48 | Are You Writing For God or With God?

You dedicate your books to God, but does your writing process still feel like striving? What if your daily writing sessions could become sacred encounters where you meet with Him—not just tasks you're trying to complete for Him?

In this episode, we're exploring the profound difference between writing for God and writing with God. Discover how to transform your writing from performance-driven work into an act of worship, where the process itself becomes the offering.

You'll learn five practical, Spirit-led practices to make your writing sessions sacred: starting with stillness instead of strategy, writing one sentence as an offering, releasing outcomes before you write, turning your editing into prayer, and ending with gratitude instead of assessment.

If you're tired of the anxiety, comparison, and pressure that comes with trying to create something "worthy" of God, this message will shift everything. Learn how to approach your books as altars—places where you lay down your striving and simply abide with Him.

Stop performing. Start communing. Your writing is about to become worship.

👉 Listen now to uncover the secret to becoming an anointed scribe!

Transcript

Friend, tell me if any of this sounds familiar.

You sit down to write again.

You open your manuscript, stare at the cursor blinking on the screen, take a breath and say, okay, God, this is for you.

But 10 minutes in, you're checking your Amazon rankings.

20 minutes in, you're comparing your word count to another author's.

An hour in, you've spiraled into worry about whether this book will even sell,

whether anyone will care, whether you are wasting your time. And suddenly, what started as you showing up for God feels more like a grind, a chore.

Another item on your never ending to do list.

If this tickled at your conscience, friend, here's why Most of us have never been taught how to write as worship.

We've been told to write for God, to dedicate our books to him, to hope he uses our words.

But we've never learned what it actually looks like to turn our writing sessions into sacred encounters where the process itself becomes the offering, not just the finished product.

So what if your daily writing time wasn't just about cranking out words or building a platform?

What if it could become the place where you meet with God? Where your books aren't just projects you're trying to get right for him,

but altars. Where you lay down your striving, your fear, your need for validation, and simply be a place where you abide.

In this episode friend, we are going to explore how to transform your writing from a task you perform for God into an act of worship you experience with God. And I'm going to share five practical spirit led ways to make your writing session sacred so you can finally stop toiling and start creating from a place of deep,

abiding rest.

Get cozy friend, and Turn up the volume. This is episode 48.

I'm Urcelia Teixeira, ex real estate agent turned award winning Christian fiction author.

When I wrote my first novel on a bucket list whim, I had no idea it would spark a spiritual journey that would redefine my calling. But you know what friend?

Self publishing wasn't easy. I got caught in the hustle, chasing rankings and sales while desperately trying to stay rooted in Christ.

Now, by God's grace, I'm building my author business his way. And now he's called me to help you do the same.

Welcome to the Anointed Scribe Podcast where faith meets business for Christian writers. Let's write, publish and grow our author business God's way. Are you ready? Well then, let's get started.

Hey, it's your author friend, Urcelia. And welcome back to anointed Scribe.

I'd like to thank the podcast for Christian writers who are ready to go from stuck and striving to anointed and thriving.

If you're new here, we're all about building kingdom centered author businesses that honour God and bring you peace, purpose, and yes,

freedom from the hustle.

So grab your coffee, get cozy, and let's talk about something I think we should all do. And that's writing as worship.

Now, I know you've probably heard this phrase write for God's glory a million times, and that's good, that's important.

But here's what I've been learning in my own journey, and maybe you've experienced this too. There's a massive difference between writing for God and writing with God.

And honestly,

this realization didn't come easy for me.

For years, literally years,

I would start every writing session with a prayer. I'd say, God, I dedicate this book to you. Use it for your glory.

And then I'd proceed to write in complete anxiety,

checking my word count every five minutes, panicking about deadlines, and beating myself up when the words didn't flow the way I wanted them to.

I thought I was honoring God with my writing, but really I was just white knuckling my way through every manuscript, hoping he'd bless the finished product.

I was performing for an audience of one, sure,

but I was still performing, still striving, still toiling,

still carrying all the weight of making it good enough for Him. And let me tell you,

that is exhausting.

