He chose you

My own photo of St Benedict's Retreat Centre, West Malling, Kent, Saturday 4 May 2024

Over the last week, two verses from John 15 have struck me:

"I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing." John 15: 5

"You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name." John 15:16 (NRSV)

I’m still suffering from writer’s block when it comes to long-term projects. (Yes, I do have resources to consult, not least some of them put out by the good folk in ACW.)

Maybe it’s the long-lasting effects of lockdown, which put me in emotional and mental paralysis for many months. Add to that the recent loss of a dear friend, who was only a week older than me. She was buried in the same cemetery as her parents, on a hillside overlooking peaceful Essex fields: the April sunshine poured down on her final resting place, and a blackbird and a lark were singing. The hymns and readings at her funeral service were full of the hope we have in Christ, and I know I will see her again.

The season of winter can hurt. The winter of loss and bereavement. The winter of ongoing, debilitating, long-term illness. The winter of uncertainty and fear. So many different types of winters.

The winter of writer’s block. The winter of questioning your identity as a writer. The winter of your book not selling as well as you hoped it would. The winter of some negative reviews. Most of these are from readers simply expressing their honest opinion, but that book is your baby, and it still hurts. Obviously.

The winter of rejection upon rejection of your work. You can take comfort from the fact that many famous authors suffered this too, but that’s probably scant comfort when they have actually achieved success in their field, and … you haven’t.

But listen. God called you to write. If you blog here, if you blog anywhere, if you write poems and stories, then you are a writer. Indeed, you are more than a writer, as the name of this blog says: you are a beloved son or daughter of God, whom He made creative, whose humanity reflects His own creativity, brilliance and love.

If you’re still feeling a bit wintery, take comfort from this: you didn’t choose Him but He chose you. Worldly success doesn’t last … it’s only the fruit we bear for the kingdom that will last.

Secular art can speak to us powerfully about the human condition. But we need something more – much more! We need the Vine, the Root, the Ground of all Being. We need to be rooted in God, and to listen to His voice, and to be like that tree in Psalm 1, growing by a bubbling stream, its roots deep in the bank, rooted in that good, rich, life-giving soil, and watered by the ever-living stream.

On this May Bank Holiday, be encouraged. Just as the English countryside is so gloriously luxuriant this time of year, the trees garlanded in that electric, emerald, green unique to spring, so the Vine-bearer can make you blossom and grow in Him. And that includes your writing.

Now I need to apply this sermon to myself, so I’m going to finish this post and go off and do some creative writing.

I’m an Anglican lay minister and an Administrator for the education and learning office of the United Reformed Church. 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 anthology Merry Christmas Everyone.