platform!


There is no feeling like coming into your home train station after a long journey. The platform just about has your name on it. I love platform 2 in Farnham, Platform 5 in Guildford and then there is the excitement of hoping onto the platforms at York and Waverley in Edinburgh. I remember my great student adventure in arriving at a Moscow platform, when Russia was still the USSR. It was SO cold, I lined my American boots with Pravda and still needed to walk to the station exit on my heels.

In God’s story, platforms are called “High Places’ and they were meant to be a revelation of just who we worship. 1&2 Kings reveals that kings built their platforms to attract followers. They wanted the power and authority that came with platforms.

King Jeroboam said he built a couple of platforms (one in Bethel one in Dan) because he didn’t want his people in Israel to have to travel so far to get to the temple of Jerusalem down in Judah. The real reason was he didn’t want to lose people to Rehoboam.

Dr Jen Bennet, in her book “Be Worth Following,” said she was surprised at a social media training when a speaker said “the best way to grow your numbers and expand your reach is to be a copycat.” Basically, this training taught that we need to see what’s attracting people and do likewise to get our numbers up on social media. As a Christian, and as a professor of social media at Winston-Salem University in North Carolina, she is adamant that there is no secret number that you need to attain before you can “make a difference in someone’s life”. Our focus, as writers, needs to be on furthering God’s kingdom purposes. We let Him build our platform, and our platform is to direct people to the King of Kings; worshiping the one true God.

I’ve developed three tough questions to help me stay on track. Why not take a moment to ponder (or comment that I have truly lost the plot!):

1. Am I using something in my writing that I might have received from God, to promote myself?

2. Am I, in anyway misusing some Word of God that has been generationally handed down to me? (Granddad’s great sermons?)

3. Even while having a heart for God, am I still allowing a platform in my life that honours a false god (perhaps an unrealised idol)? ( aka:Do chocolate Doritos* truly fuel my writing?)


As for the Rembrandt painting above, I pondered it in the National Gallery last week. It reminded me that God has a long, long memory. It’s a painting wrapped in a story in Daniel that shows God has a serious agenda for the use of His treasures. The platform is all His.


*Okay, there is no such thing, but these questions can trigger my stress!