This past week in our church Bible study, we were on the well-known parable of the workers in the vineyard. You know the one–where the landowner hired people at the start of the day for an agreed-upon amount. Then throughout the day, he goes back to the marketplace and hires more people. At the end of the day, he pays everyone, starting with the new arrivals. When he gives them the same amount he’d promised the earliest hires, those who had been working all day expect more–and get a bit irritated when they’re only given a denarius as well.

The landowner’s response is, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?”

The parables are often taught all on their own; and in this one, I’ve pretty much always read it as, “Those who repent in the last hour will receive salvation as surely as those who’ve been serving the Lord for a long time.” And I don’t think that view of it is wrong. 

But last weekend, as I looked back over the conversation this parable was a part of, something new struck me.

What came before? Well, first you have the rich young ruler asking what he needs to do to gain eternal life. Jesus tells him, “Obey the commandments.” 

To which he says, “Yep, I’ve done that. Am I missing anything?”

And Jesus says, “Well, if you want to be perfect, then sell all you have and follow me. If you do that, you’ll have treasures in heaven.”

We all know that story really well too, right? And we probably recall that Peter, after the young man has gone away, says, “Hey, we’ve given everything up to follow you! So what will we have?” (One has to assume he’s asking “what treasures in heaven.”)

And Jesus answers that they will have quite the positions of power and authority in heaven. That anyone who makes a sacrifice for His sake will receive a hundredfold, AND inherit eternal life. THEN he launches into the laborer-and-vineyard parable.

So here’s what struck me: the denarius is salvation, yes. Given to all who follow him into that vineyard. No matter when they joined Him. (Note, however, that this landowner did NOT go back to the marketplace at the end of the day and give out coins to everyone still waiting. You have to follow him in.) This is that “AND” part–they receive eternal life.

But Jesus repeatedly speaks of a hierarchy in heaven. Of those who lay up treasures there. Of those who will receive greater or lesser reward. 

And it occurs to me that in the vineyard parable, this might be about what happens the next day. Do those first laborers go off in a huff, grumbling because the lord wasn’t fair, according to their own definition? Do they figure, “Hey, I’ll just wait around until 5:00 tomorrow evening and then come in and get that denarius anyway”? 

Are they content to get just enough? Get that salvation by the skin of their teeth and put in no more work toward the vineyard, the kingdom, than necessary?

Or do they see the mercy of their lord and think, “Wow. If this guy has such a loving heart that he’ll grant the full wage to this dude…what will lie in store for me if I serve him faithfully for weeks and months and years?”

This, my friends, represents a key difference in the thought of us, His workers. Do we view what we do for Him as mere labor for a wage? Do we count the hours we put in and the reward we see at the end of the day and grumble and complain? Is it enough to simply have been given that salvation? Is it enough to know we’ll get into heaven? To get that final paycheck?

Or do we view it instead as heirs to that vineyard? In ancient society, the most faithful of servants were quite often given an inheritance along with the sons. This is what Jesus speaks of us receiving too, and which Paul expounds on even more. We are co-heirs with Christ. That means we’re not just laboring in that vineyard for a day’s wage. We are laboring because we want it to thrive. Because we want it to grow. Because we know that our futures are linked to it. We serve because we love our Lord, our Father, and want Him to look at our work and pronounce it good.

We do not earn salvation, other than by joining Him in His vineyard, by accepting and believing in the gift He offers–but there’s more to eternity than simply being there. There’s that hundredfold. There’s listening for and hearing His call, and then obeying it. There’s sacrifice. There’s giving up what the world says we should want in favor of what He says we need in order to attain perfection. There’s going into that vineyard every day, going above and beyond, not because we think we need to earn that denarius–but because we are invested in the vineyard and in the landowner.

I don’t want to be just a laborer. I don’t want to view this life that way–that I’m just toiling every day for a wage. 

I want to work for Him because of all He’s done for me. 

I want to sacrifice for Him because of how He has already sacrificed for me. 

I want Him to look at me and not see someone who will do the bare minimum to get salvation. I want Him to see someone He knows will come running when He has a task that needs attention. 

I want to be one of His trusted servants, faithful…an heir.

We serve a gracious God, don’t we? Not only has He given us His Son, His Word, but He continues to speak and minister to us today. As a creative, I can tell you in all honesty that there are many days when I just have to squeeze my eyes shut and say, “Give me the words, Lord. I’m not sure I have them otherwise.” And He does. Because He is oh-so-faithful.

As someone who pretty much lives and breathes the publishing industry, I know this is pretty common. And I know many, many of us have been given stories to tell by the Lord. Now, that’s not saying these are Scripture. But they still contain Truth. They still have something in them that will minister to His children. This is a sacred calling, in my mind. 

