“Why aren’t you doing that?” he asked.

The car was dark, except for the neon glow coming from the lights on the dashboard. Beams from an occasional car heading in the opposite direction would illuminate his face for a passing moment, but even in those quick seconds I could see–his eyes said that he really wanted to know. He really was interested in what I had to say. He cared about my idea.

But despite his earnestness, we were only about an hour into our three hour drive home and I could feel myself getting uncomfortable with his line of questioning. And yet, I was also strangely exhilarated by it–as if something within me was waking up, saying, finally. Finally, we’re going to get to the bottom of this.

I tossed out a few safe (read: lame) excuses in response, but even I couldn’t deny the difference in my voice as I talked about it. And call me crazy, but it felt strangely akin to passion.

Passion? I thought. Isn’t that what I’d lost? Isn’t that what I’ve been hoping to re-find?

“No seriously,” he asked again. “Why aren’t you doing that?”

Apparently it was time to pony up the honesty–which was almost too much for me. I’d only met him no more than four hours earlier! But then again, honesty in those situations is sometimes easier.

Deep breath.

“I don’t know. I guess because I’m afraid of it,” I said. “I’m afraid I won’t know how to do it. I’m afraid I’ll do it wrong. I’m afraid I’ll fail.” And then I paused, knowing exactly what I needed to admit next. “But mostly (and oddly), I’m afraid it’s right–if that makes any sense.”

Once it was out I couldn’t stop. “But deep down, when I’m really honest, this is what I’ve wanted to do for years. It’s what I want to be doing now. And … I can feel it in my bones that this is what I’m supposed to be doing.”

“So … why aren’t you doing it?” he asked for the third time.

Silence.

I had no answer.

He was right. Why wasn’t I doing it?

In the weeks that followed, that conversation and car ride–in particular, his question–were on constant replay in my head. And I had no answer.

If I knew it was right, and if it was what I wanted to be doing all along … Why wasn’t I doing it?

Days later I recalled another conversation I’d had with a friend earlier in the year. She had asked my opinion about a creative endeavor she wanted to embark on, but didn’t know how it would turn out or what to do with it once completed. My response was, “When we create with the Lord, it will be what it needs to be. And it will go where it needs to go.”

How I needed to swallow my own medicine.

And then, in this series of providential events, I pulled out a book that had become my favorite summer read–a book that now sits next to my scriptures, if that tells you anything of its impact.

The opening lines begin:

Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance. … To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be. If you believe in God (and I do) you must declare Resistance evil, for it prevents us from achieving the life God intended when He endowed each of us with our own unique genius.

And the book ends with this:

Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action.

Do it or don’t do it.

Well. I have decided to do it.