Late Night Thoughts

I can't sleep. Too much thinking, too much self-condemnation. One thing God has been showing me lately is the fact that I am sinful, that I can never earn God's love or His salvation. I can never pay back what Jesus did for me on the cross. I am not completely good. It's been brought home to me in various ways over the past week or so, the latest being my complete inability to control my own thoughts, at least when it comes to my stories.

My stories are something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I was struggling with them about a month ago and I heard God say, "I know you're struggling with this, and the desire in you to create has become corrupted. But I want to use this gift you have for good, for my plan, and right now I'm just cleansing that part of your soul so I can do that." I gave all my stories to Him, one by one. A few weeks ago I couldn't sleep and God told me, "Write. Write." I wrote the beginning of a story that has been bouncing around in my head for a while, but different than I've ever written before: with the knowledge that the story is coming from God and I am merely the instrument used to have the story written down, listening prayerfully for every word and sentence I should write, not planning out the story ahead of time. That was the plan, anyway. It's been so, so difficult. The temptation to just think about the story, to savor what might happen and the experiences the characters will have without writing it out, to just keep it all trapped in my mind, is so, so strong, and I've given in to it so much since I started. I've failed God so often. I am sinful. I've been prideful and obsessive about what I've written, what I could go on to write. I don't know how to do this in a godly way. I'm up so late because I was writing, even though God wasn't telling me to. It's so easy to confuse God's call and obsession. I pray as I write this that God will show me what His will is for this story that I write, for the others still in my mind, and that He will give me the strength to do what He wills with this story. I pray for wisdom, for knowledge of what I should do and what God's will is. Most of all, I pray for God to be with me and comfort me and strengthen me as I struggle with this. May He guide me through this.