Reflections on Realizing That People Actually Read What I Write

Everyone who writes, whether they write songs, novels, magazine columns, screenplays, poetry, news analysis, or blogs, have one thing in common: They want what they write to be read.

They may be driven by hubris, insecurity, a desire to inform, the hope to transform, or a combination of these and other motives. But nobody who writes, unless they're simply jotting notes in personal diaries, writes thinking, "I sure hope nobody reads this."

As I write the entries on this blog each day, I hope, even pray, that more readers will find it today than did yesterday. That's why I check the "hit count" with great interest several times a day.

In recent weeks, the audience for Better Living has been growing and that's gratifying and exciting.

But it's also jarring and genuinely humbling.

Earlier today, I was chatting with an impressive young man I've come to know in recent months. He's the president of our county's OSU Alumni Association. He'd returned a phone message I'd left with him, apologizing that I had missed a meeting in which potential scholarship recipients from our area were interviewed. This blog came up in the conversation and he mentioned that because of a reference in my recent series on goal-setting from a Christian perspective, he'd bought a copy of Gerald Sittser's book on "the will of God as a way of life."

This evening, during a Bible study at our church's building, a young woman mentioned a story I had told in that same series of blog posts.

As a writer, I hope and pray that I have things worth reading, things that people find helpful or meaningful or informative or even entertaining. But somehow, actually running into folks who affirm that what I've written actually fufills one or all of those hopes and prayers takes me aback.

And it humbles me because I can honestly say that whatever good readers find in these posts doesn't come from me. The good in these pieces, as is true of me as a human being, is a God thing, completely and totally. Jesus once told His disciples, "Without Me, you can do nothing." Over the years, I have learned that's true of me in spades. The instant I forget that is also the instant that this blog slips into worthlessness.

To the growing group of people who frequent this blog and who tell their friends about it, thank you. I hope that it continues to be helpful to you and others for as long as God lets me write it!