Putting My Writing Under His Lordship

I have been a writer since I was in high school. When I was young, my writing did not glorify the Lord at all. For instance, two of my unpublished books were about 1) a romannce with a vampire and 2) belonging to a robin-hood style smugglers ring. I went through a long period of allowing the enemy to use my writing skills (even through I was a believer) before I learned to put them under God's Lordship. This is a synopsis of my story...

As a teenager, I learned to use my immagination in very ungodly ways through some writer's workshops I took which encouraged visualization exercises. I would visualize myself as the main character from my story and pretend that some of the events in the book were really happening to me. Then I would "launch out" from there and allow my immagination to write the rest of the story for me by me experiencing it in my immagination. At first it was just "pretending" but then it got to the point where I could experience the stuff as though it was almost really happening to me, through the power of my immagination. I used to love to escape into my stories. Then I'd actually go write it down for the book, remembering what I had experienced in my immagination. This sounds weird, but it was effective and some of my short stories and articles were actually published.

At first this "visualization" was just a psychological exercise, but somewhere during the course of it, it became empowered by demons. I had been a christian (though not a particularly dedicated one) for many years. Some of the demons I interacted with became "alians" with supernatural powers. I considered them to be figments of my immagination, but they were so graphic and had such a strong mind of their own that I was quite impressed with my own immagination. In my pretends, these alians always started out as my enemies and somehow I would become there prisoner. I'd get saved from being executed and adopted into their family. Then they'd "teach" me stuff, which involved a lot of danger and near death experiences.

At the time I did not realize that this was demonic and that I was flurting with demons. I always understood that this was a pretend and never confused it with reality, but I found myself spending more and more time in these pretend exercises -- sometimes starting them on a Friday night and not breaking out of them until it was time to go back to work on Monday morning.

Then in 1989, I found out that Jesus wanted to be Lord, not just savior. I decided to give Him that Lordship and asked Him to teach me how to walk that out in my day to day life. I spent the first 6 months after that decision in very extended prayer times and He would review many areas of my past with me. I'd always end up repenting and crying before the Lord and He'd allow me to experience His unconditional forgiveness and then empower me in that area of my life to be victorious in Him. Well, this continued for about 6 monthes. During that time, the pretends diminshed subsantially, but I still did them from time to time. Then He told me that He was going to do a very deep work in me, and not to be afraid of it. About this time I was an "elder" in my church and that same week as the Lord spoke to me, the elders were all invited along with the pastor to a Chuck Kraft seminar, which we thought was a seminar on spiritual warfare. It turned out to be a seminar on deliverance and after the seminar I went up to Chuck to ask him some questions. He invited me to come back later that evening because he'd like to pray for me. It ended up turning into deliverance ministry and that was when it first became clear to me that the persistant characters from my "pretends" were actually demons.

I became horrified at the through of having flirted with demons and decided to never use my immagination or writing skills again. But Chuck told me I should journal my deliverance experience, just for my own sake so I could look back on it later and realize what the Lord had done for me. So I did.

I remained afraid of using my immagination or my writing skills for almost a year. I had become an intercessor and was spending 3-4 hours per day in concentrated prayer and waiting on the Lord. He began to speak to me about putting my immagination under His lordship because He wanted to redeem it. I explained to Him how much I was afraid of accidently flurting with demons again. He said that it if were truly under His Lordship, that could not happen. He also told me that the enemy counterfits His reality and the "pretends" I'd been doing were a counterfit of His reality of being spirit- led. He asked me if I was willing to allow Him to redeem my immagination and to use it (and my writing) to His glory. It was actually a scary thing for me and I had to pray about it for a few weeks before I could say "Yes" to Him.

Then He began the slow gentle process of bringing that area of my life under His lordship. As he brought His lordship in to this area of my life, He also brought His love and His beauty into it. I learned to discern His voice and His presense more clearly. I learned that He really could redeem my immagination -- that it could be used for His glory rather than only for evil. That was, in fact, an important lesson that I had to learn before I could begin to step out in the prophetic gifting He had given me. (I think that is because in the early days of prophetic ministry, one keep asking oneself the question "was that really the Lord telling me that, or was it just my immagination?")

I don't write much fiction any more. But I do chronicle the deep experences that I've had with Him. And He seems to anoint these writeups and has used them to bless many people. Through is gentle redemption process, He turned things around. Before, I used to the writing skills that the Lord gave me to Satan's glory. Now, through God's grace and through His redemption power working within me, I am able to use them to His glory instead. Our God is an awesome God! He is able to transform any area of our life that we are willing to present to Him and turn it around for His glory.