So when God started gently showing me a different way,

a way where my writing could actually become a place of rest,

of connection, of true worship,

it honestly felt too good to be true. Like,

wait, you mean I don't have to white knuckle this? I don't have to prove anything. I can just write with you.

Yes, that's exactly what God was saying.

And I want to unpack what this looks like because I have a feeling some of you need to hear this today. And as much as I needed to learn it.

So let me start by breaking down what I mean when I talk about the difference between these two approaches to writing.

When we write for God, we're often still operating from a performance mindset.

We're trying to create something worthy of Him. We're hoping he'll approve of our work. We're dedicating the finished product to him and praying it makes an impact.

And listen, those are beautiful things. I'm not knocking them.

But here's what happens.

We still end up, carrying all the pressure.

We still the ones hustling to make it happen.

We're still checking the sales dashboard, refreshing our reviews, comparing ourselves to other authors, and feeling crushed when things don't go the way we planned.

Think about it this way.

When you're trying to do something for someone you love, maybe you're planning a surprise party or cooking their favorite meal,

there's this pressure to get it right. You want them to be pleased. You want them to smile and say, wow, this is amazing.

And if it doesn't turn out perfect, you feel like you failed them somehow.

That's often how we approach writing for God.

We're wanting to be pleased with the final result. We want him to use our books in big,

visible ways. We want proof that we did it right.

And when we don't get that proof, when the sales are slow, when the reviews are harsh, when nobody seems to care,

we start questioning everything.

Did I miss his plan?

Did I write the wrong thing? Does he even want me to do this?

But when we write with God, we invite him into every part of the process.

The brainstorming, the first draft chaos, the. The revisions that make us want to pull out our hair, the marketing that feels uncomfortable, the seasons where the words won't come.

It's like the difference between cooking a meal to impress someone versus cooking a meal with someone.

When you're cooking together, you're not worried about perfection. You're laughing over the recipe. You're tasting as you go. You're enjoying the conversation, the connection. And yeah, the meal still turns out good,

maybe even better.

But that's not really the point anymore. The point is the togetherness and friend.

This concept changes everything.

Now, I know some of you might be thinking, but, Urcelia, doesn't God want us to work hard to do our best? Absolutely.

But there's a difference between working from rest and working from striving.

One flows from trust,

the other flows from fear.

One brings life, the other brings burnout.

And here's the beautiful irony. When we stop trying so hard to create something worthy of God and instead just show up to write with him,

our work actually gets better.

Because we are no longer writing from insecurity comparison or the need to prove ourselves.

We are writing from a deep well of peace,

trust, and intimacy with Him.

So how do we make this shift? Well, let me share something with you that has completely transformed how I approach my writing time.

In the Old Testament, altars were places of encounter. They were where people met with God,

where they brought their offerings. Not because God needed their sacrifices,

but because they needed to remember who God was and who they were in relation to him.

An altar was a place of surrender, of worship, of trust.

And here's what God's been teaching me. Our writing can become that same kind of sacred space.

Think about Abraham building an altar in Genesis 12, right after God called him to leave everything familiar and go to an unknown land.

The altar wasn't about performing for God. It was about marking a moment of encounter, of surrender, of trust.

It was Abraham saying, I don't know where this is going, but I know you are with me and that's enough.

Or think about Elijah on Mount Carmel in 1 Kings 18.

He built an altar not to show off his spiritual prowess, but to invite God's presence into an impossible situation.

And when God showed up,

everything changed.

When we approach our writing as an altar,

we're not just producing content. We're not just trying to hit word counts or launch deadlines.

We're laying down our need to control the outcome. We are surrendering our fear of failure. We are releasing our grip on the results.

We are saying, God, I don't know if anyone will read this book.

I don't know if it will even sell. I don't know if it will make the impact I dream of. But I'm writing it with you, and that's enough.

Do you see the difference?

Writing as worship isn't about working harder or being more spiritual. It's about making your writing sessions less about productivity and more about presence.

And let me be honest with you, this wasn't an overnight transformation for me.

