by Maggie Wallem Rowe

 Since you’re taking a few moments to read this post, it’s safe to assume you’ve got all the time in the world to pursue your calling as a writer, right?

Wrong. If you’re anything like me, there aren’t enough hours in the day to take advantage of every opportunity to learn about our craft. We have writers conferences to prepare for and webinars to attend, critique groups and writers guilds to join, proposals to polish and projects to pitch.

With so many possibilities for the Christian writer, how do we know which opportunities we should pursue and which we should allow to pass by? What’s the best way to determine which assignments are from God, and which of our goals might stem instead purely from personal ambition?

I spent several decades fulfilling every opportunity I believe God sent my way: freelance reporting for a regional Christian newspaper, collaborations with other writers, work-for-hire assignments for nearly a dozen devotional Bibles from major publishers. Blogging weekly to meet the felt needs of my modest flock of subscribers.

As much as I loved to share my faith through the written word, I was convinced no traditional publisher would be interested in me as a solo author. I never prepared a proposal or pitched a book idea. I told myself no before any agent or editor had a chance to.

Yet in an amazing turn of events when I turned 65, a publisher who was in the audience at an outreach event where I was speaking befriended me online and began reading my work. My first book in the CBA market released two years later, followed by my second at age 69. The circumstances were such that it left no doubt God had opened these doors.

Will I write another book? Should I? Like you, I have ideas pushing impatiently at the borders of my mind like wild horses waiting to be released. But before I open the gates, I’m weighing the cost of spending the countless hours necessary for writing and research and many more in promotion and marketing.

The question I’m asking myself these days is simply this: “Is it Him, or is it hustle?” As a writer now in the third trimester of life, I no longer want to be controlled by the fast pace of pursuing every possible opportunity. Instead, I want to steward my speed.

Award-winning author and fellow Blue Ridge faculty member Lori Roeleveld, 62, wrote recently, “I realized I couldn’t skate through life any longer on my youth but had to carefully steward my energy.”

Most of us are familiar with Jesus’ teaching about working in partnership with Him:

“Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” Matthew 11: 28-30 NLT

In her Bible study A New Beginning, Christin Ditchfield unpacks the passage.

“Understand that in this word picture, Jesus isn’t the farmer driving the team. He’s the other ox — the older, wiser, more experienced, more mature ‘animal,’ paired with the young ox (us). He is the one who knows the path, takes the lead, and sets the pace. All we have to do is keep in step, stay connected, and follow His lead.”

The takeaway here: Jesus is not driving me —or you! He is rather walking with us, bearing the greater burden on himself.

Time is the most valuable commodity we have, isn’t it? As my friend Joleen said, “The currency is invisible, the value immeasurable.”

Henry David Thoreau put it this way: “The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”

Our calling as Christian writers is both a valuable and a costly one.  The next time your fingers hover over the keyboard as you wonder whether you should pursue yet one more opportunity, perhaps this question will help you, too:

Is it Him, or is it hustle?

When you know it’s God himself opening those gates, let your ideas gallop free, my friends. He’s holding the reins!

Maggie Wallem Rowe is a national speaker, dramatist, and author whose first book, This Life We Share, was a finalist for the 2021 ECPA Christian Book Award in the New Author category. Maggie has also been a TEDx presenter. Her second book, Life is Sweet, Y’all: Wit and Wisdom with A Side of Sass, released from Tyndale House Publishers in 2022. Maggie writes weekly from Peace Ridge, her home in the mountains of North Carolina. MaggieRowe.com.