Goal Stated:

I try to be systematic in my thinking, and therefore in my actions.  The goal is that I do not commit a lot of actions or speak a lot of words without some sort of well-planned intentions preceding them.  It makes me slow to move, but it has served me well.  Mostly. I deal with fewer bad consequences after the act.

That said, let me get to the stated goal of my writing.  There is a method that I think all Christians should employ while reading the Bible: Finding Jesus in all of the stories. Not a literal Jesus, but a foreshadowing of the work that Jesus would do on the cross.

Example: In 1 Samuel 18, there is a brief but famous story of the friendship between Jonathan, the crown prince and heir to the throne of Israel, and David, a celebrated soldier in the army of Israel.  

In this story, Jonathan, recognizing that God’s favor has passed from his own family to that of David, strips himself of all the ornamentation that declared that he was royalty and gives all of that to David.  Jonathan’s robe, armor, and even his weapons are now David’s. 

At least symbolically, Jonathan is recognizing that even though he is heir to rule Israel, God has made it clear that David will be the next king.  Jonathan has now subjected himself to David in faith that David will eventually rule.  And David does rule, and he treats the (crippled) offspring of Jonathan with mercy and kindness.

Jesus Christ can figuratively be seen in this story in the figure of David. We are all Jonathan.  Even though we are born with this idea that we should rule our own lives, at some point if we are honest, we see that we are wholly unfit for that role.  Christ is the worthy king.

We could fight that idea, like Jonathan’s father Saul did, or we could be like Jonathan and give over all of the things that we draw our identity from to the proper king.  And Christ will be a kind king over us, even treating our crippling failures with kindness; inviting us to dine at His own table because of our inability to provide for ourselves.

Read the story.  It’s much more nuanced than my brief reading.  The point is, God was giving us a picture of Christ in the lives of real people (Saul, Jonathan, David).  God wrote Christ into that story, but the story is actual peoples’ lives.

The stated goal for my writing is to find Christ in the lives of real people.  I am not an author like God who creates out of nothing; I must find in the creation and tell.  But all of my stories have the purpose of either showing how Christ is the light in the darkness of peoples’ lives, or Christ on the cross is the figure that looms over all creation finishing a good work that He began.