There were days when I actually. Let's just be real. There are still days when I sat down to write and immediately feel that old anxiety creeping in,

that voice that says, you need to write faster,

you need to write better. You need to get more words in. You need to make this count, because time is running out. And what if you're wasting your life on something that doesn't matter?

But that's when I have to come back to this truth.

My writing is my altar. It's where I meet with God.

So let me get really practical with you for a second, because I don't want this to just be a nice idea.

That sounds great, but you have no idea how to. To actually implement it. Right? I want to give you tangible, actionable ways to turn your writing sessions into worship. These are practices that have completely changed my writing life, and I believe they'll change yours too.

So first, and this might be the most important one,

start with stillness. Not strategy. Before you open your laptop, before you review your outline,

before you even dive into your to do list.

Pause. Sit in silence for a few minutes.

Invite God into your writing session.

Ask him to be present with you.

Now I know what some of you are thinking. You're saying Urcelia, I don't have time for that. I barely have time to write as it is.

Trust me, I get it. I'm a busy mom. I run a business.

I have a million things pulling at me every single day.

But here's what I've learned. Those few minutes of stillness at the beginning,

they actually save me time because I'm not spending the next hour anxiously spinning my wheels, deleting and rewriting the same paragraph 17 times, or getting distracted by comparisonitis on social media.

When we start with stillness, we are grounding ourselves in what's true.

We're inviting the One who gave us this calling to actually be present in the doing of it.

You don't need a fancy prayer. You just need something simple, like God. I invite you into this time. Let this be about you, not about me proving anything.

Help me write with you. Not just for you.

Sometimes I light a candle before I write. I love my candles. Not because candles are magical or anything,

but because it's a physical reminder that this time is set apart. It's sacred. It's worship.

The second practice that's been powerful for me is this.

Write one sentence as an offering before you start your real writing. Before you dive into chapter seven or that blog post or whatever project is in front of you,

write one sentence directly to God. It could be a prayer, a confession, a question, a declaration.

Something simple like God. I don't know what I'm doing, but I trust you do.

Thank you for giving me the story to tell.

Help me write words that bring healing, not just recognition.

I'm scared this chapter won't be good enough, but I'm showing up anyway.

Thank you for meeting me here.

This practice turns your writing session into a conversation from the very first word. And here's what I love about this.

Sometimes that one sentence becomes the breakthrough for whatever you are working on. I can't tell you how many times I've written a simple prayer to God. And suddenly the words I've been struggling with for days just flow because I stopped trying to manufacture them in my own strength and started writing them in God's strength.

The third practice is something I have to do almost every single time I write,

and that is to release the outcome before writing. You write before you Start writing. Literally. Say out loud, God, I release the outcome of this book to you.

I know it might feel weird to talk out loud to God while you're sitting at your desk, but there's something powerful about speaking truth audibly. It makes it real.

Say it when you're tempted to worry about sales.

Say it when comparison creeps in.

Say it when you start spiraling about when, whether you're good enough. Say it when you catch yourself mentally calculating how much money this book needs to make to justify the ad expense or the time you're spending on it.

Say, God, I release the outcome of this book to you.

Releasing the outcome doesn't mean you don't work with excellence. It means you are trusting God with the results so you can focus on faithfulness in the process.

Because here's the truth.

We are not responsible for results.

We are only responsible for obedience.

And when we try to carry the weight of results,

when we try to control the sales, the reviews, the reach, the impact,

we end up crushed under a burden we were never meant to carry.

But when we release it, when we say, God, this is yours. I'm writing it, but you own it.

You determine the reach.

You determine the impact.

I'm just going to be faithful to show up and write with you.

That's when we experience freedom.

I'll be honest with you. I have to do this multiple times throughout a project.

It's not a one and done thing, because my default mode is control.

My default mode is striving.

My default mode is checking the Amazon dashboard and letting those numbers tell me whether I'm succeeding or failing.

But every time I catch myself slipping back into that mindset,

I come back to the simple practice,

God, I release the outcome to you.

And every single time, I feel the weight lift.

