So in my last blog post, I talked about how and why this blog site came to be about. Then I ended it talking about the hesitation I had with writing in this blog and it moving to a new “post”. Well that new post is a book.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve had ideas pop into my head that I thought would make a great story. So I’d write them down and tell myself I would work on it later. Only problem is that I almost never went back to those ideas.

In January, I sat down and just started putting a couple of sentences together. I kind of had an idea of what I wanted to write, but not a complete story. Which makes it hard to want to keep writing. It’s also hard to keep writing when you don’t really know why you feel like God is calling you to do it. I wasn’t all that motivated. I didn’t believe I was any good. And I didn’t know how I was going to come up with a whole book when all I had thought of so far was little snippets of scenes, none of which connected in any way whatsoever.

Then, in February I posted a blog called Defining Moments. In it I talked about a moment I had with Jesus when He showed me the why to my writing. And it was from that moment that a story began to form in my heart.

So now I have a story and a reason for it, but there’s also still a hesitation. What’s the hesitation? To start. Just like with other things, I know I want or need to do it and I know how to do it, but I hesitate to even open my computer. I’ll turn on my TV or open a book instead. But then I have these moments where I force myself to open my computer, go to that file, and start writing. And when I do that, I feel like I could write for hours. Sometimes I do write for hours.

So why do I hesitate to even open my computer?

I keep telling myself that I’m being lazy and procrastinating, but I learned recently that there may just be a little more to it than that.

I watched a sermon by Steven Furtick the other day called “The Pressure to Perform”. At first glance of the title, I thought the message wasn’t for me, so when I originally saw it on YouTube I didn’t click on it. Minutes after I passed it up, a friend sent it to me. I took the Holy Spirit hint and watched it. I am so glad I did because in it he talked about how hard it can be to handle the pressure from something that you’ve never experienced before. Here’s a quote from it…

“His pressure in his own life paralyzed him, like pressure often can when you find yourself in a situation where you have not been exposed to that particular responsibility. And now you are responsible for something that you’ve never been exposed to. It can create a lot of pressure…”

Now, I know this quote is specifically talking about his dad and his own situation, but I feel like it gave me some revelation.

Maybe I hesitated to even start writing because I couldn’t see the purpose in it. And now that I see the purpose, maybe I hesitate because I now realize the responsibility that comes with this purpose. Responsibility for something that I’ve never been exposed to. Responsibility for something that I’ve never attempted before. Responsibility for something that is so much bigger than me.

I think there may be moments when I need to turn my brain off and rest, which makes being motivated to write difficult. But I also think there are moments when I let the pressure from this responsibility God has given to me get to me.

Now I know how to better pray and push through the hesitation.