You are Not What You Do

Ernest Hemingway said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

Well, I was bleeding now.

Proverbs says that wounds from a friend can be trusted. So maybe I could trust these wounds, but you know what? Wounds still hurt. You still bleed from them.

We were talking about writing, a friend and I. I’ve spent a lot of time and a lot of effort in my craft. I sculpt sentences to bring tears or laughter. I communicate truth through story. I polish verbs and nouns until entire senences and paragraphs shine.

But she told my my writing was robotic. Unemotional. Uninspired. Inhuman.

Ouch.

My initial reaction was anger. Someone stabs you, you want to stab them back, you know? What did she know about writing? Look, I’ve spent a lot of time on this. Maybe you’re just nuts!

And then I brooded. I licked my wounds and mulled over them. Was it true? Were all the people who complimented my writing just plain wrong? Were they the ones who were nuts? Or were they just placating me because it was easier than telling me the truth?

I’ve had a lot of criticism thrown my way. You can’t live as a pastor without some kind of criticism, justified or not. I’ve learned how to deal with most kinds of criticism. But this one, this one hurt.

There’s a reason.

You see, I’m a writer.
It’s what defines me.

I spend so much time with words and word processors that when someone tells me my writing is bad I can’t process their words.

And so when someone says I’m a bad writer, they’re not simply attacking something I wrote. They’re attacking me, personally. They’re striking at my very identity. If I’m not a writer, I’m a nobody. I have no worth. I’m human skin wrapped around refuse.

You know what I’m talking about? When you do something so much that what you do is who you are? And then someone attacks that activity, and it hurts. Or you realize that maybe you’re not that good at what you do, and you’re lost?

Yeah.

This is what I needed to be reminded of: I write. And that’s a good thing. It is a skill that God has given me.

But I am not my skills.
I am not what I do.

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

I Peter 2:9

I am a chosen person.

Not chosen because of my skills. God chose me before I ever exercised my skills. Before I learned my first story, God chose me. Before I wrote anything, God chose me. Through my baptism I belong to God.

I write. But that’s not what I am.

I am a child of God.

And if I am a child of God who writes, well, even if my writing is bad, I’m still a child of God. If my writing is robotic, I’m still a child of God. If my writing is uninspired, I am still a child of God.

So maybe it’s a wound, sure, but it’s more like stubbing my toe than a knife to the kidney. It hurts, and I might limp a little, but it’s not going to kill me. It’s not worth brooding over. Maybe I consider how to grow in my skills. Maybe I think about my stewardship of time and talent. But I’m not dying. My identity isn’t threatened. After all, I’m not what I do.

And you: You are not what you do. Thank God for that, huh? You’re not defined by your talents. You’re not defined by what other people think of your abilities.

You’re a child of God.