Okay. The fourth practice is one that's transformed my editing process. And I'll just say,

editing is not my favorite thing to do.

But this practice is how I overcome this part of the writing process.

And that is that I turn my editing into prayer.

So here's how it works. When you are revising, instead of just thinking, does this sentence work?

You pray over it and ask God and say, is this what you want me to say? God, is this true? Is this life giving?

This has completely changed how I edit my work and how I get through it. Instead of obsessing over whether my prose is pretty enough or whether I've structured the chapter cleverly enough,

I'm asking deeper questions. Questions like, is this true to what God has put in my heart? Will this bring life to the reader, or am I just trying to sound impressive?

Is there pride hiding in this paragraph?

Am I trying to manipulate emotion here or am I genuinely ministering?

Does the sentence serve the kingdom purpose of this book, or is it just a filler?

Editing becomes less about perfecting your craft and more about refining your obedience. And trust me, that takes so much pressure off because perfectionism loves the editing process.

It will keep you stuck in revision hull forever, always finding one more thing that's not quite right, one more sentence that could be better, one more chapter that needs to be rewritten.

But when editing becomes prayer,

when you're inviting God into that process and asking him to show you what needs to stay and what needs to go,

you start editing with clarity instead of anxiety,

with purpose instead of perfectionism.

I've deleted entire chapters that were beautifully written,

but it didn't serve the heart of what God was saying.

I've kept sentences that made me cringe grammatically,

but carried such anointing that I knew they needed to stay.

And I only knew these things because I was praying through the editing, not just critiquing through it.

And I will also just add a side note here that this is why it is vital to have an editor who understands this process.

So make sure you choose them wisely.

And finally, the fifth practice. End with gratitude, not assessment.

When you finish your writing session, instead of immediately evaluating whether you hit your word count or whether the chapter is good enough, pause and thank God.

Thank him for showing up. Thank him for the words that came, even if they were messy. Thank him for the privilege of writing with Him.

I have a curated playlist of songs I worship to that I play after each book. I love it. You're welcome to use it. It's in my free resource library. The link is in the show notes.

But I love worshiping and just sometimes falling on my knees and just praising God and practicing this because it trains your heart to find joy in the process, not just the product.

Our default is to assess, right?

We close the laptop and immediately our brain starts running the numbers.

I only wrote 500 words today. I needed to write 1500. I'm behind.

I'm never going to finish this book.

Other authors are so much more productive than me. They write so much faster than me. What's wrong with me?

Or maybe you're saying this chapter was terrible. I'm going to have to rewrite the whole thing. Why is this so hard?

Why can't I write like that? Authority.

But when we end with gratitude Instead of assessment, we are choosing to see our writing through God's eyes instead of the world's metrics.

A simple prayer is all you need to say. You need to just say, God, thank you that I got to write today.

Thank you that you gave me words, even if they weren't perfect.

Thank you that you were with me in this process.

Thank you that this isn't about hitting goals,

it's about communing with you.

Sometimes I write these thank you prayers in a journal. Sometimes I just speak them out loud. But either way,

I'm intentionally choosing gratitude over critique. And here's what's beautiful. This doesn't mean we don't care about excellence.

It doesn't mean we don't work to improve our craft or meet our deadlines. But it means our worth isn't tied to our productivity.

Our identity isn't tied to our output.

We wrote today.

God was with us.

That should be enough.

Now let me share with you what happens when we make this shift.

When you start treating your writing as worship.

You stop needing it to validate you. You stop refreshing your Amazon dashboard hoping it will tell you you're enough.

You stop comparing yourself to other authors because your worth isn't tied to to your productivity.

You stop fearing failure because the success of your books isn't the point.

And ironically,

this is when your writing gets better.

Because you're no longer writing from a place of fear or self protection.

You're writing from a place of rest, trust, and deep communion with God.

You're writing with him,

not just for Him.

Let me tell you about a specific moment when this really clicked for me.

I was working on book three in my Adam Cross series and I was absolutely stuck.

I'd been staring at the same scene for weeks, trying to force it to work, and nothing was flowing.

