Words
GCD Weekly Newsletter, Wednesday 9th August 2023
“What’s a word that captures how you experienced your teenage years?”
— Jason Kovacs
I didn’t have to stop to think, I just wrote my answer.
“Failure”
That word defined me from childhood until one day in my late teens when God set me free. What’s more, he used the word ‘failure’ to do it. What Kovacs pinpointed in his question is the power even a single word can have to tell a story, to encapsulate emotions, or to build and break us.
As you might imagine I spend much of my time drawing out the meanings of words and working on how to order them so as to best make my points. As a writer that is—as we would say in the UK—my bread and butter. The “how” of writing, therefore, is fairly simple, if not always easy. We all know how writing or speaking words works in theory—what sometimes baffles us is “why?”
Why write? Why read? Why did she say it like that? Why is he texting me at this hour? Why did they call me that? Why didn’t I write to her sooner? Why did we use those words?
Whether we’re writers or readers, preachers or church members, each of us spends our day saturated in a world full of words. We often use them incorrectly or unwisely, we write things we shouldn’t and we get mad when others do the same to us. Whilst this week two out of three of the articles I’d like to share with you are aimed at writers, why not go ahead and dive in even if that’s not you?
In addition, the second article isn’t about writing words, or discerning how to deal with the words of others, but about memorising the most important words we could ever hope to find. Whoever and wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, and however this newsletter finds you, that is a worthy endeavour.
Grace and Peace,
Adsum Try Ravenhill is married to Anna and together they are passionate about seeing young men and women discipled within the context of the local church. You can find Adsum through his writing at The Raven’s Writing Desk and you can also find Adsum’s articles for GCD here.
Last Week at GCDiscipleship.com
Wisdom To Bolster Writers
Writers Q&A with Tim Challies
“Writing is not just a task, but a life. That being the case, a lot of my life is related to my writing. Though I don’t do my morning devotions asking, “What can I write based on this?” I often find an idea coming to mind as I read and pray. When I work my way through books, there are often words, phrases, or ideas I jot down to return to and think about in the future.”
Want To Love the Lord More Deeply? Memorize His Word
by Glenna Marshall
“…each time I returned to Colossians to work on memorization, my uncertainties evaporated before the truths about Christ. I would have been encouraged and built up by simply studying that passage for a day or two, but to dive into it, to saturate my mind with the knowledge of Jesus, to spend weeks there mumbling the words aloud to myself—memorization solidified those comforting truths about Jesus in my heart. I moved on from that passage with deeper love for Christ as well as a better understanding of his love and care for me. Time spent knowing the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in Scripture will lead to deeper affection for God and certainty of his love for us.”
GCD Writers’ Coaching Corner Hauntingly, Disturbingly Profound
by Benjamin Vrbicek