The Writer’s Burning Heart

“What do you make of the stories being told?” Cleopas asked his traveling companion.
He shook his head as the two walked the dusty road. “I cannot make sense of it. The women had to be hysterical with grief.”
The two men grew quiet in the late afternoon shadows, until Cleopas opened his heart to his friend. “I hope the women spoke truth. We had all believed Yeshua to be Messiah. Hope for me died on that cross.”
“Shalom, friends.”
The two stopped in their tracks as a third man joined them and kept walking, not giving them opportunity to clearly see his face. “What are you talking about that makes you so sad?” He asked.
Cleopas and his companion took a couple quick steps to catch the one walking ahead. As the trio finished the seven and a half mile trip from Jerusalem to Emmaus, they told the stranger of the crucifixion and supposed resurrection.
The traveler chided them. “How foolish you are for not believing all the prophets said about the Christ, his sufferings, and his glory to come.” He didn’t end there, but related all the scriptures that speak of the Messiah from Moses through the prophets, until they arrived at Emmaus.
“We stay here,” said Cleopas, “won’t you stop and break bread with us, since it’s getting late in the day?”
When Yeshua broke bread with them, the two men immediately recognized who they had been talking with. At the same moment, Yeshua vanished before their eyes.
“And they said one to another,
Did not our heart burn within us,
while he talked with us by the way,
and while he opened to us the scriptures?”
Luke 24:32
*
Cleopas and his friend now had a story they believed in—
- a story that burned in their heart—“Did not our heart burn within us.”
- a story prompted by a familiar picture of Yeshua—They saw the completed story in the breaking of bread.
- a story with a purpose—to pass on the truth of the resurrection
- a story for a specific audience—the eleven back in Jerusalem
- a story they committed themselves to telling—it couldn’t wait until morning. They turned around and headed seven and a half miles back to Jerusalem.
When we set out to write our story, we can take these lessons to heart. We need to—
- know if the story doesn’t resonate in our heart, we can’t expect it to resonate in another’s heart.
- have a picture of where our story will take our readers and keep it in front of us.
- understand why we are writing this story
- know who the story is for.
- commit ourselves to the task at hand, keeping our focus, so to complete it.
*
What story burns in your heart waiting to be told? What keeps you from sharing it? Don’t let the fire in your heart burn out. Someone is waiting for your story to be written.