Why blog?
Category: Faith... Navel Gazing... Thinking Allowed...
Posted Thursday, October 06, 2005 at 09:52 AM [GMT-6]

Contrary to what some who give me way too much credit believe, when I posted this a couple of days ago, I had nothing in mind in terms of placing any responses into an overarching context. I was simply curious about how fellow bloggers viewed their own work.

But, I never cease to be amazed at how the intricate tracings of God's hand form pictures of surpassing beauty and joyful symmetry out of what I initially perceive to be random and unrelated occurrences.

And so another picture began to come into focus when I opened an email last night and read these words:

The identity of the writer isn't important to the telling of this story, and I wouldn't reveal it anyway out of respect for him, but he's been a regular visitor around these parts for a while. I can't begin to express how humbling it is to read something like he wrote.

In a subsequent email he shared with me the exact thing that I wrote that caused this epiphany of sorts...and it was almost a throwaway comment that I frankly had no recollection of making. But it made an impact on him.

Which brings us in a big circle back to the original point of this post. When I asked other bloggers how they defined blogging success, I didn't anticipate that God was going to reveal to me what my answer needed to be to that question.

That answer is similar to what many of the respondents wrote: success is not measured in numbers of readers, but in the impact made upon them, whether in terms of stimulating conversation, providing encouragement, issuing challenges, etc.

I encourage other bloggers -- especially those who are seeking to share their faith and spiritual perspectives, no matter how covertly -- to remember that the ideal audience for your blog can number as few as one, as long as it's the "right one." Fortunately, God seems to have a way of taking care of that aspect, so we don't have to worry about it.

In addition, the thought that our simplest words can have great impact on others ought to instill in us a sense of great humility and awe: humility in that none of us is wise enough to fully anticipate and understand how we can either encourage or hurt with our words...awe in how wonderfully God's grace can bend the results of those words to His perfect will.

For me, the words of my friend -- whom I've never met, by the way, and perhaps never will, this side of heaven -- encourage me to keep on keeping on. I share them in the hope that you, too, will be likewise encouraged. Who knows? You might just open an amazing and unexpected email tonight...