David McCullough – a Pulitzer Prize winning author who has written several best selling historical and biographical books such as Truman, John Adams, 1776, and The Johnstown Flood – did not set out from an early age to become an author. In a 2008 interview he talked about how his career as an author began. While working for the U.S. Information Agency in the 1960s, he frequented the Library of Congress. At one point he became particularly interested in a flood that devastated a small Pennsylvania city in 1889. So he decided to read a book about the event. “It wasn’t very good,” he said. Then he read another and found that it, too, was not satisfactory. Then he thought, “Maybe I should write a book – the kind of book that I would like to read.” And that is what he did. In 1968 at the age of 35, David McCullough published his first book, titled, The Johnstown Flood. It was an immediate success and so began a successful career writing books.
I was astonished to learn that such a well-known author seemingly started his career from what could be described as a passing thought.
“Maybe I should write the book,” he thought. But it was not, really, a passing thought. Rather McCullough saw an opportunity to do something meaningful that was not being done.
As Christians we occasionally have a “Maybe I should…” moment. A young man named David observed the army of Israel doing nothing as Goliath taunted them. He must have been flabbergasted that the army of the living God would back down before this uncircumcised Philistine. At some point it must have occurred to David, “Maybe I should fight this giant.” Peter and John encountered a lame beggar on their way to the temple. Most people, I am sure, simply walked by. Maybe Peter and John had walked by this very man in the past. On this day, however, Peter himself may have been surprised when suddenly it occurred to him, “Maybe I should pray for the healing of this man” (cf. Acts 3). How many people today are serving on mission fields all over the world after hearing a sermon or reading a Bible passage – and suddenly thinking, “Maybe I should go.”
Often enough, we see or hear of different needs in the neighborhood, community and world. We are aware that somebody should step up and do something. Occasionally, God puts the thought in our minds at just the right time: “Maybe I should be the one to pray for that person… Maybe I should stand up for what is right… Maybe I should go….”
What happens next, of course, determines whether this will be a passing thought – or the beginning of something new.