There are a lot of hard things in life. Some are downright impossible.
Entrepreneur and media guru Patrick Bet-David says the ten hardest things in life are:
- Getting Married
- Parenting
- Becoming an entrepreneur
- Keeping your health
- Overcoming addiction
- The loss of a loved one
- Leaving people behind
- Handling success
- Trusting others
- Massive failure
Many say the most difficult thing to do in all sports is to hit a baseball with a bat. When the best players ever can only successfully do it 30% of the time, it’s easy to make that case.
“The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters.” (Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees)
Albert Einstein said, “The hardest thing in the world is to understand the income tax.”
Then there are the impossible things, like licking your elbow, reasoning with a two-year-old, reasoning with a three-year-old, watching the movie Out of Africa all the way through, not yawning at a baseball game, not coughing in church, and remembering to change the furnace filter regularly. (Hmm, those were specific.)
Many feel the toughest part of writing is staring at a blank screen and deciding how to start.
Because it is important to know our limits, there are some impossible things for the Christian writer to fully understand and write about. Sure, there are difficult subjects to address appropriately or challenging hurdles, but knowing what things are impossible to write about in their entirety builds an appropriate amount of humility into the job of a Christian writer.
These are book topics or themes impossible to write in all their various facets, but go ahead and try anyway.
God’s glory in all his majesty
God’s holiness in its perfection
God’s mercy
God’s lovingkindness
God’s grace in all its undeserved blessing
Forgiveness in its completeness
How far the east is from the west
Freedom from the curse of sin
The Trinity in its complexity
Grace and truth combined
The crucifixion in its brutality
Christ’s sacrifice in its sufficiency
The resurrection in its total victory
Christ in you
The wonder of creation
True joy
The faithfulness of God
Adoption into God’s family
God’s sovereign will
What belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar
True repentance
Loving God with all your heart, mind, and strength
Loving your neighbor as yourself
Christ’s return
The new Jerusalem
The new earth
Living in a world without sin
Of course, we will never fully grasp the greatness and complexity of God, and that’s just fine. He wouldn’t be God if he was finite like us and understandable in all his ways.
Still, go ahead and try covering these impossible themes in whatever you write. Spend a lifetime in study and meditation; and if you understand one of them only 30%, you’ll be in the Hall of Fame for Christian writers.
