Fresh Wind Ministries

By Claude Widmer

I was always against writing articles or books. I figured that there were enough books written and articles were not really needed. What for? Was the bible not enough? Were there not enough stories there to tell us the truth? But on the other hand I was reading so many things every day. I was reading devotionals, books, magazines…

What a contradiction. I had just a religious mindset about writing and thought the bible was enough. But I myself read lots of other stuff and was tremendously blessed by reading articles and devotionals. I still remember many of the devotionals and often got encouraged by different articles or learnt a powerful principle.

May be I was against writing because I always hated writing essays in school. Oh Lord… write about a boring topic that I was not even interested in myself. And my big interest showed and I did not get really great grades for writing.

But soon enough my heart just burned to pass on the truths that I had discovered in the Bible or write about what I had experienced with the Lord Jesus to encourage some others. And it is such an awesome tool to really bless other people and minister to others! For the writing stays and you can read something over and over again! It is an awesome tool to minister the Lord Jesus Christ to others!

I am sure you’ve had some ideas in your head about writing something. May be the Lord gave you a little gem from his word or you saw a principle in nature that applies to the spiritual life and you wanted to just write it down and help others with it. There are so many different things that can be taught to others and writing a little article about a truth you discovered is so powerful!

Well, I guess for most people having the ideas is not the problem. But may be you are struggling with this and you think you don’t have anything to say to others. So let me first try and help you getting some ideas for an article or a devotional.

Ideas and Principles come to you every day

Yes, although you might think this is not true for you, it is something that God has built within us! He is speaking through his spirit to our spirit all the time. So when he speaks to you, be this through the bible, a vision, through a situation or through nature you will form concepts and ideas that will stick with you!

So don’t tell me you have nothing to say. As long as you walk with God and have a relationship with him you will find that he is speaking to you all the time and showing you new things! And these new things are the ideas or principles you can write down and put into an article and bless others with!

This can be an encouragement, a teaching about something, a challenge or exhortation. Whatever it might be. But you will have an idea and that is usually the starting point for every article!

So let me give you an easy little run down what you must consider before writing an article:

1. Write to bless
What are your motives for writing an article? Do you just want to get out there and make all your great ideas public so the whole world can read them and see what a great person you are and how much wisdom you have?

When you write an article you want to bless somebody with it. It is a ministry. May be you want to help somebody overcome a problem that you have overcome. You have discovered this powerful biblical principle that helped you overcome and now you want to share the truth with others through your article.

It could also be that you have experienced the Lord as this loving Father and you want to just encourage others with this truth that you have discovered! Or may be you just have a thought about something and suddenly the Lord starts giving you a prophetic word and you want to share it with someone else. This is more the devotional kind of things. But never the less, you can bless people with what you write down. And this must always be your attitude. Whether it is to convict or to encourage or challenge…

2. Everything starts with an inspiration
That might be clear to most of you. But I mention it here anyways. You can not just sit down and write something. You must already have an inspiration or an idea of what you want to share with others.

You know these people who say that they just sit down and write and can not control their writing anymore, but that the Spirit just gives it to them and they write and write and write… Well, I am afraid, but this is not how the Lord works.

You get an inspiration first. Either from the word of God, from something you just experienced or a revelation you just had. What ever it is, everything starts with this inspiration.

3. Write down your ideas
You might not always have time to write the article right away when you have an idea or an inspiration. Then just write the main parts of what you want to do on a piece of paper or in your diary or whatever you are used to use for things that you should not forget. May be you even put in on your shopping list… Might be a bit strange when you are in the shop and don’t know exactly why you wrote down to get some “Truth will set you free” or whatever it was you wanted to write about.

If you have time and a quiet place to sit down and write, then I suggest you take the idea you had right away, sit down and bring it to paper. Do not wait days and weeks to do it and right it down. There might be other things to come later. So you just want to do it right away.

4. Share a story
When you wrote down a few ideas and know where you are going with your article you need to get the attention of the reader. Jesus often used stories to get the attention of the people. Story telling is such a powerful tool to make somebody remember a principle. They might not remember the exact bible passage or the biblical principle, but they will remember the story and still know the principle because of the story.

So whatever you want to share with others through writing, always think of a great story that you could use to illustrate what you want to say! I love it when a real teacher shares things and starts telling stories that bring it all together and make the principle so much alive!

So remember that. You don’t always have to use stories, but if you can use a story that you experienced or heard someone else tell, then use it. It will always brighten up your article and make the reader remember it! Story telling just brings things alive!

5. Writing is a spiritual thing
When you write you will express what is in your spirit and you will find that there comes a flow when you start writing down what you have in your heart. It is very important that you really put emotion into the writing and express all that is in your heart! I find that when I put my whole heart into it and just write in the flow, that the Lord is really pouring out his anointing through my words!

And that is what you want to accomplish. You want your article to be anointed and really flow in the Spirit. Because you can release the Spirit by writing when you let him flow through you! Just write with all the emotion there is within you! Give yourself completely into it and just let it flow.

If you find that there is no flow, then just start writing down the ideas you have and start sharing as you would minister to somebody. You will find that suddenly you will flow in the spirit and one thing after the other will come and it will all come together. It will feel a bit like journaling and you might get additional revelation when writing an article.

So just try to let the Spirit flow and minister to others!

6. Go over it again
Once you have written the article and have put your ideas down just go over it again. Sometimes you might find that certain passages just don’t fit there or that you might have had too many different thoughts into it and you need to narrow it down to just one main thought that you want to communicate.

It is important that you go over it and see where you were flowing in the Spirit or where you just flowed in the mind. This will take a bit of practice, but you can also give your articles to someone who is more mature in the Lord then you and let them give you their opinion. So you can learn from it.

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