When you write for an audience, the feeling is different than if you write for yourself. It’s more refined, and it goes through a series of checklists. You take into consideration things like how something sounds, how it would be perceived and received, and you are ever aware of the implications what you write may or may not carry.

Sometimes that’s a heavy weight. You refrain from clauses or phrases that could be misunderstood or misperceived. You clean up rambles. You write from a 360degree angle instead of a 45degree — meaning at 360degrees you try to perceive every angle around your written statement and make sure it bears up under scrutiny. In contrast, at 45degrees, you basically throw your thought out there without necessarily qualifying it.

And sometimes I just want to write in the raw, without the checklist I go through to see if my words could be used against me, misunderstood, or be inflammatory. I just want to be raw, (or unplugged — as a musician would say).

But the weight of responsibility of the written word restrains me. In teaching I would never write in the raw. But in sharing thoughts, I’d like to, once in awhile.

So I might do that one of these days….put some thoughts out in the raw. They may be thoughts I haven’t researched and can’t qualify. They might be a rant about something that I just need to release. They might not make sense, and I might regret them later. They might (and probably will) be in error on some level.

I don’t need an audience, but sometimes I have one. I don’t need or want followers. The responsibility is too heavy. I am keenly aware that I’m going to be wrong on some of my thoughts. We’re works in progress, and what we know to be truth today can easily change tomorrow. I hate that my errors of yesterday can be used against me today, especially when I have corrected my error. (And a tangible written reminder of my prior errors is even worse.)

No, I don’t want followers.

But I love God so much. I love who He is and I love who we are. We have a relationship that is the most important thing to me. In learning about Him, I just want to share the revelations. One, because we talk about the things we love. We like to share them. Joys are multiplied when we share, just like sorrows are divided when we share. If I have a good friend, I talk about him (her). I want you to meet him or her. Two, because I’ve learned so much. I always think if I can be spared a lesson (really the consequences of the lesson is what I want spared from) you’ve learned, by all means, bring it! I don’t need the same spanking or sorrow that lesson brings. I’d love to avoid that. And three, because sometimes we need help getting from here to there. If it weren’t for some amazing people I’ve learned from, I’d be a sorrier mess than even now. That they took the time to share what they had learned, make God real, explain things I didn’t understand, etc., I have been able to navigate some tricky parts of life and faith, and I have been able to learn and grow.

So I just want to share God. And sometimes other things.

It has taken me decades to learn some things, like my writing. This thing happens that I’ve not really understood until the last decade or so, and it’s been a gradual revelation, like the light before the sunrise. However I’m wired, there is this thing in my wiring that only happens when I write.

I’ve taken in a lot of information in my life, literally thousands of hours learning (and unlearning). And it’s like all this data sits in some files somewhere in my brain, percolating. If someone asks me in person about a topic, I kind of stumble my way around the answer. Sometimes I can properly and adequately convey the information I have, but sometimes I just stumble through it ineffectively. But when I sit down to write, there’s something about the thoughts reaching the fingers for me. They organize differently. They come out almost effortlessly, and they come out in order (usually). While it’s still a labor, it’s an enjoyable labor (usually).

Also, frequently when I write, God just downloads to me as I’m writing. It’s like revelations fall into my spirit and come out my fingers. It is the coolest thing and I am usually the most surprised of all. I’ll go back and read and be like, wow! I didn’t even know I thought that! (hahahaha!)

I can get and be inspired when I speak. Some people prefer my speaking over my written word. They think it’s more real, and speaks to them better. And God is faithful to breathe on my spoken word when He’s trying to send a message through me (thankfully). But I think my greater gifting is writing.

All that said, I think once in awhile, I just want to sit down and write some thoughts without editing them along the way. I just want to let them be raw and unrefined and even in error, because it’s in the thinking out that the progress is made.