But this can come with danger, too. As an author, editor, and designer, I talk to a lot of authors. Whether they’re working on novels, non-fiction, screenplays, poems, or songs, writers are always going to be seekers of inspiration. And there’s something I’ve heard more often than I can count. Some variation of:

God gave me this story.

God downloaded this story straight to my brain.

God told me to write this.

Maybe people say that because they want everyone else to be as excited about it as they are. But…here’s the thing. All too often, people use inspiration as an excuse for laziness. They think that because God provided the idea, that they don’t have to do anything other than write it down. 

Oh, my friends. Please. Please don’t treat the Lord’s whisper so cheaply!

There’s a story of a missionary who, as a young woman, realized that God was calling her to serve as a doctor to the women of a remote area of India, where the women were otherwise not permitted to seek medical care if it would involve a male doctor tending them. This came to her like a bolt. An epiphany. A sure calling.

But she did not, therefore, stroll out into the village at the age of eighteen and say, “Okay, y’all, God told me to be your doctor, so here I am! Come be doctored!” That would have been ridiculous, right? She had to first go to college, then to med school. She had to do internships and residencies. It took her years before she was ready to make good on that call. That inspiration. And she did it because that’s what it took to answer God’s call. It took WORK.

Why do authors sometimes think the stories or ideas He gives us deserve less? Or that they can never be changed or edited or tweaked?

Here’s what I’ve discovered: God gives us the inspiration we need to get started. But that just the beginning. Not the end.

My own example exists in A Soft Breath of Wind. If you want to talk about God “downloading” a story to your brain, this is the one I’d had that experience with. We’d just moved back home after living in Annapolis for years. Xoe was a few months old. A Stray Drop of Blood was just a few months older. I’d had no intention of writing a sequel to it, but as I rocked Xoe one morning, it came to me. Who Quickens the Dead, it was called. That sequel I hadn’t planned to write.

Benjamin and Samuel, all grown up. Two young women, one with the gift of discernment, one who was demon-possessed. In the course of the next two days, this very long and involved story came to me in full detail. I’m talking, sit down and write pages and pages of notes detail. I had full scenes in my head. The complete cast of characters. The themes, the plot, the beautiful Truths I wanted to draw out.

In that lovely frenzy of inspiration, I sat down and wrote a chapter. And then I screwed up my nose. Because it stank. I knew enough to know that. This, though it exactly followed the inspiration God had given me, was not good enough.

Years went by. I wrote other books. This one was always there, waiting, and a few times I drew it out and fiddled with it. I learned more, I wrote more, I did more, I got other contracts, Stray Drop began genuinely selling. But every time I considered this God-given story, it didn’t take long for me to realize that the time for it wasn’t ripe yet. I wasn’t ready. Maybe I had the inspiration, but I didn’t yet have the ability to make it what it deserved to be.

Seven years later, the moment finally came. And in such a way there was no mistaking it. I was hard at work on a historical romance, just getting started on it, when I had a Skype call with a book club who had just read A Stray Drop of Blood. Now, it had been seven years since that book released–let’s just say, my brain wasn’t really in that mode. But as I talked to these ladies, He moved me to tears at how He was still using this story. And when they asked me if I had a sequel planned and I gave my usual, “Yeah, I have one planned out, I just haven’t had a chance to write it” speech, something stirred within me.

It was time. In the next week, I came up with a more compelling title and designed a cover. I drew out those old notes, and I gave it an overhaul to make it more powerful.

And then God gave me the time to write it…in the form of a cancellation of the contract I’d been under. Not exactly how I expected that to happen, but He really couldn’t have been any clearer! I’d prayed, “Lord, I know You want me to write this, that I’m capable of it now, but I just don’t have time…” and there we go–He made time for me, LOL.

So I wrote the book, WhiteFire published the book. And I’m pleased with how it turned out. But you know what? It’s not identical to that idea I got when my daughter was a baby. Things changed as I wrote it. And they changed for the better. What God gave me was raw material. I had to cut it and polish it and turn it into something worthy of the passion He’d given me for it.

I think we often have this idea that, when God whispers to our spirit, if we change anything at all, we’re disobeying. 

I can’t believe that’s true. God gives us what we need. But as we work, we grow. The visions and ideas that got us started often evolve into something even more amazing that we could have imagined–because that’s how God works. He takes our humble offerings–our time and hard work and passion–and adds His glory to them.

Our job isn’t to cling to the raw materials and claim they’re the end-all, be-all. Our job is to work them. To give them the love and care they deserve. To make them the best they can be. And to admit that maybe we don’t always know best–which might mean we don’t even know exactly what He gave us.