Mike over at Eternal Perspectives has written some true and very sharp observations in his post, Blogging: on the outside looking in. He spent 5 months away from posting on his blog after the recent death of his mother, but continued to spend time observing and commenting on other "God-bloggers".
What he discovered is something I too had been noticing about my blogging and that of others in the Christian blogosphere-- a lot of the time, we are not blogging about anything that really matters. I have only been away from blogging for a week or so, but found myself wanting to get back to blogging for many wrong reasons: I'm going to lose my standing in the TTLB ecosystem; no one is going to come back to my blog if I am not regularly posting; some great new blog conversation is going on and I'm going to be completely "out of the loop".
It's quite true that all of the above probably does happen when you don't blog regularly enough, but the question is: so what? Do I blog because I think I have discovered something significant to say about the issue at hand, or am I writing simply to throw my own "two-cents" into the dialogue?
I need to spend significant time with Jesus Christ, learning at His feet. Then I will gain new understanding of who He is, and who I am in this world, and will perhaps be prompted by the Spirit to blog about some subject that has eternal significance for me, or for someone else.
Now I don't think that every blog post I make necessarily needs to be super-profound, or even that the subject matter I take up must always be grave and serious. But I certainly agree with Mike that I ought to bring an eternal perspective to it all. I ought to ask myself regularly, "Is this worth spending my time writing about? Who am I writing this for, and why? Is my blogging something God approves of?"
Blogging has been, overall, a good development in my life. I feel God gave me a gift for writing, and my educational training was in English Literature, but until I began blogging, I had never written on a regular basis, either professionally or personally. Blogging has opened up a wonderful outlet for spiritual, creative and intellectual exploration, through which I dig deeper into my faith through the act of writing regularly, and interact with many excellent thinkers and writers of "Godblogdom". In this way, my observations are hopefully becoming richer and more useful. But, it is so important that I don't fall into the trap-- which I have all too often -- of making the blog about... Me.
Whatever I say, I want it to be something that others can read and find truth in, and I want it to be something that somehow shows forth the excellence of the Christian way, and of Jesus Himself. I don't want to be a "blog, blog, blog" blogger, reacting to every blog conversation that develops, and prompted by fleshly considerations rather than by the Spirit. I want to continue blogging as a spiritual discipline that helps me (and others) draw closer to our God, rather than distracts me away from Him. And I hope that in blogging and in my life, I will be learning to listen more intently, that I may hear the voice of the Spirit speaking to my heart as I write.
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