Write the Vision

Well, here I go again.

Over ten years have passed since my fingers last clicked out blog-level stories. A decade since I trusted words enough to give them somewhere to live.

As with all communication platforms, the landscape has shifted. Repeatedly. And honestly, anything beyond submitting print to a newspaper still feels elusive to me. You better believe I just found myself Googling, “Do people still even read blogs?” Because … I don’t.

Who reads what, where, and why varied, of course. But the advice that kept surfacing from the blogger’s perspective was to build a platform. Which I understand to be digital speak for entice an audience. Self-promotion. Work in the realm of appeasing people.

No thanks.

After a little more Googling, and a brief detour into knee cartilage (the distraction is real), I nearly decided to scrap the blog idea altogether. I started paying attention to what my heart needed out of writing, versus what writing looked like in our fast-paced digital world. The puzzle pieces didn’t fit. I finally realized that my hesitation wasn’t about writing itself, but in purposefully striving to be seen. That’s when God stepped in.

“I’m not leading you to build an audience. You’re just supposed to be writing.”

Not a booming Write this. Not a gentle This is your gift. Not even a rush of confidence or creativity.

It was more like a mom at the end of her rope.

“You’re supposed to be writing!” 

“I knowwww,” I groaned back, my shoulders already tense. I’ve known this for years, but every time I asked, Where do I start? What do I present? … Crickets. Why is God so clear about the writing, but remains silent about the rest?

I was really feeling caught up in one of those lead a horse to water situations, which is humbling to admit. Hi, I’m the horse, standing by the water, locked in an eye-rolling standoff with God… for ten stubborn years.

But grace, once again, meets me there.

One evening, (another spent avoiding instructions) I was scrolling around the Bible app when I landed on a study of the major and minor prophets. I can’t say I was especially enthusiastic about the topic, but I remained held there.

“Have you ever read Habakkuk?” I asked Nathan.

“No,” he said, despite the fact that I know he’s read the entire Bible.

“Habakkuk,” I said again, trying to ensure pronunciation, “in the Old Testament. He was a prophet.”

“Oh. I don’t know. Maybe.”

We don’t do maybe here when it comes to growing in our faith, so I went there. I dug in simply for understanding. What I was not prepared for, however, was the encounter with direction. It was unmistakably a setup, through Scripture itself.

“And the Lord answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time … though it tarry, wait for it.” Habakkuk 2:2–3 (KJV)

Write the vision. Make it plain.

Habakkuk wasn’t handed content. He wasn’t instructed to gather followers, and he wasn’t told to promote or measure engagement. He was simply commanded to write. That familiarity landed hard.

In sitting with this, something else surfaced. It dawned on me that thoughts, ideas, and even spoken words, are … nothing. Just … pfff. (That’s my best description.) We can feel attached to them, but they are still just chaos floating inside a brain, or out in thin air. But put them into print? That’s creation. That makes them an actual something.

Habakkuk knew this. The vision, even directly from God, only mattered once it was written down. I’ve always known that writing helps to make my scattered ideas real, but I had never before fully comprehended that the practice itself may well have originated from divine intentions.

Now, I’m definitely not drawing a literal parallel with a prophet here. Habakkuk was entrusted with God’s vision, for a time yet to come. I am entrusted with attention and honesty. This is not prophecy or revelation, only the quiet submission of putting into words what God has already been shaping in me.

Once I was able to accept that I was being redirected, I started noticing how much of my resistance to writing was tangled up with something else entirely…keeping tabs on what parts of my deepest self are seen.

God is always working on my heart, and my relationship with Him is in constant motion. Lately, He has been nudging me to examine my relationship with social media. It’s something I’m considering stepping away from entirely.

First, it’s unsettling to realize how attached I am. We are called not to conform to the world, and Facebook and Instagram may be the most literal examples of that I can think of. I’ve even chosen to fast from them during Lent before, because the separation causes discomfort. I don’t like this confession. Beyond that, much of it simply isn’t healthy. And as with all things related to health, I’m trying to grow into better discernment.

In another twist of trickery, according to Google, blogs actually fall under the social media umbrella. But that’s not what I’m building here, I can’t. Habakkuk didn’t hand out chisels so that passersby could add their thoughts. His writing wasn’t a discussion. It was the vision. Hard stop.

That’s what this is meant to be. More like a newspaper once was. Just print. Something you absorb in the moment, without preparing a response. Today, so much online content is read with the intent of replying, reacting, proving. I want to move in the opposite direction. Short of setting stone tablets at the city gates, the presentation here is meant for the writing itself.

So, a clear space to contain the pfff now exists, the words are being written, and they can rest where they land. I’ll trust God with whatever comes next.