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. 

Merry Christmas! Everything on the blog this week has been Christmas-themed, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. 😉 And as a final post before the holidays, I thought I’d just tell you about our little adventure…

Now, for the last 17 years, we’ve done this pretty much the same week–namely, two weeks before Christmas. Because let me just tell you, if you get a live tree from a lot any earlier than that, you’re not going to have any needles left for Christmas. 😉 After a frustrating experience with a tree that lost half its needles during the decorating process, two years ago, I gently *ahem* hinted that they should go to a tree farm next time. The next year, yeah, um…they just came home with a tree one day from the same lot we always use. So, you know, whatever. 😉

This year I was about to start dropping the tree-farm hints again…and didn’t have to. Because this year there were NO TREES to be found in our hometown! None of the lots had more than one scraggly example. Usually, you can still find them on Christmas Eve–this year, they were all gone by the first week in December!

So we started looking around at the many tree farms in the area…only to find that some had closed, some had never opened for this season thanks to no stock the right size, and others had sold out the weekend after Thanksgiving. Say what?

We thought we were going to have to drive an hour to find one–never mind a blue spruce in particular, we’d have settled for anything! Then my parents found a tree farm in the yellow pages Saturday night and gave them a ring (they also wanted a live tree). The woman assured them they had “little but blue spruces, actually” and told us how to get there: out Knobley Rd, cross over 50, then it’s just two miles beyond that.

Well, on Sunday we followed those directions, and we found a tree farm…by a different name than the one in the yellow pages. Who had a few blue spruces, though certainly not many. We asked them if they were the same as the one in the phone book, and they’d never heard of it. Asked about the phone number…same story. No one in their family.

So while I have no idea where that tree farm is, LOL, we did indeed find one, and we found two beauties. Better still, they’re half the price of the ones on the lots. Sounds like a new family tradition to me!

This year our experiment will be adding some Miracle Grow to the water and seeing if it helps keep the tree vibrant–someone on a radio program my husband listens too reported that they added a ton to their freshly-cut tree’s water and it was actually growing roots by the time they took it down, so they planted it! Our kids think that sounds awesome. If we can pull it off, we’re going to name it Bruce the Blue Spruce and put lights on it every year outside. 😉

So my house finally looks–and smells–like Christmas. (All our decorations are stored with the tree decorations, so we do it all at once.) It hadn’t really felt so near Christmas before, but hopefully now it’ll begin to!

This is my last post until New Year’s Eve, so from my family to yours, have a very Merry Christmas! May the Joy of Christ fill your hearts and homes this week and throughout the year. If you have any special plans–or just simple traditions you treasure that you’re looking forward to–I’d love to hear about them!

Many times through the years, I’ve joked about being a “delicate flower.” Generally, this is what I say when there’s heavy lifting to be done that I don’t want to do, LOL, or when my husband is teasing me and I’m trying to convince him (sort of) to stop.

I say it because it’s funny…but it’s only funny because we all know it’s not true.

Now, I’m not a large person by any stretch of the imagination. I’m a whopping 5’3″ over here, and not exactly a weight-lifter. So I do have definite physical limitations. There are feats I simply cannot perform. But I’m not delicate. Maybe I look that way, but ask my family when it’s moving day–I will probably heft more boxes over the course of the day than just about anyone. Where I come from, you might be small, but you work your rear off when there’s work to be done.

I’ve also long joked about my sensibilities. To a certain extent, I embraced naivete. There are quite simply things I had no desire to expose myself to, and I still don’t. But I’m also part of a world that doesn’t agree with my sensibilities. I’ve answered phones at an insurance office and occasionally had disgruntled clients using some very, er, colorful language. I could have chosen to be offended–and was, honestly, quite shocked that someone would call a place of business and talk like that. But I decided that I wasn’t going to be a delicate flower there either.

Because if I choose to be offended at everything offensive in the world, if I choose to let it affect me rather than just lifting my chin and showing a better way, then I’m never going to get away from that, right? I’m always going to be offended. The Bible tells us time and again that offenses will come. The advice of Paul and Jesus? Just don’t be the one by whom they come. #BeBetter than that. In the Gospels, this instruction is about not leading others into sin. But I think it also applies to our own minds–don’t let other lead us into the trap of always focusing on what they’re doing. We need to focus instead on what WE need to do.

I’ve mentioned before the book The Coddling of the American Mind, which I’ve been listening to on audio. In this book, the authors point out that many college-aged students right now have the mistaken belief that they’re fragile. That they need someone to step in and stop things whenever ideas are too challenging and cause them emotional distress, whenever they feel any slight or bias against them, whenever something might be construed as dangerous–not just to their physical bodies, but to their peace of mind.

This is a sad trend, but one I can quite easily believe. I don’t know how many times in recent years I’ve heard someone saying they can’t imagine letting their kids do the things that they did when they were the same age. Walk three blocks alone to the local ice cream shop? Heavens, no! Go adventuring through the countryside without an adult? Are you kidding? And yet, the world is SO MUCH SAFER now than it was twenty, thirty, forty, even fifty years ago. Crime rates are at an all time low…but perception is something else entirely. We have it in our heads that we must protect our kids from…well, from everything. But studies have shown that when we do that, what we’re really teaching our kids is that they can’t handle it. That the world’s out to get them. That they’re fragile–they’re delicate flowers, and the world’s just waiting to crush them.

This is so untrue, my friends. It’s untrue first because people are just stronger than that. And especially if we have the Spirit of God inside us, lending us His strength on top of our own. What did Jesus tell us to do when someone hurts us? To pray for them. When they attack us? Turn the other cheek. When they won’t accept our beliefs? Shake the dust from our feet. Jesus told us NOT to be offended over every little thing, NOT to be delicate flowers. He told us to persevere. He told us to stand strong in Him. He told us to face dangers and persecution for the sake of Truth. That sounds pretty darn not-delicate to me, right? No fragility there. Faith makes us stronger, not weaker. Because we’re grounded on the Rock.

I want to keep my kids safe…but I also want them to be fully functioning adults, capable of standing strong in the face of the world. I want them to appreciate the beauty of flowers without thinking they’re as fragile as those blooms. Frankly, I want them to see how stubborn some flowers are as they cling to the cliff side, flourishing in the most adverse of conditions. And that means letting them take risks. It means teaching them that beliefs must be challenged if they’re really going to understand why they believe them. It means knowing that they don’t have to choose to be offended just because something is offensive. They can choose to be bigger than that instead. They can choose to lift their chins and keep pressing on.

There are abuses in this world–genuine, horrific ones. There are tragedies. There are crimes. But when we magnify every little thing to that level, all we’re doing is teaching ourselves that we’re more delicate than we are. And taking away from what we really should be focusing on changing.

We’re stronger than we think we are. Our kids and grandkids are stronger than we often let them be. We are not flowers.

Or…no, maybe we are. But not the kind that flourishes in the meadow, here today and gone tomorrow. If we’re flowers, then we’re a heartier kind. Not delicate. Not fragile. We’re the kind clinging to the Solid Rock, beautiful in the face of the tempest.