Writers for Team Jesus by Jan Powell

Writers for Team Jesus

by Jan Powell

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have summoned you by name; you are mine”

(Isaiah 43:1, NIV).

Who do you cheer for?

Almost everyone I know has settled on a favorite team or favorite teams. Sports fans also have players and coaches they love. They can spout exhaustive statistics about the performance of these athletes. This mental library of information helps shape their identities as lifelong fans.

In the seventies, I picked a college for the absence of celebrated sports teams. Very few spectators attended the soccer games at my school. Of course, that’s changed. Now, more than ever, people love to identify with winning teams or even root for the underdog.

God’s redemption plan is like the best draft in the universe. He chooses and he keeps everyone he selects-no one gets dumped. We know we weren’t picked because we excelled at following him. But he is the best at choosing and determining where we can fulfil his goals.

When God called me out of my messy, broken life, he began retraining my thoughts, associations, and goals. He coached me through disappointments and failures to the right position.

My heart celebrates when I work with other drafted writers to help shape their words that advance the work of the team owner—God.

Each of us can look back and identify the teams we’ve loved over the years. As writers, our favorite “players” may be wordsmiths whose work scores repeatedly for our beloved owner. Knowing how to cheer sports teams, we can cheer on the work the Lord drafted us and others to do.

So, who do you cheer for?

It may be our own writing. Articles. Blogs. Books. Or we may help by encouraging and mentoring. We can take all the expertise we’ve gained cheering for sports and transform our energy to help advance the cause of Writers for Team Jesus. And we have no fear, because according to the playbook—the Bible—our team wins!

Lord of all commitment and enthusiasm for any worthy endeavor, help us be some of the most valuable players on your eternal team of writers. Amen.

Jan Powell, a graduate of the University of South Florida, helps writers through Writing with You, offering editing, rewriting, and coaching for fiction and non-fiction. Published in The Wordsmith Journal and Splickety, she has written for Inkspirations since the beginning. Her in-depth editing includes poetry, devotionals, memoirs, fantasy, murder mysteries, thrillers, romantic suspense, and flash fiction. She has hosted Tampa Word Weavers for almost two decades and has served in its leadership.