The want to be brilliant

I often want, and it is my flesh that wants it, to be thought of as brilliant. I sadly, can see my self like the boy in the now infamous "Christmas Story," who before turning in his essay, imagines the joy and amazement with which his teacher and classmates receive his latest writings. Although I try to keep that plane tethered to the tarmac, once in a while, I see it taxiing down the runway.

You can take a page and write about anything, and if you do it often enough, you'll develop a style of writing. You can be as clever as you want, be coy or even silly. But when you endeavor to write about life in reference to Christ, all of our verbose nonsense has to be put away. You see, the trick to good Christian writing, is to put Christ in the center of it. All of our desires for adulation have to be put under subjection. That's why Paul said I beat my body into submission, so that I won't become a castaway after I have preached to others. Castaway, in the King James Version, what the potter throws out, cracked pots, useless vessels. So then, the only thing that remains brilliant in our writing is Christ.