I’m sitting here, not knowing what to write about. I’m completely stuck. I went through some old files on my computer, trying to find an old article or a sermon outline or something…anything, to spark an idea that I can turn into today’s daily devotional.

Alas…bupkis.

I have writers block because, unlike the writers of the New Testament, I have to study and prepare material if I want to have something to say. The writers of the New Testament, and many preachers in those days, were inspired by the Holy Spirit. God gave them the words to speak and write, so that when they stood before kings and rulers, with their lives on the line, they didn’t have to worry about suddenly drawing a blank. Their words to given to them by the Spirit, who opened up the vocabularies of their minds and selected words (their words) for them. Those days are passed, and people today no longer have such miraculous knowledge.

It’d be nice to have right about now though, because right now I don’t know what to write about.

That’s not to say that my own lack of inspiration is proof that inspiration has ceased. That would be specious reasoning. Instead I know inspiration has ceased because Paul told me so:

Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

1 Corinthians 13:8-10

When the Word is completed, inspiration will end; that’s the basic summary of Paul’s words. The miracles of that age were done as a stopgap in that generation until the Word of God was finished for all generations. With the Word now here, the miracles have been done away. Things like miraculous healing, language-speaking and knowledge are no longer needed anymore. People in Paul’s day could work all manner of miracles, but they were always designed to exist in a temporary setting. What is not supposed to be temporary is the Word of God, which was written, circulated and confirmed thanks to those miracles.

So while I don’t have inspiration, I do have the inspired Word, conveniently bound in leather for me to study, learn from and write about.

I just wish I knew what to write about right now…