It’s been a good couple of weeks since i posted anything. Truthfully i have been a little busier lately. Distracted by the things that are indeed life. That’s not to say i have had no time to think…..I have, and I’ve been thinking and searching for inspiration. A few thoughts have come to me but with little substance to actually write about it. That has been a frustrating thing, but i realise that these things have to come about themselves. You don’t just write for the sake of writing. Well i can’t anyways. I feel like i only want the things i truly believe to be the things i endorse through writing.

For me a lot of what i have written starts as a simple thought. It starts with a thought that simply connects with the way i feel about something. Lately though those simple thoughts seemed to lead to a dead end.  You can spend so much energy on this that it becomes almost tiring.  You can pray, you can read things, but when the connection just doesn’t match up i have learned just to wait, and wait i did. That was until…..today!

This morning in church we had a guest speaker by the name of Lana Vawser.  Lana is what we call a prophetic mentor. She travels around ministering to churches and encouraging them and their people to seek out a greater intimacy with God. Whilst a lot of what she said this morning was not necessarily anything new to my ears it was in fact parts of her own story and experience that impacted on me.

Lana is also a writer and is set to release her second book very shortly. To hear of the experiences she encountered during her own process of writing was encouraging. It was encouraging because i too have felt the same things with myself. Writing takes time. There is a process and not often do you come out with 1000 words in 45 minutes or so. Okay, so that has happened, but more often i find it is something that happens with 2-3 paragraphs one day, perhaps the same again a day later. You read it to yourself later, touch it up some more and before you know it you have something that you’re happy with.

It was encouraging to hear Lana speak of the impact her words could have. Even when i was younger and writing simple little match reports for my friends and their Western Reds touch football team i would be told countless times how they enjoyed what i had written up that week. That was then, this is now.

In the 3 months since i began posting stuff publicly that same response has happened again. Some people simply encourage you for what you have done. Some go a little further and then encourage you to keep going and remind you that it is a gift and that gifts are there to be received by others.  Lana spoke of the way her words can impact people.  Words can guide people, they can encourage people. I’ve found too that people have been impacted by the words i have shared, and that it’s an important thing to be able use your words for good.

Perhaps the craziest thing i got out of Lana’s visit was when she admitted that she found it hard to believe she had actually written her books. That not just the experience she went through to get to that point, but also the content of what she had written seemed far beyond what she thought she was capable of. Okay, so obviously she did in fact write the content, but i can attest to the feeling of going back over something and thinking “Wow! Did i really write that?? How? “.

It’s a weird thing looking back at something you wrote and feel as if the words which so perfectly fit were actually your words.  Some of it i’m not sure how it comes about. I’m far from a scholar of the english language but when i read it back sometimes i’m left in awe that i actually put that together.  In my view i can only thank God for the way he has led me to the words i have put down.

Ultimately what today taught me is that all i needed was some inspiration in order to get moving again. For a couple of weeks prior to today it seemed that as much as i wanted to write, there simply wasn’t anything coming across my path. As i sat there in church on this Sunday morning it felt a little like i had a moment where i felt God telling me;

“Pete – i know you’ve been waiting and this is your moment. Be ready, write about it. Write about it because people are going to need to read this”

What are these people going to take from it? I have no idea?  Is what’s relevant to me also relevant to others? And is what i believe in all this actually true of other people too?? I really can’t answer that. However i hope that it is.

But maybe the idea of feeling inspired by something or for this day someone is all that’s needed.  Inspiration has a way of driving us in a certain direction. It has a way of determining a thought process. Inspiration has a clear path linking us to things we believe in. Without it it can feel like part of our identity is missing  or even as if we’re lost. We need to feel inspired in order to become the people we hope to be. Inspiration gives us strength, that’s how and why it drives us at the best of times.

Living inspired is something we all strive for at one point or another. For me i find it seems to be at its strongest when i’m focusing less on myself and more on the things around me. I’m probably guilty of focusing on myself a little too often that i can miss the moments before my eyes. However when i do happen to realise the moment it’s a powerful thing to understand why i am in that situation.

Sometimes though the moments don’t actually lead to jaw dropping breakthroughs or light bulb moments. Sometimes they’re just small nudges that push you closer to where you’re meant to be, and that’s okay. It might be a conversation with a someone that draws inspiration out of you or even just a 20 minute stroll along the beach that gets you thinking about stuff once again.  Either way, these are the moments that offer you a choice and a chance to turn one way or another.  The challenge then is to step out, and like on this particular Sunday morning. i certainly felt the challenge to follow up on what my own heart and mind was telling me. How do i know this? Because the proof is right here among these words.