A Thoughtful Thought

This is the main body of an email I sent to one of my friends at church who happens to be an associate pastor. He's always been helpful about sounding things against, and he certainly has wisdom beyond his years. He treats me as an equal, which spurs me on to aim higher in thought (he is truly superior in intellect--this is not knocking me but elevating him). Not for the sake of the intellectualism of it all (though I can stand a shot or two of that once or twice a decade), but because it encourages me to want to be better. I think it's that whole "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another" idea. <self-deprecation>I have no idea what he gets out of the deal.</self-deprecation> I'm grateful he's around to challenge me.

I have a friend who's interested in reading my teaching on the book of John, and I was sending him email with my latest lesson before teaching as opposed to after teaching (as you can see, I finished quite late). I was including a note that I thought this lesson in particular was one of my best efforts at writing as a whole, all duly inspired by God of course (as I'm sure I've noted to you before, as well).

One of the things I've found frustrating is not being spontaneously inspired at the reading of Scripture. In particular, when I'm reading for teaching, I don't get much directly. It seems some of the time, I get none until I'm actually in class. (I remember one time that what came out of my mouth was nothing I had down on paper apart from some basic facts and verses.) But mostly, the inspiration comes while writing it down, and then it just flows. And I had this thought:

Sometimes, inspiration comes from the reading, and sometimes it comes from the writing.

I found that quite insightful and rather consoling at the same time. That kind of ties in with art being 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration, which defies the typical 80-20 rule, but you get my drift.