This post is part of the Poured Forth Blog Post Series: 1 2 3 4 5 6 [7] 8 9
Poured Forth is also available as a book: Poured Forth
In February 2024, multiple streams converged in a series of dramatic events in my creative life. It all happened so fast that it’s difficult now to even put the events in order. It feels like they happened all at once.
The night that stands out as the ignition point was February 21, 2024. It was a regular Wednesday night meeting of our church’s small group. These “LifeGroups” meet once a week in someone’s home to worship, pray, and study the Bible together. The meeting was proceeding like every other week, and everyone was taking turns praying for each other. I had just finished praying for another couple that had some areas of life where they needed the Lord to work miracles.
The praying ended, and everyone looked up in a quiet, reverent moment. Then our friend Deborah (which is not her real name), who was sitting across the room, suddenly turned the attention of the group toward me.
She said, “While we were praying I suddenly had a vision in my mind about you. It was in a forest of redwood trees, and you were like a small seedling in the midst of those trees. I feel like the Lord is going to increase your voice and grow you up among those tall trees, and that this group needs to pray for you.”
After she said this, the LifeGroup came over and surrounded me. Placing their hands on me, they prayed that all that Deborah had seen and said would happen. They prayed that the Lord would begin to speak through me in a new way, and that I would begin to grow up like the seedling among the redwood trees she had seen in her mind. After a few minutes of fervent prayer, the meeting continued as normal.
Later, as I drove home and entered our neighborhood after the meeting, lines from a new poem unexpectedly began to form in my mind. Within minutes I had the entire poem. It was the first poem I had written in 19 years. To be honest, I had thought I was done writing poetry, and I was not even thinking about it any more, so I was overjoyed to suddenly have this new poem.
God didn’t stop there though. The next morning, February 22, I woke up with another poem in my head which I typed down as I got ready for work. Then while I was driving to work a third poem came, which I typed out as soon as I got to my office. That poem is 60 lines long and tells a story in rhymed meter. That afternoon, when I got home from work, I wrote down a fourth poem.
Three more poems came in the following two days. Altogether, after writing no poems whatsoever for nineteen years, I wrote seven poems in three days after Deborah’s encouraging word and the group laying hands on me and praying.
God was bringing another journey to a destination also. For some time, I had been watching videos and reading articles on SellingJesus.org. On YouTube, they have a series of videos decrying what they call “the Jesus trade.” As I watched these videos and read these articles, I became increasingly disgusted at all the ways that ministry gets commercialized. Actually, I was feeling quite self-righteous about it all.
I often watch YouTube on my laptop while cleaning up the dishes. One day in late February 2024, probably soon after the LifeGroup meeting where Deborah spoke about the redwoods, I was standing at the sink rewatching the third episode of the “Selling Jesus” YouTube documentary series. The episode talks about how publishers of biblical studies resources harm pastors and Bible translators around the world who cannot afford their high prices. As usual, I was feeling pretty good about looking down on them for their callous greed.
At 3:12 in the video, the narrator looks at the camera and says the following:
“The Word has always been intended to be a shared family feast, enjoyed together as the Church without hindrance. But imagine that, as you sit at the table, you say to your rich brother, ‘Could you please pass the potatoes?’ And he responds, ‘Pay me first.’ Or ‘Fill out this form, and maybe I’ll give you permission to have some.’ Does this kind of attitude belong at a family meal? … Do you think that our Master who provided this fine meal is impressed when we charge those around us for every helping? Is he pleased when we block the hungry brothers and sisters sitting next to us from partaking simply because they haven’t got the money?”
I continued watching (and feeling self-righteous indignation against the “evil” publishers). The video showed an Egyptian Bible student who shared that it cost half of a month’s salary to buy a single book. “It’s really hard to spend that much money on one book when you’re trying to feed your family,” he said. Next a theology professor from Brazil discussed how hard it is for South Americans to get the electronic Bible-study resources they need.
And then the interview began that changed my creative life. It was with Dr. Liriano, a Bible translation consultant from Dominican Republic. He spoke in Spanish, with subtitles. Dr. Liriano began speaking:
“The average salary prevents you from continuously buying books…”
I thought about all the Christian books I had purchased in the past year. I had at least 20 Christian books sitting in my kitchen alone, with dozens more in my office and on my phone. There were at least 15 translations of the Bible neatly arrayed on my bookshelves.
“…For example, a master’s degree taught in Spanish online is $200 per month. If you earn $400 a month, it’s impossible for you to do.”
I thought about how much I had spent at restaurants in the past several weeks. My self-righteous shell began to crack a little. Perhaps it wasn’t just the publishers who were the problem. Dr. Liriano was still talking. I set my dish scrubber down in the sink and leaned over the laptop.
“…it’s basically impossible for a person to pay $1,000, $1,500, $600, only to later buy more materials for $20, $100, $200. Our economic reality doesn’t allow for that…”
Then he said the line that broke me:
“I can tell you that maybe I’m paid a higher salary than the average person in my country, but there are resources that I could never afford…”
There was an awkward pause while the translation subtitles caught up to the next phrase.
“…resources that I could never afford that I would like to have.”
In an instant, the closing lyrics of my dissertation composition flashed across my mind: “…whoever will, let him take the water of life, freely” (Revelation 22:17, Webster’s Translation). I realized I was at that very moment selling that composition and many others about the Lord on my website. I had the water of life locked behind a paywall!
An avalanche of realization poured down on me. I had dozens of hymn arrangements for sale—how could I monetize the struggles and hopes of those great writers of the past, my brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers in the faith? I had dozens and dozens of Christmas carols for sale—and what had I done to cause Jesus to be born? I had dozens of Christ-honoring poems locked away under copyright. I had hundreds of photographs of God’s beautiful creation that nobody could see, let alone use as God might direct. And all of these things were scattered across backup hard drives and folders in my office in places where even my wife wouldn’t know to look if I were to die.
Suddenly I sensed the Holy Spirit speaking:
“You are the one who has locked away what should be freely given!”
“You are the one who has not shared the gifts the Lord has given you with your brothers and sisters around the world!”
“You are that rich brother at the table who refuses to share the family meal!”
In that terrible moment, I buried my head in my arms on the counter and wept uncontrollably. And then, much like Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, I resolved to change.
This post is part of the Poured Forth Blog Post Series: 1 2 3 4 5 6 [7] 8 9
Poured Forth is also available as a book: Poured Forth
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