“Who Cares What You Think?” – A Lie Told To Keep You From Writing
Why Haven’t You Begun to Write?
Have you ever thought about writing a book, even for just a second, then quickly brushed the thought aside? As soon as you think you might have something worth writing your mind quickly fills with thoughts like, ‘Who wants to read what I think?’ That’s the mentality of an oppressed person.
We always think other people should write. Even with all the books in existence today, a very small percentage of people become published authors. The most generous calculations reveal that the percentage of people who publish a book is between 1 and 2 percent. What differentiates those people from you? You have ideas, you have experiences, you know how to read.
So, what’s stopping you?
Dr. Myles Munroe was one of the most prolific and influential authors of our generation. He has published over a hundred books in over 60 languages, making the best-seller’s list dozens of times. There are many successful Christian authors, however Dr. Myles surpasses them all because of his approach to and philosophy on writing books. For those of you familiar with Dr. Myles, you knew him as a professor and pursuer of purpose, leadership, and the kingdom. There was always a strategic purpose behind every book he ever published. He didn’t just teach about leadership, he was a leader who embodied the principles he taught. Below we review his philosophy on why it is your obligation to write.
Why You Need Write
A book is an idea container. Books transmit ideas. For thousands of years throughout civilizations, oppressors have known this. That’s why they would always make sure the people they were oppressing never learned to read. Oppression takes away self-worth. A lack of self-worth spills into your thought life. If you believe you’re not worth anything, you’ll believe your thoughts aren’t worth anything either. Oppression is preserved through the maintenance of ignorance.
It’s interesting to note the Hebrew word for ‘knowledge’ is the same as the word for ‘light.’ Consequently, the word for ‘ignorance’ in Hebrew is the same as the word for ‘darkness.’ If you want to keep someone in the dark you keep them from the light. The way you maintain oppression is to maintain darkness.
What story is living inside of you right now that the devil is trying to convince you no one wants to read? He’s trying to convince you to keep people in darkness. Are you falling for it?
Writing a book is the transmission of light. The book you have inside of you right now could change someone’s life. It could completely alter the trajectory of a family. It could impact an entire nation.
3 Profound Truths About Writing
God Places Great Value On Writing
There are several scriptures throughout the Bible where God told Moses to write (Ex.17:14; 24:4; 34:27-29; Num. 33:1-2; Deut. 31:9-11). Writing is so powerful that God Himself prepared Moses to write. Think of this. Moses didn’t grow up with his people, he was raised in Egypt. Egyptians were the first civilization to create parchment or papyrus reed. It was God’s plan to have Moses grow up within the civilization that created paper. It was part of God’s plan for Moses to be adopted by the Pharaoh’s daughter, raised in the prince’s court and attend the first university in the world. God was preparing Moses to write from the time he was born.
As you read this, you know where your species originated from. You understand how God created man and you know that because God created a plan for Moses to write and publish the first five books of the Bible. God places great value on writing and so should you.
2. You Owe It To Your Generation and the Ones to Come
Writing is the most powerful contribution you can make to your generation and the generations after you. The world as we know it is ruled by dead men. Everything you believe today is an idea that originated from someone who’s dead, but because they left their ideas on paper, those ideas still have a profound impact today.
America is ruled and governed by dead men. There’s no politician alive who ran on a new or unique idea. Who really rules America? Plato, Socrates and Aristotle–the men who penned the first democratic ideologies over 2500 years ago. They wrote, they died and their ideas outlived them.
When you write you are engaging in a dangerous act–you are leaving behind ideas that will outlive you and affect generations after you. Writing causes you to live forever on the Earth through your ideas. Learning what and how to write is the most powerful act you can perform to guarantee life after death.
If you died today, everything you know would die with you. That would make you a generational thief. No matter how well you did while you were living, if you don’t document what you’ve done, it will die with you.
If you don’t write and record your history and experiences, someone else will write your history for you. It has been the curse of every oppressed people in history. Oppression strips the ability of entire groups of people to record their perspective of their own history. History is always told from the viewpoint of the victor. The oppressor’s perspectives of historical events have shaped identities and entire belief systems for centuries.
Every believer’s identity is found in Christ, but the ultimate oppressor is the devil. If he has his way, your story and everything you know will die with you. Only you know the truth about you. God granted you the ability to write it down.
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, ‘Thy God reigneth!’ “
3. Documented Ideas Gain Credibility and Influence
This can be both positive and negative because the wrong ideas can gain credibility just as easily as the right ones. The credibility behind what you say is enhanced when it’s in a book. For some psychological reason, when people read ideas in a book, they automatically believe them to be true. If your idea is God-breathed, you should seek to have it gain credibility and influence.
Publishing multiplies the experience and expansion of your ideas and makes them influential. When you write a book, you have put your ideas in a form that can multiply their reach. You never know what can happen to your ideas. There are 8 billion people living on Earth. Although we’ve reached a time when the majority of people have internet access, there are still 2.9 billion people without access to the web. Your book can reach people living in the dark.
Maybe you’re believing God for financial a breakthrough and hidden inside you is a best-selling author, but you don’t believe your ideas are worth writing down. Start associating who you are in Christ with your obligation to write. Your ideas are worth documenting because you have the mind of Christ living inside of you.
“Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others. For, ‘Who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him?’ But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.”
