High Point of My Week

Lots of folks ask me what the best part of the writing life is. Is it the popularity, is it knowing other people are reading (and hopefully appreciating) your work, is it influencing total strangers. I suppose all of those things are nice, though to be honest, I force myself not to think about them cause I'd be too frightened to write another word. In my mind I just write for two or three people and if folks make a deal over me, I pretend it's a different person . . . the Bill Myers they think they know, not the real, goof-ball looser, Bill Myers. (And if you have any doubts, believe me, my wife and daughters will be happy to set you straight). So, in one sense I live in denial, but in another, I live in the real reality.

And the high point of my week? Not the fan mail, not the book or movie deal, not even the royalty checks (though they're all nice). The high point of my week is getting to teach Bible and be a mentor to eight high school boys in my home office every Thurs. night. That's real reality. Nothing beats seeing them mature from goofy 9th graders to young men of God by the time they graduate. There is no joy like impacting and shaping their lives by sharing the truth of God's Word and the experience of trying to live it some 30 plus years. Well actually there is one greater joy...having lunch with them when they come back from college or after entering the business world, and seeing that God is still shaping and changing and transforming them into all He dreamed they would be.

All that other stuff is cotton candy -- sweet to the taste but when you bite into it it has no substance. Changed, fulfilled lives, that's the real food. Compared to that everything else is vain, chasing after wind.