A writer’s word of knowledge - by Philippa Linton

When I was sixteen, a visiting preacher at my church spoke this word of knowledge to me:

“… I’ve had my hand upon you in the past, and now, and always. I will use these hands to reach out to many hungry, thirsty souls. But you must give your will and mind to me. Then only can I work through you. And I will reveal to you many precious secrets of my heart.”

I wrote those beautiful words in my Bible and in various journals, so I would never forget them. The man who spoke those words over me imparted something very precious.

Over the years, I came to interpret his message as a direct prophetic word to my calling as a writer. I’m a lay preacher and God gave me the gift of preaching, a gift I never, ever take for granted and which is a high and holy responsibility. Just as God stirred up in me the gift of preaching, so he can stir up the gift of writing.

And yet I know I haven’t always lived up to those words.

There can be a painful gap between receiving words of encouragement from the Holy Spirit, and actually living up to the promise. We’re all aware of the gaps in our Christian life, aren’t we? The gaps between what Jesus promises us – life in all its fullness – and the many ways in which we fail to appropriate the abundant life which is right there on our doorstep. And then of course we beat ourselves with guilt about our inadequacies, which gets us precisely nowhere. In fact, I’d say that the enemy of our souls loves to tie us up in coils of useless, energy-sapping guilt.

We all fall. We all fail. All of us fail to live up to his promises. Many of us fail to reach our full potential, as human beings and as believers.

This is no surprise at all to God, who knows us inside out. His grace is enough. His grace is more than enough to wipe out the mistakes of the past, more than enough to embrace and encourage and empower us.

There’s no point in bewailing all the things I’ve never written, just as there’s no point regretting all the opportunities I’ve missed to be more faithful to Jesus.

We will fall, we will fail … so we get up again, in his grace, and we go on … in his grace.

So, in this present darkness, in the year of our Lord 2020, writing in the middle of a global pandemic that has wrought so much devastation … let us get up and go on.

May our writers’ hands reach out to many hungry, thirsty souls.

May we bless each other, and the world, with the power of our words. Words of beauty, comfort and joy. Whatever we write, whatever our genre, whether we’re published or not, whether we are the next bestselling author or not … let us go on.

God has given us a gift, and it’s precious, and it’s real. We can do it. We can write.

So may our words take flight. And may God reveal to us the many precious secrets of his heart.


I work full time for the United Reformed Church in the central London office (although am working from home at the moment). I’m also a lay minister. I wrote a devotional for the anthology ‘Light for the Writer’s Soul’, published by Media Associates International, and my short story ‘Magnificat’ appears in the ACW Christmas Anthology ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’.