Soli Deo Gloria

Lately it seems I’ve had a difficult time really being motivated to write. I think I’ve been so focused on making sure that it sounds good or sounds like something a publisher might want to read that I’ve forgotten what my purpose in writing was to begin with. My ability to write comes not from my own merit but from God. It is something that He has gifted me with so that I can bring glory to Him. If I am to write and enjoy writing, I must remember why I am to write. Recently at my writing group I heard a quote that said, "Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer." I think that this really speaks to me and helps me realize what my true purpose behind writing should be. I think I often try to make some great philosophical point in my writings so that others see me as being thought provoking or more spiritual, there are other times where I really just write from the heart. I think it is those times that I feel more at peace with my writing. When I just open up my heart to reveal everything that is there good or bad, I feel that is when I am most comfortable with my writing. I tend to get nervous or dissatisfied with my writing when I do it for the possibility of getting recognition.

A couple weeks ago, I was in Chile on a missions trip. We arrived on Saturday morning after a long, 18 hour flight. I was of course tired, having slept only 3 hours on the plane ride, however, as it is said, there is no rest for the weary. My dad and I went to our host’s house where I spent a bit of the day meeting the family and friends. I was asked to speak that night at the young adult gathering, so for part of the day I was also putting the final touches on my talk. The whole day I was worried about what I was going to say. I was worried that I was going to provide a message that was either culturally irrelevant or wouldn’t be well received by those listening. My stomach was even a bit upset over the whole thing further complicating matters. Finally, I thought about what it was that God wanted me to say, and that it was God who wanted me to say it. It was then that I was reminded, that if I do something for the Lord then what can possibly stand against me. If I am in step with the Spirit and following Jesus then it matters little what anyone else thinks about me, a concept that I seem to be in constant need of reminding. I gave the talk on the Prodigal Son and brought my own life story into it. I was open and vulnerable with it and afterward I received some great feedback concerning it and found that it had been used by God to impact several people in the congregation. I knew that I had done it not for my own recognition but for God's.

That Monday we left for a small coastal town in Chile where we were to build a house for a woman whose home was destroyed in the Tsunami almost a year ago. While we had some power tools, most of the work was to be done with a hammer and nails. The task for the first day was to simply get the floor completely finished and move onto putting up a couple walls. Throughout the first couple hours of the task, I began to develop blisters on my hands. By the time the floor was finished and the walls up, I had some pretty bad blisters which I subsequently popped. The thing was I didn’t once look at my watch during that time. I just kept working on the house until my host mentioned it was time to eat and then leave around 7 o’clock at night.

The next day we again set to work on the house, working as hard as we could trying to get as much done as possible. We started to get the roof installed that day, which meant that I spent a decent amount of time on top of the house arranging the rafters. The sun was high that day in the middle of the hot Chilean summer. I could feel it warm on my neck as I continued to hammer in the nails into the roof with my blistered hands. We worked for hours that day and yet again 7 o’clock rolled in and it was time to leave and I had yet to look at my watch during the day.

The final day of working on the house was much like the other two, except now I had a bad sunburn and blisters, that had begun to callous. I worked without complaint and without looking at my watch. I thought about that during the rest of my trip because under any other circumstances I would have checked my watch to determine how much longer I was going to be there. Many times on other jobs, I have counted down the hours till I was off or the countless times in school where I would stare at the clock waiting for it to dismiss from class. Here I was, with blisters on my hands and a sunburn that had started to blister and peel and I was perfectly content in working and staying as long as I had to. I wasn’t getting paid to be there, I was simply there building a house for a woman because it was what God had asked of me at the time. It reminds me of Bach. Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the most renowned composers of all time and is in the company of composers such as Beethoven and Mozart. There is something however that separates him from his peers. He would end all of his compositions with the letters SDG, which stood for Soli Deo Gloria or To the Glory of God Alone. Bach chose to do all of his composers in praise of God. It was not his desire to gain attention for himself, but rather he did it to bring pleasure to God.

This should be our model as well. We see that Jesus did the same thing throughout scripture. He always pointed to God. In John 7, we see Jesus interacting with the crowds and in verse 16 He says, "My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me." Jesus always points back to His Father. While Jesus always managed to do it, we certainly struggle significantly more. We do things to bring glory to ourselves often and have to constantly remind ourselves to do things for God's glory and not our own. A friend at a camp once told me that if the kids leave singing our praises then we have missed our mission. When people looked at the disciples in Acts they knew that their confidence and passion was not from them, but from God. We should strive for the same. Let our passion and love for others show Christ to others. May we give all the glory to God so that we become less and He becomes more.