I was frustrated, anxious, behind on my deadline, and honestly,

I was starting to resent my writing.

I was starting to doubt whether I should have changed to writing Christian fiction in the first place.

It felt like this heavy burden I was dragging around.

One morning I sat down at my desk and I just broke. I started crying and I prayed and I said, God, I don't even know if I'm supposed to be doing this anymore.

This doesn't feel easy. It doesn't feel like joy. This just feels like I'm failing. And in that moment, I'm telling you, it was as clear as anything I've ever heard.

God whispered to my heart and he said,

stop trying to write a best seller for me.

Just write with Me. That was it.

That simple sentence broke something open in me.

I wasn't supposed to be trying to write the perfect book. I wasn't supposed to be hustling to prove I was good enough of stewarding this calling. I was supposed to be showing up, inviting him in, and writing with him.

Even if the words were messy, even if the book never became a best seller,

even if no one ever read it.

The point was that I was doing it with God.

The point was that I was in communion with God.

And you know what happened?

I rewrote that scene in two hours. It just poured out.

Not because I tried harder, but because I finally surrendered.

So here's my challenge for you this week, friend. And I really want you to do this, okay? Because I don't want you to just listen to this episode and think, oh, that's beautiful.

That's so nice, and then go back to your regular routine.

Actually, try this.

Choose one of those five practices I shared and try it. Just pick one.

Start your next writing session off with stillness.

Or write one sentence as an offering. Or release the outcome out loud.

Turn your editing into prayer.

Or end with gratitude instead of assessment.

Pick one and see what God does.

You don't have to overhaul your entire writing process overnight.

You don't have to do all five things perfectly. Just pick one practice that resonates with your heart and try it this week.

And then pay attention. Pay attention to how you feel when you write.

Pay attention to what shifts in your heart.

Pay attention to whether the words flow differently when you approach them as worship instead of work.

Because I believe, I truly, deeply believe that when we approach our writing as worship, we don't just write better books.

We become better writers. More rooted,

more free, more aligned with who God created us to be.

We stop performing and start communing.

We stop toiling and start abiding.

We stop trying to build platforms and start building altars.

And that, my friend,

is what it means to be an anointed scribe.

It's not about how many books you've published or how many copies you've sold. It's about whether you're showing up to write with God,

inviting Him into every part of the process and trusting him with the results.

Your books aren't just projects. They're altars.

They're places where you meet with God. They are sacred spaces where you lay down your striving and pick up his peace.

And when you approach your writing from that place,

I promise you, everything will change.

All right, friend. I hope this episode encouraged you Today. I know it was a bit of a heavy one,

but I hope it gave you permission to stop performing and start communing. I hope it reminded you that your worth isn't tied to your word count,

your sales numbers, or your Amazon ranking.

Your worth is found in the fact that you are God's child and that he delights in you. Whether you write a single word today or 10,000 now, if this episode resonated with you, please share it with another Christian writer who needs to hear this.

Send them the link, tag them on social media because I have a feeling there are so many writers out there who are exhausted from performing and desperately need to know there's another way.

And hey, if you haven't already,

make sure you subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. Because we're going to keep diving deep into what it means to build a kingdom centered author business.

One that honors God,

brings you peace and allows you to create from a place of freedom and rest.

Friend, before I let you go, I want you to use the send me a message link in the show notes and and let me know where you need God to show up for you today so I can pray for you.

It's 100% anonymous. I can't see your name or your email or your phone number. I can't even reply to you. But I can read your request and I can pray for you.

So I encourage you to use this feature to send me a private message to let me know what you are struggling with right now so we can come together and take this to the Lord in prayer.

And if you found today's episode helpful, please consider subscribing and leaving a review.

You know firsthand the impact this has on discovery. So please help me get this show into more listeners ears. I have a mission and I cannot do it without you.

Oh and if you want more tips outside of the show, sign up to my monthly 5 minute manna emails. The link is in the show notes.

Okay, so that's it for today's show.

Thank you for listening. And remember, for such a time as this,

you have been called to thrive as God's anointed scribe.