Do you ever wonder if blogging is a waste of time? Despair Inc. has the following encouragement for you: “Never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few.”
If you blog, here’s the number one reason you have wondered if it’s worth it: the numbers. You may tell people, “I blog for myself,” or “I don’t care how many people read my blog; if I encourage one person, it’s worth it.” And that may be true for you. But it wouldn’t be for me; I’m not that magnanimous. I want the traffic.
Actually, do you ever wonder if any creative outlets—journaling, painting, drawing, writing, singing, playing—are a waste of time? Blogging is easy to pick on, but Despair Inc. could speak into just about any part of our lives with daggers of truth.
We all have the same currency in life: our time.
And we all have the same goal: to make a statement to the world about what we value most.
Some of us have more currency and more passion than others. You may get 20 years to say what you want to say about what you see as most valuable, whether it’s God, or family, or money, or power, or popularity, or ingenuity, or discovery, or despair, or meaninglessness. And you may say it and live it with more vigor than someone who has 100 years. But no matter how much time each of us has, we all have the same opportunity to relentlessly proclaim to the world what we believe matters most.
When I blog, or write, or tweet, or do anything to express myself, I try to keep in mind the lesson I learned from John Piper. When his son Abraham asked his community what he should tell to a roomful of Christian bloggers, his dad wrote the following:
Tell them that it takes relentless intentionality to keep a Christ-exalting blog from become a clever blog. The temptation to entertain is almost irresistible.
I know this temptation well. I am a man full of sin you don’t know about, a heart darkened by prideful desires you would curse if you could see them. But in spite of this sin, I’ve decided to spend my time proclaiming that Jesus is the most valuable treasure any of us could have in this life.
This is how I have decided to not waste time blogging.
I aim to do this in the spirit of Paul, who writes, “Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor 10:31). Or that of Peter: “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another…by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 4:10-11). Or Jesus Himself: “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Mt 5:16).
As for you, I wonder why you blog, or paint, or write, or draw, or play. We both know that not every post needs to cite Jesus in order to glorify Him, nor does every painting need to reflect His visage for His Father to be glorified. There are a thousand ways we can point the world to Christ, and not all of them are obvious on the surface. And we both probably realize the heart behind what we do does so much to determine the value of what we do. Which is what Jesus and Paul and Peter were talking about in the first place.
So if all things exist for Christ (Col 1:16), then should not our hearts, and our time, and our posts?