Unleashing My Passion to Write

Posted by A B Locke

“And now I can’t seem to stop writing.”

Finally! After too many years of running, procrastinating, and whatever else, a new chapter begins — BLOGGING!  Welcome to the Jesus in a Boat blog—an online venue committed to proclaiming essential bible clarity amid the religious chaos, disappointment, and conflict in our world today. By the grace of God, I will liberate my writings from the prison of my mind and computer, to improve understanding and unity in Christ.

If you only knew, I was not supposed to be a writer, at least not according to my calculations. A graphic designer, certainly. An adman, perhaps. A photographer, maybe. An illustrator, a portrait artist, a home improvement contractor, or maybe even a bassist, were all possibilities, but a writer? No way.

I was horrible at writing in high school and college: C’s, D’s, and F’s, they all testified to my inability to write. I still remember the torment, often lying on the floor in my home, into the wee hours of the morning, trying to come up with an idea and enough substance to write a decent paragraph for some class assignment. But all I drew were blanks.

I remember one of my faithful college instructors trying to encourage me prior to an in-class essay assignment. She suggested that I arrive to class early on the day of the exam, get a seat by an open window, and just write about something that was very familiar to me. That was easy enough. I was pumped! “I can do this,” thinking to myself. I arrived early on that day. I sat by the window overlooking the campus, and that was all she wrote—pun intended! My mind was M.I.A (missing in action). My brain had “flat-lined” as the clock of doom kept right on ticking. I could not come up with anything to write about. It appeared that I did not know enough about anything. Back then, I could not organize my thoughts if my life depended on it. Fast forward to today, I am 20-years pregnant with all sorts of ideas and can’t seem to stop writing. At times I feel like a writer on steroids.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have insecurities and significant challenges with respect to writing, but they are much different. The challenges today are in understanding and using correct grammar and managing all this intellectual content in my head. I am trying to do this without becoming overwhelmed or mentally gridlocked when I put my pen to paper or get on the computer.

So, what happened over time to spark this drastic change? I can only attribute it to two things: Relationships with women, and my relationship with God. Looking back, it is easier to see that I began to write in an earnest effort to communicate, explain, and resolve conflict in my dating and marriage relationships (yes plural). I did not like drama or conflict, so I was always writing explicit letters to my female companions, attempting to resolve whatever the issue was at the time. This seemed to be a never-ending task.  Anyway.

In my 30s, I entered into a very special relationship with God, through His Son Jesus Christ. If you are wondering how that relationship motivated me to write more, I will tell you. There was definitely no drama or conflict between me and God. If there was, it was obvious who was creating the problem. That ruled out any sensible reason for me to write God a letter. Nevertheless, when I stopped rebelling and gave my heart to the Lord, my eyes were quickly opened to the enormous amount of drama and conflict within the church body, among the children of God, among my brothers and sisters in Christ.

Since I did not like drama and conflict in relationships, especially in the family, I did the only reasonable thing: I started writing to my relatives in the faith, and boy did I start writing—to inform, correct, teach, explain, and clarify my understanding of biblical truth.

I was raised in the church, as they say. Even though I drifted away around age 16, I had church experiences that I would not soon forget. I saw what appeared to be men, women, and youth, just going through the motions, “playing church”, “doing church”, or “having church”, like putting on a theatrical production. Christianity/church did not appear to be a sincere way of life 24/7, but “something done” mainly on Sunday for a few hours, then it was back to business and carrying-on as usual. You know exactly what I mean. I had no relationship with God then, so it wasn’t as important as it is now.

Years later, now in an authentic relationship with God, I began to thoroughly explore the scriptures. That is when it hit me like a ton of bricks. I detected that something was seriously wrong and not lining up with the Bible. I began to see with enormous clarity the errors and inconsistencies in what Christians and unbelievers recognized and defined as church and religion. The extent of error and hypocrisy disturbed me greatly, and it still does. Oftentimes I find myself wagging my head with no words to say, but then I write about it—and then I write some more.

And now here we are today, launching Jesus in a boat — a blogging site to provide biblical clarity amid religious chaos and conflict in our world. The boat is a simple platform from which Jesus occasionally taught His friends and followers.

Something about Jesus taking a seated position to teach, to impart divine wisdom to His followers resonated with me. It demonstrated enormous humility and confidence in His supreme authority. Jesus did not feel the need to physically elevate Himself on a stage to teach us. He sat down. He was like a loving father, graciously kneeling down from on high to the level of his little children, to teach and explain life. One of the things that I have grown to recognize and appreciate about Jesus, is His confidence and composure regardless of the situation.

I hope this blog will benefit humanity. Though I am secure in my faith and many of the essentials that lead to eternal life, this blog will not be a venue for disrespecting religious differences or engaging in contentious debates. I will manage this blog accordingly. Readers are free to respectfully express their differences.

Atheists do not believe in God, and I do not believe in Atheists, but there is no plausible reason why we cannot engage in a respectful exchange about our differences.

• My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, James 1:19

I challenge the readers of this blog to read your bibles even more than this blog. Be like the Bereans of the Bible, who examined the word of God every day, so they would know for certain if what other “godly” men were saying was actually true. That is your responsibility.