Writing from the Spirit

A white dove flying out of a laptop screen

A woman I knew texted me, “Have you got a minute? Have a ‘writing’ question.”

I don’t recall whether I “had a minute.” But I took the time to answer her. One desire of my heart is to help people learn:

To write from the Spirit – as they recognize and respond to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
To write from the spirit – as they process in their human spirit what the Spirit of God is speaking, rather than trying to figure it out via their soul.

Many Christians live, speak and write soul-first, sometimes with a nod to the spirit, but more often silencing their human spirit and, thus, quenching the Holy Spirit. What’s more, many Christian writing helps encourage – and even insist on – the soul-first approach. This produces manuscripts that may get published and may get purchased and read, but can only reproduce after their kind.

Soul-first writing gorges the soul and starves the spirit. It may ensure an audience, for it can become addictive. It may give readers more knowledge, perhaps even more Bible knowledge. It may thrill their emotions. Yet it cannot satisfy in the deepest part.

Writing that comes from the Holy Spirit by way of our human spirit may at first get pushback from the soul. Sometimes strong pushback. But what is of the Spirit never disdains or dismisses the soul. Rather, such writing feeds the reader’s spirit first. Then, as their spirit rises up to receive what is offered, it honors, informs and involves their mind and emotions too.

Some of you may be clamoring for a “scriptural basis” for these thoughts. Some may want me to hit Pause and explain in detail what I mean by the paragraphs above. Truth is, I’m having a soul-spirit battle on this very point. My soul is insisting that I logically explain ideas many Western Christians have never heard before. My soul is urging me to start spouting Bible verses, to convince readers not familiar with these concepts not to reject them out-of-hand.

But my spirit knows that those who can be convinced by logic can also be dissuaded by logic. My spirit knows this teaching will bear most fruit in those who press in because they sense God’s nod in their inmost being, before they understand or feel comfortable with the concepts.

Scriptures will follow in other posts. Explanations will also unfold. But for now, let me assure you: Learning to write spirit-first requires learning to live spirit-first. It requires cultivating Spirit-to-spirit intimacy with God.

Sadly, it also requires bucking the current Christian-writing system. It requires choosing to let spirit-first living carry over into your writing. And that, dear one, will lead you where the soul-first approach insists you must not go.

If your ultimate goal is to get a publishing contract, this approach isn’t for you. If your ultimate goal is to sell lots of articles or books or to make lots of money, this approach isn’t for you. If your ultimate goal is to write as sloppily as you please, and to call that “hearing from God,” this approach isn’t for you either.

However: If something inexplicable, deep in your gut, is crying, “I want to write what honors God! I want to write what furthers his kingdom!” – ah, this approach is for you.

Be aware: God will have to cultivate and purify that desire. The process will be both wonderful and painful. The results will be miraculous and filled with God’s life.

What will torpedo it

Writing from the Spirit (like living by the Spirit), hinges on setting your heart to follow Jesus as Lord. That does not mean striving to live a perfect, holier-than-thou life. Rather, it means learning from him to discern between what is human and what is sin. It means:

Day by day, you seek to live from your less-than-perfect humanity, by the power of Christ-in-you.
Also, you leave yourself open for him to confront anything he counts as sin. When he does (and he will, like a parent who sees a child about to touch a hot stove), by his grace, you agree with him and reverse course.

What will torpedo every attempt to live and write by the Spirit?

Entrenched, undealt-with sin. And in particular, hidden idols. As writers, we bow before something other than Christ when:

We let anything or anyone else become our first passion. That includes any organization, position, ministry or cause that we connect with Christ. Even “writing for Christ” can become an idol. So can significance, status, power, wealth or anything else that writing may appear to promise us.
We let fear rule us and deter us from writing the truth, especially fear of what people will think, say or do if we write what they do not want to hear.

You know this:

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and [you fill in the blank].

You cannot serve Jesus AND. But here’s what you can do: You can convince yourself you are serving Jesus alone, when in fact your heart is divided. You can believe you are choosing for Christ, when in fact you are setting yourself against him.

I have done it. God has called me on it. Tragically, such double-mindedness is epidemic in the evangelical church today. In fact, anyone seeking to write from the Spirit must be prepared to face a church culture rife with hidden idols, profoundly denied.

In this environment, you cannot remain steadfast, and write what carries God’s life – unless you are willing, first and always, to face whatever is hidden in your own heart.

Hear me here. This is not a call to morbid introspection. It’s a call to keep the eyes of your heart wide open and turned toward Jesus Christ. He will gladly show you what you need to see, when you need to see it. He will give you grace to do what Daniel did, when he saw what he did not want to see:

Keep looking. Keep pressing in to see. Don’t turn away from the hard things the Lord is revealing. Rather, ponder them – and this is key – respond in faith, regardless the cost.

What will accomplish it

I called the woman who had texted me, and we talked. Afterward, she sent me an email. It said, in part:

Today your words, advice and in particular your prayer have shifted something in me.

As we talked I was so blessed in my spirit! You were soooo encouraging to me! It’s as if I was somehow lifted up. You believed that I could do this! I cannot tell you what this did for me inside.

And your practical words of wisdom cut through the fear of failure, and showed me the way through all of my questions.”

In a follow-up email, she said, “Today, I had the house to myself and no agenda except to write! After yesterday’s encouragement I WROTE!!!”

A good beginning. A great start. That’s half the battle.

But the other half is crucial too. You need to persevere. (See Hebrews 10:36.)

What I pray

Now, Father, I come to you by the Spirit in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I ask you to raise up an army of writers who will learn to distinguish soul from spirit and will choose the oh-so-challenging, oh-so-rewarding path of writing from the Spirit.

I pray for those who have started out on this path, only to be turned aside by experts who led them astray. You know, Lord, that the experts did this without malice or ill intent. They taught what they themselves had been taught.

I pray for those who have started out on this path, only to be sabotaged by their own conflicting desires. Our double-mindedness is deep, Lord, and we can be so very blind to it.

Now, Lord, I ask you: Search out the deflected ones. Find the self-sabotaged. Face them in your love and your holiness. Open their eyes. Humble their souls. Recapture their whole hearts.

Find the timid. Find the proud. Lift up those who have not written because they’ve believed the lies that they have no voice and have nothing of merit to say. Humble those who live for a “pride high,” who have believed the lies that their words count more than other people’s, who have sold their words as yours.

Show us how desperately we all need to learn from you, Spirit-to-spirit. Show us how desperately we all need to learn from one another, spirit-to-spirit.

Show us your ways, Lord. Teach us your paths. Transform us into a bold, creative, gracious, tenacious, life-giving, darkness-defeating company who so wield your words that your kingdom is furthered; and your name, highly honored.

To learn more about Spirit-to-spirit living, and writing, start here:

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