Ever feel like the blue ink?

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Psalm 119:105 (New American Standard Bible)

My wife gave me the monogrammed quad-point pen as a wedding gift. It’s well-made and has great balance. It held black, red, and blue ink cartridges and a pencil. I protected that special pen for many years, then one day I broke it. I was trying to adjust something and it just never worked correctly after that. She replaced it with an exact replica and I have it in my pen cup next to my writing area.

Though I don’t use it often now, I carried it all the time while working in my career job. I used black for signatures and anything going out professionally. I know there’s the whole blue vs. black ink debate, but for me it just felt right to use black for that purpose.

I used red to review documents and plans. If I wanted certain notes to stand out from the rest to catch my attention later, I’d click on the red cartridge and flash away.

As you might guess, if I thought there was a chance something needed to be erased or didn’t need to be there for years to come, I’d go for lead.

That leaves blue. I liked it best. For one, it was the only cartridge I could find in a medium point. I never understood why black and red were only available in fine. I used blue for everything other than the assignments I gave to the other cartridges and inevitably had to replace the blue cartridge more often. But, there never seemed to be a true purpose for blue.

Sometimes I feel like my life is the blue ink.

I’m doing the black ink stuff—things that people expect to see me doing. Maybe it’s church work, taking the car in for service, getting groceries, making a meal, cutting the grass. I’ll hit a pretty good lick with the red pen, too. Intentional meetings with friends, a birthday party with my family, trying something new on social media. The pencil activities are always there—Facebook surfing, watching Jaws—again, many of the things my wife calls “non-value added” and definitely not eternal.

However, I’m spending too much time writing with blue ink. Spending time with no purpose. It’s like I’ve lost my way, struggling to find the path back. Here’s where I need you to walk with me as we talk about getting back to it.

My post-writing conference plan (even before getting to the conference) was to decompress for a week and begin revising the book. It’s been a month. I haven’t begun revisions and haven’t even decided whether I’m going to revise it or set it aside to start another one. I’m spending way too many hours using the blue ink.

Where am I going? What is my next step?

Good thing God knows we’re going to find ourselves in these situations. Another translation of Psalm 119:105 has the Psalmist saying, “By your words I can see where I’m going; they throw a beam of light on my dark path.” (The Message).

How do we take advantage of this?

In the middle of my fears and frustrations, when the future is uncertain and, in my case, wallowing in a huge pile of indecisiveness, I try to take one step at a time. I’m not consistent and I fight it, protecting my selfish desires with a hard shell of doubt. I sometimes have to force myself into a place where I can listen to God through His Word, prayer or Christian influence.

To be fair, I’m sure these steps were influenced by a study I completed almost twenty years ago by Henry T. Blackaby and Claude V. King, Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God.

So, what does that look like for me?

Last week, I remembered one of my beta readers had recommended I read a book by an author she felt wrote in a similar writing voice as mine. That experience helped me clarify some things I felt, but didn’t know how to describe. Still unsure of my destination, I had taken another step on the path.

Later in the week, I went to breakfast with a couple of buddies. Close to the time of leaving, an acquaintance (simply from sitting near us at the restaurant), stopped to share encouraging words for one of my friends. I wasn’t even the intended recipient, but I listened and God spoke to me. Still unsure of my destination, I had taken another step on the path.

A few days later, I came home from another breakfast meeting (I get all my socializing over early in the day), read a devotion, and spent some time praying. I did some chores and worked on this post. Still unsure of my destination, I had taken another step on the path.

I don’t know whether I’m going to revise my book or start another one. I remain in a state of uncertainty. But I have hope that God will get me where I need to be, when I need to be there, if I’ll just take one step at a time on a path lit by His light.

How about you? What do you do when looking for direction? I’ll take all the advice I can get.