This will be written for the generation to come, that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord. Psalm 102:18
A friend said, “Pastors who write books are on ego trips.” I begged to differ for a lot of reasons. For one thing, I’ve just finished my eighth and am now working on the ninth book!
In my opinion…
In one sense, people who write books are paragons of faith. They have no proof anyone will ever read what they write or if they will recoup the investment of their time and money. And yet, they write on.
Aren’t we thankful for people who write books!
After all…
When you write a book–any kind of book!–you give away a piece of yourself. You have spent countless hours secreted away laboring over a pad with a pen or typing away on the laptop. If you’re like me, you have wept and fussed, stopped to look something up, asked your spouse if this is the right word, and sent up periodic prayers that this would work and make a difference in someone’s life. You have abandoned the project for a time, returned to it when something was burning inside you and just had to come out, and eventually you decided “that’s enough” and sent it out to the world.
When people hold the book in their hands, they’re holding a piece of you.
When you write a book, you touch parts of the world you will never travel to, people you will never see, and make a difference you will not learn of in this lifetime. This is a faith venture of the first sort.
When they hold the book in their hands, they touch the fruit of your life.
When you write a book, you touch the future. Perhaps your book will live forever and never be out of print–does C. S. Lewis in Heaven see this and smile?–or someone will come across your book a century from now in some obscure storage and read it as a lark and find themselves being blessed. Either way, fruit massive or miniscule, you are sending your witness into the future.