Pastor Buddy’s Blog

The book I never wrote…

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Journal,

Isn’t it amazing how you can carry a memory through life. Some of my memories from my younger days, even days of my childhood are just as fresh today as ever. Of course I can’t remember where I placed my glasses. 

Anyway, I was serving as a radioman aboard the USS Calvert in the Pacific Fleet. It was 1962. I’m on duty in the radio shack. Everything is quiet. Nothing to read except a dictionary. Course I’ve always been an avid reader so having a dictionary on hand was fine with me. That was when this strange idea struck me that I ought to write a book. 

Write a book? There I was 22 years of age, and thinking of writing a book. Wow, I hated English in high school. I had no literary experience or training. 

Besides that, who would be interested in reading a book by an unknown author who did not know the difference between an adjective and an adverb, much less a dangling participle.  (Still don’t know that the last thing is.)

But I couldn’t shake it. Anyway, that memory has remained in the background of my thought life through all the years. Here I am nearly 68 years old and the thought still lingers.

Well, it doesn’t matter. The aspiration to write a fictional book about a fictional character without the slightest idea of what the book was to be about, happened some forty-six years ago. And like a ship without a sail, it was dead in the water.

Or was it? Maybe its time had not come. And maybe my writing was not simply to be fictional.

Could it be that a seed had been planted in my heart …

Could it be that all our giftings are part of God’s divine plan and that they have a unique purpose in fitting into the Lord’s work of redemption?

Could it be that nigh forty-six years ago the Lord actually planted a seed in my heart that would flourish into writings for His kingdom. 

Over the years I’ve written a great many studies on the Bible. Enough to make up several books. But there is a greater writing that I’m well aware of. As a preacher of the gospel, the Holy Spirit has used my speaking to write the story of the cross in the hearts of countless people.

Paul speaks to this when he said,

“Being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets olf stone but on tablets of human hearts.” - 2Co3:3

So, it isn’t simply writing books that I’m concerned with. I’m thinking about those ‘God seeds’ that rests in the spiritual make up of all God’s children. We could call these God seed, ’the planting of the Lord.’

I have come to believe that every child of God has ’God-seed kingdom investments’ planted in them. Yes, I have even come to believe that some of what we think may be ‘pipe dreams’ are actually things placed in us by the Spirit. And while we may sometimes misunderstand their intent, the Lord will make them to become realities in their time.

The point is that our giftings in life come with our calling in life. 

Paul said in Romans 11:29, “for the gifts and the caling of God are irrevocable.”  For something to be irrevocable means that it is not subject to recall. It also means that whatever the purpose of the gift and the calling, they will have a fulfillment in the proper season.

Anything planted by the Lord has the nature of the divine will in it. It will produce fruit in its season.  David spoke of this when he said,

“[The righteous person] will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers.” - Psalm 1:3 nasb

What makes all this even more interesting is that our spiritual genetic code of life was implanted in us before we were born. David also speaks of this:

“For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.” (Psa 139:13-14)

What about the book that was never written…

This has been an off and on thing with me. Sometimes I think it would be good to put some of my writings in book form. At other times I remember what the sage said about the writing of books and how tiring it can be. Solomon wrote:

“The Preacher sought to find delightful words and to write words of truth correctly. The words of wise men are like goads, and masters of these collections are like well-driven nails; they are given by one Shepherd. But beyond this, my son, be warned: the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body.” (Ecc 12:10-12)

There is one book that I never tire of reading. It is the only book that has lasted through the ages and remains the most beloved of all books. Of course you know the book I am speaking of. Its God’s holy book, the Bible.

But who knows. Maybe one day I’ll write ‘the book I never wrote.’ And what would it be about? Well I only have one message. This one message has been at the center of my preaching for forty something years. The book would have to be about the cross. And if the truth be known, there really isn’t any other story to tell.

How about you? Have you wondered about your giftings and callings? Don’t lose your dream. Don’t let the bumps in life try to cheat you out of that which the Lord has planted in your garden. 

Think about it.

Much love coming your way,

Buddy