Going Beyond Easy

This has been swirling around in my head for several days, and today I want to bring it to you. What I'm about to say is what God is convicting my heart of...and my purpose in writing about it is not to drag you into conviction with me. That's not my job. I'm writing about it because if it's a problem in my life...and more importantly, a problem I didn't really notice...there might be someone else out there who needs to realize this too.

If you're that person, God will nudge your heart like He did mine. If you're not that person, maybe you can pray for those of us who are.

I'm a writer...you know that. And my writing passion isn't the norm. Fiction is all the rage. Children's books are the rage. Even cookbooks are the rage now. And recently on the radar: memoirs. If I had to pick something from those categories, I'd go with a memoir, but my real passion is writing Bible
studies and devotional readings.

In 2010, I self-published my Advent devotional, and I still love that project so much. I loved what I learned while writing it, I love what it became in its finished form, and I love what those who have read it have said to me about how it spoke to them.

I've written some other projects but haven't published any. A couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with a literary agent I met through my job, and she'd looked at some of my writing to see if there was a market for it in the traditional publishing world.

She wrote me an email and said she'd talked to some editors and publishers and here's what she learned: publishers are not {as a general rule} taking on devotional books and Bible studies because they don't sell. She went on to say that the main book anyone wants to buy is Sarah Young's devo, Jesus Calling, and the only other projects they're willing to invest in {again, generally speaking} are ones tied to well-known and established authors who already have successful books in print. {Essentially - the excerpt devos that come from book-length works by authors like Beth Moore or Max Lucado....or accompanying devos that make a workbook out of a regular book that's selling well.}

Please note the following things:

* I LOVE Jesus Calling. I think it is a marvelously written book, and I think God put a blessing on it and has used it in MANY lives - including mine. I have nothing against the book.

* I LOVE authors like Max and Beth and think their excerpt devos contain the best of the best of what they've written and God {again} certainly uses those words to mold and guide lives. I have nothing against them.

* I TOTALLY GET why publishers are making that decision and from a business/marketing perspective, it's a smart, smart thing to do. When you're running a business, you follow the line that makes the money. I'm not business savvy by any means - but that just makes good sense to me. I get it. And from that end, I don't blame them for it.

Here's where I struggle.

I think we are so lazy in our pursuit of the Lord, that a quarter-of-a-sheet-of-paper sized book with between one and two hundred words per day suffices as our spiritual nourishment, and we're unapologetic about it.

We want to prop that book up underneath the medicine cabinet and read the words while we run a straightener through our hair.

We want to tuck it in a desk drawer and zoom through the words while the computer boots up in the morning.

We want to pull it up in an app on our phone and read it at a stoplight.

And in its own right...that's good.

It's good to get a little boost on the fly.

But that's the key. 

We've stopped making it the boost and started making it...it. We've multi-tasked our intimacy with the Lord.

We're lazy. I'm lazy.

God has really convicted me about this. About how much time I'm spending pursuing Him...taking time OUT of a crazy busy life to sit quietly, uninterrupted, and feast with Him. 

Maybe the traditional publishing world has no place in its budget or marketing plan for this girl-with-blog. And that's okay with me. But I do know that God has called me to pursue spiritual feasts...not spiritual snacks. And as He leads, I'll continue to write about them. And He'll make a path for them to get into whatever hands - however or many or few they may be - to encourage other people to pause long enough for a feast, too.