Why do I blog? Readers of this blog may be interested to know that I ask myself this question fairly often. When I first started blogging, I blogged, because people told me every writer needs a blog. During those years, I had a real problem finding subjects to write about. I asked myself why I was blogging, and the answer was that somebody else thought I should. I spent my real time and effort trying to write books. Nobody read my blog, probably because what I wrote betrayed that I didn’t know why I was writing. Nobody read my books, either, despite my slogging through the submissions process for several years.

Over years of writing books, meditations, prayer guides, Bible studies, book reviews and even a blog, I came to realize that blogging was a very important part of my call to serve Christ as a writer. I began to understand that I was learning things in my studies and research that fitted a niche that I didn’t see anyone else serving. I was trying to understand something in my own life, and as I learned and grew through prayer, research, and Bible study, I realized that God wanted me to share what I was learning. I had not become an expert on anything, but I had dug deep and uncovered some truths that might bless others if they knew. Last May I participated in a project where I met people and engaged in conversations that helped me to get serious about answering God’s call to share.  

One of the first questions a blogger inevitably asks herself, if she is honest, is this: Who am I to tell anyone anything? I wasn’t the first person God called who responded that way. When God called Jeremiah, Jeremiah responded by saying, “Ah, Lord God! I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” God replied, “I am with you.” God called Moses, and Moses responded, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” God replied, “I will be with you.” Jesus stood on a mountaintop in Galilee and called his few faithful followers who were still with him after his death and resurrection. He gave them an impossible task, saying, “Go … and make disciples of all nations.” None of the gospel writers record how the group responded, but it seems likely they were just speechless. Wouldn’t you be dumbfounded if someone told you it was your job to evangelize the entire world, even if you could take forty people to help you? To their dumbfounded silence, Jesus said, “I am with you always.” If the Bible is telling the story correctly, God did not send Jeremiah or Moses or the apostles out to do a job; he invited them to go along with him to do that job. God called me to share what I am learning as I grow in faith, and when he called me, he invited me to go along with him to do this work. Every time I ask myself “who do you think you are?” I remember that God said, “I am with you.” Why do I blog? I blog, because I can’t help myself, and I blog because God has invited me to join him in the work of sharing what he is teaching me.

In that context, I made a commitment to post five days a week, and I promised God I would do my best to share with integrity what I was learning. I began to see a pattern in the things I learned: 

• The culture of the US has been growing more and more secularized over the past fifty years, with the pace increasing dramatically in the past twenty years. The current administration is the first ever to express itself in explicitly secular terms. Christians cannot separate sacred and secular as secular thinkers do, and this difference makes some interactions quite volatile. Christians must remember that Christ died for all people, including people who want to suppress the expression, perhaps even the existence, of Christian faith. 
• The culture of the US is shuddering under the impact of growing numbers of Islamic adherents. The events of September 11, 2001, color all interaction between Muslims and non-Muslims in the USA, but the rapid increase in the Islamic demographic makes it essential that Christians understand Islam and follow Christ’s guidance in our relationships with Muslims. From Open Doors International comes a suggestion to use the word Islam as an acronym for “I Sincerely Love All Muslims.”
• The only way to have Christ-like interaction with the world around us is to know Christ. We must deepen our prayer life and deepen our understanding of Scripture. Only by engaging in the disciplines of the faith can we mature in faith and develop a worldview that embodies Christ’s redeeming love for all people.

As I grow to understand more and more about these three areas, I try to share what I learn and invite others to share with me what they are discovering

Why do I blog? Because God has called me to serve him as a writer, and he guides me daily to new understanding of that mission. Why do I blog? I blog to share with my readers what Christ has taught me, not because I know anything special, but because any beggar who finds bread should share it with other beggars on the same road.

I am very grateful to the readers who have chosen to follow my blog, and I equally value those who pass through as visitors from time to time. I appreciate their comments. When a reader shares with me what he or she has learned in the context of what I am learning, I grow. I blog, because God asked me to share and promised to go with me and help me to do my job well. I blog because as a blogger I am learning from my readers as I hope they learn from me.