To a certain extent, I agree. Personally, I have about four books I'm currently reading about platform - how to decide on one; how to develop one; how to find your niche. It's all good stuff. Really.
In fact, since finding myself on Holley Gerth's God-sized Dream Team, I've been looking and studying this idea of platform and how to find my voice. I've gotten detoured a few times along the way, and honestly, it wasn't until I stopped searching for a platform and started being still before God that I actually found my platform. It wasn't until I stopped to listen that the fog that had shrouded my path finally cleared.
It's ironic, really, that at the time I was discovering this, I happened to sign up for a Beth Moore simulcast. Her three sessions were on secrets - the good kind and the bad kind.
I'm sure you can imagine how secrets can be bad, but did you know that God invites you into the secret places with Him?
"We live in the day of platforms. Stop worrying about finding your rooftop (in Bible times rooftops were flat and people would climb up and shout their news from them) - you go in the secret with Him." Beth's words seemed like they were aimed right at me.
Isaiah 43: 5 says, "I'll give you treasures in the darkness (secret)."
Beth went on to say that we want our gifting to come out, but that instead of searching for a public venue to get it, we actually need to get in the secret place with God. That's where we work it out with Him.
God moves in us, He gives us His word in the secret, but I know I am so excited and so impatient, that I'm often shouting it out in public before I've had a real chance to digest it and really take it in, to allow it room to grow and develop.
God gives me a glimpse of a dream and instead of reveling in this new thing, of taking it to God, and letting He and I watching it grow together - I drag it into the public sphere where it promptly keels over from too much harsh light and too much traffic and noise.
In June, my time on the God-sized Dream team will come to an end officially. I've made some friends though that I will continue to travel with. All writers need a "fellowship of the pen," but one thing I've learned through these months - God's time table is not my time table. I'm often impatient and unwilling to wait.
I'm reminded of the Anne of Green Gables series. At one point, Marilla takes in two twins - Dora and Davy. Dora is a perfect little lady but Davy is a bit of a devil. It's spring and they plant seeds for a garden. Dora's plants start to send up green shoots. Davy complains that his aren't growing at all, "Even though I dig 'em up every day to see how they are doing."
Like seeds, our dreams sometimes need to be nurtured in private before they can bloom in public.
So, as Beth said, "Don't go roof-seeking; go closet-seeking."
~ Blessings, Bronte
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