We’re more than authors. More than Christians.

We’re children of God. Co-heirs with Christ.

We are the BRIDE of Christ.

So when we sit down to write our novels, we are not just putting words to page, or crafting something of make believe for entertainment.

We are also revealing God.

Come on, Rachel, how can that be?

Romans 1:20 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

We are His creation. What we create is His creation.

I like to say, “If I’m found in Him, and my characters are found in me, then my characters are found in Him.”

Jesus was a story teller. Why? To get His point across. When the disciples asked Jesus a question nine times out of ten He answered, “Let me tell you a story.”

A few days ago while writing How To Catch A Prince, the third Royal Wedding book, the heroine made a comment, “Did I love well?”

I was so struck by this I began to ponder “loving well” myself.

The concept stayed with me all week. It’s with me now. “How do I love well?”

I felt the Lord was enlightening my heart with His heart. Love well.

While writing “Tying the Knot” Susie dealt with the aftermath of a home invasion from her final months in Russia. She was home with the children when a couple of men broke in and held a knife at her throat.

“God healed me with every line I wrote for Tying the Knot,” she said.

Most of my author friends have similar testimonies of God healing them or God revealing something of Himself while they hammered away on their stories.

Readers write to tell me how a line or scene in one of my books inspired them or healed them or prompted them to consider a side of God they’d never seen before.

Stories are powerful. They can bring light or they can bring darkness.

Let me challenge you: As a writer, what kind of “light” do you bring to your stories. What kind of truth.

You’ve heard it said, “You are what you eat?”

I say, “You are what’s eating you!”

“You are what you behold.”

Do you behold Light or Dark?

We can reflect Jesus in our stories in soooo many ways. We don’t have to be dogmatic and preach the four spiritual laws or have a salvation message.

We can show love. We can demonstrate forgiveness, mercy and hope. We can reveal truth. All through the eyes of our characters.

It comes from within us as we behold Him. As we pray. As we worship. As we seek Him.

I don’t plan my spiritual plots. I let them flow out of the story. I figure that’s the part the Holy Spirit gets to reveal to me. And the reader. 🙂

Look, don’t go hyper spirit on me. I’m not trying to over spiritualize writing.

There’s no way the Holy Spirit is going to write a story through you unless you do the work. The hard work of planning and processing and actually putting your backside in a chair.

But in the midst of your labor, He takes pleasure in you and pours out His anointing.

Bono of U2 fame once said, “I pray all the time for the Lord to bless my work. A pastor once said to me, ‘Find what God is doing and do that… it’s already blessed.'”

But I say I found what He called me to do and did that: writing novels.

I think Bono IS doing what God is doing through his music. He is blessed. Then out of his abundant blessings ($$ anyone?) Bono went to the poor and the weak and offered $love.

But the Light in our writing has to come from being OPEN to Him. Trust Jesus to work in you and through you as your labor in your writing. He will bless it.