Becky tagged me. She talked about why she writes and then included me in a list of three people she was challenging to answer the same question.  I’ve talked about it a little before (writing for you and me), but I want to think about it again.

I write because I can’t concentrate very well early in the morning. When I’m sitting in my chair and I am trying to chat with God, I lose focus, I wander. So I will often write my questions, or my part of the conversation, or a list of names.

I write because I want to see what I think. There is, for me, a discovery process in writing. It is a thinking discipline, a conversation with my heart and brain and fingers. I often don’t know what I think until I start to write.

I write because I can’t talk to you face to face. I have a responsibility, I believe, to be about teaching. In fact, while running this week I came up with a new answer to the question, “What is your job?”  My amazing job is to equip the amazing people who are doing the amazing stuff that God built them for. It’s from Ephesians. Sort of.  But if my job is equipping, that includes teaching, which includes, for me, writing.

I write because my passion is to help people emotionally understand the truth of God’s work. For me, the best way I can move understanding from head to heart is with story, with image, with moving inside the Biblical text. And I do that best with writing.

I write because I can’t think fast enough to talk. 

I write because I must.

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I’m asking three other people to consider answering as well.

Rich Dixon

Johanna Fenton

Jill Burton Carr (who writes, really writes, on Instagram.)