A sweet woman recently approached me after a speaking engagement and asked if I had ever thought about writing a book.  Not only had I thought about it I have one started.  The woman told me that she owned a publishing company and that she could read some of my stuff and give me some direction on getting published.  Although I don’t believe in signs, did I mention that the lady was Japanese, like me? C’mon.  That’s got to be a sign.

As I thought and prayed about all of this there were two problems.  They are the same problems I have been having lately in getting inspired to even write my blog.  The  first problem is busyness.  Not so much my busyness because unfortunately lately I am learning that if God calls me to write a book, climb a tree or get involved with an inner city orphan, I’m eventually going to obey that call no matter how busy I am.  The bigger problem is everyone else’s busyness.  In the past two weeks I have spent about 90 minutes writing two blogs that were really bad.  After wasting all that time I wondered why I spend time writing blogs when if I’m honest, I wouldn’t even read.  Not that it isn’t REALLY good stuff (sarcasm font), but there are a million blogs, a million books, a million other things competing for our time and energy.  Why should I spend an hour writing a blog entry or a year writing a book that most everyone is really just too busy to read?  The second problem is pretty straight forward.  I do not believe the world needs another book, at least not from me.

Nonetheless, I will pray about it.  I know that sounds cliché but there are a few things I take very seriously in my faith.  One is that when an opportunity presents itself, I need to pray about it.  If it is an opportunity that God has given me, I don’t want to miss it.  If it isn’t an opportunity from God, I don’t want to miss that either.  Every opportunity isn’t from God but fortunately when I pray about them, God has been pretty faithful in showing me one way or the other. He is rarely quick in answering and it isn’t always the answer I want, but life is too short and missing God given opportunities matters too much to fail to pray.  Maybe you are facing a decision today or have an opportunity that you aren’t sure about.  I have learned that thinking about it, talking about it, saying you will pray about it or just avoiding it all together are never good substitutes for really, repeatedly and passionately praying about it.