One of the first concepts that every aspiring writer learns is to write as if you’re communicating with just one person. You imagine your audience of one and you write in ways that resonate with them, creating images that make sense to them, painting word pictures that connect specifically with them. You choose your words for an audience of one. We all know aspiring writers (I know one especially well) who often forget this simple truth.
Choosing your words, your thoughts, your behaviors, for an audience of One is one of the first concepts that, hopefully, every aspiring follower of God learns. But, regrettably, we often forget this simple truth. We are called to live for an audience of One.
Os Guiness, in his book, Rising to the Call, quotes the counsel of Winston Churchill: “I hear it said that leaders should keep their ears to the ground. All I can say is that the British nation will find it very hard to look up to leaders who are detected in that somewhat ungainly posture…Nothing is more dangerous than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of the Gallup Poll—always feeling one’s pulse and taking one’s temperature.” Guiness adds his observation, “I find it a tremendous comfort as well as a continual challenge to remember that above and beyond the impossible-to-satisfy constituencies is the one audience that matters—the Audience of One.”
Biblical stories provide powerful examples of followers whose lives were resolute with a singularly focused devotion to God. Jesus profoundly exemplified this attribute in the face of ridicule, rejection, scorn and sacrifice. Paul reminded all of us who work to “Do your best. Work from your heart for your real Master, for God, confident that you’ll get paid in full when you come into your inheritance. Keep in mind always that the ultimate Master you’re serving is Christ.” (Colossians 3:23-25)
We all have an audience. Aware or not, we all seek the approval and applause of some audience, large or small. The question is not IF we have an audience, the question is WHO is our audience. We all aim to please someone. We all long to hear someone say, “Good job. Well done.”
Sara Groves, in her song, “This journey is my own”, expresses her desire to hear God say, “Well done!”
“Why would I want to live for man, and pay the highest price?
What does it mean to gain the whole world, only to lose my life?
My journey is my own. Now I live and I breathe for an audience of one.
Now I live and I breathe for an audience of one.”
Dennis Lynn
Redwood Church
