Why I Stopped Blogging for Months

I know, I know. It’s been…a while.

I was writing a book. From about last October through this Spring, I found myself at the creative process of word-smithing nearly all day, every day. Pouring my heart and soul into the book I have wanted to write for years. Especially at the end, in January and February, as my deadline loomed upon me, I found myself giving every ounce of creative voice to finish the manuscript, and the thought of then trying to write something else fresh and worthy of reading was simply beyond me.

But then I finished the manuscript, and couldn’t bring myself to resume blogging. Which touches on a deeper reason for my “silence.”

The world is filled with noise. With content. We are absolutely drowning in it. Some of you might remember the brilliant Disney short, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, where Mickey Mouse has enough magic to make the broom do his work, but it gets out of hand and eventually there are innumerable brooms dumping immeasurable pails of water and he is downing in it all and can’t make it stop.  That is our world today.

Texts. Tweets. Pokes. Posts. Facebook. Youtube. Blogs. Hulu. Google. Yahoo. ITunes. Cable. Sattelite. Podcasts. Emails. Updates. Facetime. AppleTV. Are you aware of how much content floods into your life each day??!!

I hate it, hate what it does to the human soul. I simple didn’t want to add to the noise. When an inundation of content, inspiration, story, news, anecdotes and such washes over our lives, we lose the ability to distinguish the value of any particular piece. Its not so much pearls before swine as it is pearls in a vast, rolling sea of bubbles.

So, I stopped blogging because I was giving my all to writing a new book (on Jesus, called Beautiful Outlaw; it comes out in October; you’re gonna love it). And then I couldn’t bring myself to resume blogging because I’m sickened by the bloat of content and everyone’s attempt to get your attention by making their content seem  more hip, cool, urgent, relevant, insightful, important. Shout louder. I hate that.

But then I realized this morning that what we all need is Jesus – himself, really. In our lives, really. Far more than information or inspiration or content or news or updates, we need Jesus. In fact, because of the inundation bloat we need Jesus. Jesus Really.

So here’s what I’m going to do…I’m going to resume blogging but in a very specific direction. I want to help us find Jesus, as often and as truly as we can possibly find him. If I can help with that, it would be worth writing about.