The Auto-Bio Anomaly

I recently had to write a bio to go on the staff page of our church website. I sat down to get it done – just checking another thing off the “to-do” list – and was suddenly hit with the worst case of writers block. It wasn’t that I had nothing to write about. It wasn’t that I had too much to write about. I wrestled with the thought that I was having a hard time because I thought that nothing I have done has any relevance or eternal impact – but prayerfully dismissed that as distortions of truth.

After a day or two in prayer, God finally allowed me to see the problem: I was writing about me. Isn’t that the point of a bio – to tell about a person: who they are, what they’ve done and what qualifies them to have a bio published somewhere in the first place?

The thing is God doesn’t ask us to tell people about us, there is no benefit in it for them. My story is only valuable in as much as it points people to Him and brings Him glory. It’s not that my life (or our lives) has no meaning. It’s simply that our lives should be lived as a means to an end, not the end in themselves. The approach I was taking to the project was in conflict with the commitment I made to God to keep him at the center of my life and work.

I was finally able to get something on paper, a little more aware and conscious of being on mission, and one less “to-do” to be done.