Blogotional

It's all Jollyblogger's fault. David wrote this great piece on the primacy of suffering over success and it set my mind all atwitter. I went on to figure that suffering was in fact the measure of success from a Christian perspective, and have gone to look at the ramifications of that idea as it pertains to personal ministry and church. Today, I'd like to look at those ramifications on our blogging.

Too many people, way too many people, start a blog out of completely narcissitic reasons. They need a place to vent - they think they are smarter than the next guy - they are lonely, regardless it is usually about some form of self-satisfaction or personal agrandizment. It is those factors that measure their success, do I get sympathy? - do I get interaction? - do I get an audience.?

But if we hold the idea that suffering is in fact a measure of success, we must ask ourselves how does a blogger suffer? This is not some sort of perverse thing where the less audience you have, the more you suffer and the more successful you are as a blogger. Nope, I am talking about genuine suffering here. The kind of suffering that Eustace felt when Aslan removed the dragon skin, or Hind felt when her heart was removed. I think there are three ways that suffering can enter into blogging - hard work, genuine self-examination and revelation and what I shall call "the onslaught."

Let's consider hard work. Good blogging is not simply completing the sentence, "I think..." and then waiting for the starving masses to come hang on your very word and concept. Have you ever thought about the fact that good blogging begins with good reading? But not only does good blogging require a good knowledge base, it requires good organizational skills of the knowledge you have. It's not as simple as sitting down at the computer and starting to type. Reasearch, outline, then wordsmith. That's hard work, and I have never known hard work to be entirely pleasant.

Let's turn next to "The onslaught."

Luke 21:12 - "But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you to the synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for My name's sake.

Consider here that Christ promises us persecution if we are faithful to Him. If our blogging truly reflects Him, then I consider it quite likely that we will be assualted from every corner of the Godblogosphere. We've seen it happen countless times. This is not an equation that says if you are so assualted you are right, but such an onslaught does not necessarily mean you are wrong either. Christ keeps pushing our envelopes and if we accept that pushing, our lives will push others and they will react in a negative fashion.

Which brings me to the third method by which suffering enters blogging. I am a firm believer that as God used a person to bring salvation to the world, so He uses people to spread the gospel, not words, people. If blogs are to be effective transmitters of the gospel, then they must be self-revelatory. We cannot be satisfied with simply telling people the gospel, we must be the evidence of its effectiveness. At the heart of our witness to the gospel lies not our "perfection" but the love of Christ we experience in spite of our imperfections.

Rom 5:8 - But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

I know of no suffering more deep, or painful than the suffering we experience in the realization of our own brokenness. As bloggers, as Christians, it is not enough merely to experience that pain, no we are called to reveal it to the world. Not as an act of sympathy-seeking, but as a revelation of that tremendous love God has for us. Our pain is doubled in such revelation.

I know most of my readers are bloggers. Does your blogging cause you to suffer? Maybe it should.

Part V of the series is here.
Part VI of the series is here.

Related Tags: blogging, Christ, suffering, success