Keeping It All in Perspective

ACFWAdvice, Encouragement, Friends of ACFW, writing Leave a Comment

By C. Kevin Thompson

Among the many hats I wear, I am a Gospel for Asia Blogger. Started by K. P. Yohannon years ago, Gospel For Asia has been a stalwart missionary agency for Asia, bringing the gospel to a region of the world many of us just wouldn’t understand. When Dalits (otherwise known as “Untouchables”) rummage through garbage, looking for food amongst dire, disease-ridden areas, it breaks my heart to think the religious caste system in which they find themselves is something they can never scale. It breaks my hearts even more when I hear writers and actors, like on The Big Bang Theory, use these people as a punch line.

Then, there’s the man who spoke at our church recently. He represented Far Reaching Ministries. They minister in the area of South Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, Congo, as well as South Africa and Russia. The speaker focused mainly on their chaplain ministry in South Sudan. The pictures of northern Sudanese bombers, leveling villages while women and children who survived hid in foxholes, brought tears to our eyes. Other stories of Sudanese women, brutally mutilated for cultural and political advantages, are hellish on so many levels.

So, when I sit down and write my little stories, it causes me to pause. The hurt of the masses cries out to God. The need is so great. What can I do?
The Serpent's Grasp frontcover
Pray. For those lost in darkness to find the Way, the Truth, and the Life. For those who bring the goodness of the Gospel by foot, motorcycle, bicycle, or any which way, to find protection by legions of angels.

Give. I have more than I think. And when I see hundreds of little children being taught the ways of God in a Christian school in Haiti, in a building that’s half-completed, knowing that many of them walked ten miles and more one way to attend, and will do so at the end of the day, I must stop and reflect on the blessings of God in my own life and offer to help in some financial way.

Write. God has given me a gift. One I wish to use for His glory. So, how do I work that into my fiction? It seems miniscule by comparison, until I ask Almighty God how I may use my words to change lives. It is then when my fingers cannot fly fast enough. It is then my finite mind cannot keep up with eternal download from heaven.

I have no idea how my prayers effect change. I feel like my measly offering is, in the words of Jacob Marley, “but a drop in the comprehensive ocean of my business.” And my writing? Who knows who reads it?

But if one person does, and that life is finally challenged to get out of the pew and do great things for God, praise God. If my words on the page cause a lost soul to ask for divine intervention in a great time of need, praise God. If the truths contained in my adventures releases a life from the stranglehold of sin, praise God.

For in the end, will I not be throwing my awards, my published works, and whatever else God graces me with in the future at the foot of His throne?

Yes. So my hands will be free to worship.

Kevin RobersonC. Kevin Thompson’s debut novel, The Serpent’s Grasp, won the 2013 BRMCWC Selah Award (Fiction-First Novel category). His second novel, 30 Days Hath Revenge, was an award winner, too. When he’s not creating new fiction, he’s writing for four blogs, and enjoying his family. Visit Kevin @ www.ckevinthompson.com.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *