Every person has been created by God with a Gift to give for the bettering of mankind. This message—along with writing and teaching—is my Gift.

This morning, upon waking, I pull my laptop onto the bed and open it to compose a blog post. As ideas come, an enemy also appears.

Will my writing be as smart as Don Miller’s? Will it look cool technically like Michael Hyatt’s? Are my ideas as insightful as Leo Babautas’ are?

 Will my words make money?

 How will my blog post be received? Will it get a lot of views?

My ego.  It’s out to keep me “safe” and enhance my reputation.

I know I need my ego for certain things—paying taxes, obeying traffic regulations, and remembering to take my blood pressure medication. It dresses me in the morning.

My ego is all about me.

What frightens me is the knowledge that I have lived entire decades with my ego firmly in charge, at the wheel, running my life. No questions asked.

Precious little of my Gift leaked out during those years. My Gift is just that—something given to me to pass on to others. Being all about me, my ego thwarts giving.

Now I realize that if I live from my ego, I’ll die with regret. My life will seem futile!

Creatives, artists and mystics rescue me—a modern, commerce-loving, internet-surfing woman—from myself. I fish a book I’ve been reading out of the covers:

We nourish the spirit by disbursing our gifts, not by capitalizing upon them…The artist who is nourishing…is not self-aggrandizing, self-assertive, or self-conscious, he is, rather, self-squandering, self-abnegating, self-forgetful…

 — Lewis Hyde in The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World

 Self-forgetfulness. To create space in my life for my Gift and the giving of it, I must forget myself.

Instead, I must seek to be infused by God and yield myself to be His instrument.

I direct my thoughts: “Oh God, thank you for my life and Gift. I am yours. Flow through me…”

…and return to the keyboard.

I finish and publish this blog post.

There’s no feeling like it in the whole wide world. It’s beauty and peace and strength all wrapped into one. To know that, just for a few minutes,

I’ve been an instrument

…not an image.