Photo by John Brundage

“For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

Hi everyone.

Last year, Trevor announced me as a guest writer on this blog. Twenty-six posts later, I’ve come to the end of my commitment. I’m open to posting in the future, but I will no longer have regular posts. I’ve very much appreciated my time here. In addition to the gracious feedback from readers, I’ve grown a great deal as a writer. Collaborating with Trevor and having a regular posting schedule set by someone other than myself has given me the opportunity and motivation to write some of my best work. I’ve also managed to ramp up my output for my personal blog. I went from not even being able to handle publishing twice a month to getting out six posts a month between Trevor’s blog and my own.

There have been many starts and stops in my writing journey. Today I realize that a major factor holding me back was a fear that I would run out of ideas. I didn’t want to commit to a regular posting schedule unless I knew ahead of time what I’d write about. But over time, I’ve found that creative inspiration for me has been like mana in the desert was for the Israelites; I can’t store it up. For me, it’s something that emerges in the process of ‘doing.’

With both writing and language learning, I’ve come to understand that ‘doing’ i.e., practice, is the most crucial factor for growth and learning. Nate Solon, one of my favorite chess bloggers, gives this analogy:

Imagine I tell you that I’m trying to get better at basketball by reading a book about how to play. Well, okay. The culture of basketball doesn’t generally focus on transmitting information through books, but it seems plausible that someone could put down some helpful tips in a book format.

But now imagine that I tell you I’m actually reading not one, but many books on basketball. And when you ask if I’m supplementing all this reading with lots of practice, I say no, I’m waiting until I finish my stack of books before setting foot on the court. By this point you already know that my strategy for getting better at basketball is totally insane and has virtually no chance of working.

For my final spiritual reflection, I want to leave you with the suggestion that the same principle applies to the spiritual life. I’m proud of what I’ve written here. I think my reflections contain a lot of edifying and useful insights. But for these or any spiritual writing, nothing will come unless and until we get out there and put what we’ve learned into practice. 

I see so many people waiting to go deeper into their spiritual lives or holding themselves back from using their gifts for ministry. They think and say things like “I’ll get involved when I know what I’m doing” or “I’ll start getting more serious with God when I’ve cleaned up my life.” These are self-defeating beliefs. If you want to learn and grow, just start. Start before you’re ready; start before you’re qualified. You will sometimes make mistakes, and you will sometimes fail. But you cannot make life totally safe. You cannot become fully qualified ahead of time—certainly not by only reading or thinking.

Have you felt a desire to do something for the Lord but have put it off? Have multiple people told you you’d be good for a certain role, but you’ve told them no? I encourage you to bring this to the Lord. There’s room for prudence and proper preparation. But if you find that wanting to be perfectly safe and qualified ahead of time are the only reasons holding you back, just start. Specifically, to borrow a classic David Allen suggestion, write down one concrete action you can take today to get the ball rolling, and then do it.

John Brundage is a seminarian with the Companions of the Cross. He also writes a Substack Newsletter called Integrated Prayer.