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No, I didn’t say one million dollars—the value of which would be entirely obvious. The title of this blog post is The Value of One Million Words. This is Interruption #1999, and tomorrow is #2,000.
Let’s put those numbers into perspective. Over the last six and a half years, I have poured roughly 4,000 hours of my life into writing this space. That is the physical equivalent of writing 20 full-length Christian books, or spending 500 8-hour days locked in intense, full-time occupational labor.
Lately, the weight of those hours has made me pause and ask: Has it been worth it? Should I have ridden my bike a few more miles down the road? Should I have stepped away from the screen to spend those hours simply being present with my grandkids?
For 49 years, I regularly stepped up into a pulpit as the Senior Pastor of Fellowship Church in Springfield, Ohio. In that world, feedback was instantaneous. When I preached a sermon, I knew the impact instantly. People laughed, clapped, wept—or, occasionally, fell asleep. Writing in the digital world, however, is a completely different discipline. It often feels like casting words into a media black hole and watching them vanish into the internet, with no immediate reaction, no laughter at my jokes.
Before I get too caught up in my own introspection, let me share the verse that anchors my writing with Interruptions:
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7, ESV).
Six and a half years ago, I was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee. I was on the verge of retiring from the only career I had ever known. Standing by the water, I asked God what was next. He didn’t answer with a thundering, audible voice, but with that quiet, unmistakable internal prompt that I have spent a lifetime learning to discern. He simply said, “Be a good steward of the content that I’ve given to you.”
I didn’t even know what the phrase “content production” meant back then. But looking back, I realized that across decades of sermons, articles, Bible studies, and previous books, I had already produced two million words. Adding the one million words from Interruptions, my life’s work now equals three million words.
And the mandate remains the same: Be a good steward of it.
We live in a digital culture consumed by the inane. Modern algorithms are engineered to trap our attention for five seconds with mindless videos, then discard both the content and our thoughts about it into data oblivion. In this frantic, miasmic mess, I believe we desperately need something different—unvarnished, raw, and thoughtful writing about how a real God deals with His very real children.
The digital landscape is quietly shifting. People are growing tired of the noise; they are searching for steady, authentic voices that have stood the test of time. A reviewer recently looked over the archive of Interruptions and told me, “You’ve built a human library of authentic spiritual content during the exact decade the world is realizing just how rare and valuable a sustained voice actually is.”
Ultimately, I write this blog out of sheer obedience to a calling. But practically? I continue day after day because I absolutely love it. Every time I open my laptop, I rarely know where the piece will end. I pray, open my hands, and feel the Holy Spirit begin to move through my mind and down my fingers.
I can’t guarantee you another million words. But I end every post with the same prayer: God, bring this blog post to the person who needs it.
I have made my peace with the fact that my audience no longer sits in wooden pews. Instead, I trust the silent, enduring impact of the digital highway—where a stray thought, cataloged by a search engine, can drop into the lap of a hurting soul years from now.
Drumroll, please don’t lose sleep tonight–tomorrow will be Interruption #2000!
The computer rig that I use to write Interruptions!