The blogging world can be a hard one to make it in. It seems nowadays, nearly everyone has a blog, has written a book, or can be hired to speak. Has that which was once a hobby or a desire to say something worthwhile begun to consume you?
I think these signs could apply to almost any walk of life, but we’ll focus on us, bloggers, for now! Here’s 3 signs you might be blogging with a pinch (or a pound!) of selfish ambition (and how you can get free):
1. You are jealous of other bloggers.
Are you constantly looking at how many followers the blogger next door has or upset that the girl who started blogging about the same time that you did now has twice as many subscribers? I get it. I’ve been there. I’m still there at times.
We have to guard ourselves from wanting to make a name only for our own little kingdoms. If God has led you into blogging or writing or making your voice known to some degree, we need to make sure it is ultimately for His glory.
That means that we do the best that we can do and allow Him to to use (or not use) us as He see fits.
Jesus said that He was not looking to be great, but that it was the Father’s will for Him.
This should be our heart as well. If other bloggers are getting more traffic to their site, awesome! They’re getting blessed and so are their readers. And many are getting to more about God in the process.
If this is an area of struggle, I encourage you to begin to pray for the bloggers that you see as successful. Even befriend them, and learn from them. They are our sisters and brothers too, and sometimes it’s lonely at the top. How can you bless them?
2. You are focused more on yourself than your readers.
This is a tough one. It is important to know what your traffic is like. Is your hard work paying off? Is anyone besides your mother reading your blog? But I believe that if our focus is simply to get more people to look at our stuff, then we will never be truly fulfilled. (Even if we had 5 million page views a day…really? Yes, really.)
I was recently reading an article from an entrepreneur who made it big in a short amount of time. (I wish I could remember his name because I would totally link you to him so you could read for yourselves!) He said that one of the keys of success is simply to serve people. (Sounds vaguely familiar, right? Like something I might have read in today’s devotional!) It’s looking for ways to bless your readers and be generous to them. You can find many wealthy CEOs who would say the same.
Of course there are benefits for you as the blogger when people sign up for your giveaways and courses, but if your heart’s desire is to bless those that God brings to you, then you will continue to be a happy blogger no matter how many people stop by.
It’s fine to want more traffic and more fruit to come from your hard labor. I think that it’s a God-given desire to want to grow and improve our current situations. But God ultimately wants us to be doing it for Him and not for ourselves, otherwise we are just slaves to the job.
How can you use your blogging platform to bless your readers?
3. You wouldn’t lay it down even if God asked you to.
Maybe you’ve been here. You feel like God is calling you to walk away, for a weekend or for a year. Are you willing to do it? Are you able to take a Sabbath from your blog? Do you trust that God’s intentions towards you are kind? Because if He is prompting you to give it up, then it is for your ultimate good.
“Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.” -Psalm 127:1
God is the one who gives you the wisdom and ability to succeed, whether you acknowledge that or not. All of your smarts are originally from Him. And His number one concern in life is not how well your blog does but how well you do in life.
It’s a prayer I often pray to the Lord: God, if You want me to stop blogging, just let me know. This kind of surrender keeps me from becoming controlled by Planet Blog. I don’t want it to become my idol, but it’s often subtle how something that once started out with good intentions, even intentions to honor God, can slowly begin to crowd out everything (and everyone) else.
If we can’t lay our blogs down at Jesus’ feet, then they have become our idols.
God is a good Father. If we have open hands, God is able to fill them with more.
If we find that our grip is too tight on our precious blogs (cue Gollum’s voice), we need to repent. The word repent means to turn around. A simple prayer surrendering our work and its outcome to the Lord might just do the trick!
Read “3 Reasons I Pray for My Blog“.
Get your free copy of 7 Biblical Ways to Hear God’s Voice here.
