What's the Point?

I am having an identity crisis. Well, not me personally, but me on behalf of my blog. As I am on a journey to lose myself for the sake of Christ, I can't help wondering if blogging is just a self-absorbed love fest that feeds the "all-about-me" syndrome from which I am longing to be healed.

I tried to step back over the past couple of days and ask myself, "What's the point?" "Why do I write a blog?" and "Is THIS blog fulfilling its mission?"

The point of Four for France, or at least the intended point, is to share our adventures as a modern-day missionary family from the time of appointment, through the deputation process, and (eventually) as church -planters in France. To share with whom? Well, anyone interested I suppose, but especially those who support us through prayer and donations. I wanted to create a place where supporters could have as much information as they wanted on who we are, how we spend our time, and where we are in the whole process.

Now clearly, not every post directly pertains to France. This is partly because we are not there yet, but also because the missionary journey has as much to with what God is doing in us as it does with what He might do through us.

I have been a journaler all my life, and my blog has become somewhat of an extension of that habit. I write because it helps me to gain perspective on my life and to examine my walk with the Lord. Writing, for me, is an evaluative tool. It's an analytical process. It's (sometimes) verbal diarrhea. And since I can only write from my perspective, much of what I write is all about me.

Is there a difference between a well-examined life and a completely self-absorbed existence? And on which side of that line would I fall? While I must admit that every single bit of feedback, whether in the form of a comment or an e-mail response, is like a Jolt Cola for my ego, I honestly believe that I would write my blog even if no one ever read it. I wrote journals for years, and no one has ever read those. So I assume that I write more for me than for anyone else.

So why not just journal? Why put it out there for the whole world to read? Well besides giving supporters the option to have a "play by play" on our lives (should they want it) I also have a hope that somehow my words might just point someone to Jesus. I try to be pretty transparent about both my strengths and my struggles, and I guess I want other people to see the enormity of God's grace through the evidence of my depravity. Yes. That is what I want the point to be.

Is this blog fulfilling it's mission? While much of it, for many of you, is probably TMI, I take great comfort in knowing that no one is making anyone read any of it. Do my words point you to Jesus, or do they merely point you to me? Inquiring minds want to know. Okay. Really I'm the only one who wants to know. And here we are back at...me. Oh bother! The struggle continues....

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