Find Your Niche and Just Do It!

Ironically, I’m a doubter, especially about myself and my own abilities, so I have to constantly remind myself of the attitude expressed in Guest’s poem. I was reminded of that principle this morning during my devotional reading, which included selections from the famed Charles Spurgeon.

“There are many Christian people,” he wrote, “who get a good idea into their heads, but they never carry it out, because they ask some friend what he thinks of it. . . . Who ever did think much of anybody else’s idea? And at once the person who conceived it gives it up, and the work is never accomplished.”

“Be not moved from the work to which God has put you,” Spurgeon continued. “Be not weary in well-doing, for in due season ye shall reap if ye faint not.”

Since that time, I’ve continued to work on other projects and got several other book-length works ready for publication and began submitting them. And now comes the test. One particular manuscript languished and was rejected by two publishers who implied in their e-mails that “it couldn’t be done.” An agent whom I approached also declined to represent it because “it couldn’t be done.” I got busy with other things and forgot that I had submitted it to yet a third publisher. I heard from that publisher the other day. I am now considering a contract offer.

Now the ball is back in my court. “They said it couldn’t be done.” Do I sign? Do I decline? I have a meeting later today with an artist friend to discuss the possibility of his doing some illustrative work for the manuscript. I’m praying about my decision. And that of my artist friend. Whatever our decisions, I’m determined that this time I’ll ask big things of God in relation to this book.

And that brings me back to another thing that Spurgeon said: “Remember you are going to a king [when you pray]. Let your petitions be large.”

Find your niche, your God-given calling. Just do it. Stick to it. And as someone once quipped, “Attempt great things for God; expect great things of God.”

Stay tuned!

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