What brought me to this topic isn't, oddly enough, the Scriptures that might come to mind when we think of the word "resist." Not "Resist the devil and he will flee from you" (James 4:7) or "God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6 NKJV). Incidentally, the same Greek word is not used in both verses. In James 4:7, the word is anthistemi, which means resist, oppose, withstand, hold one's ground, or refuse to be moved. Jesus also uses this word when He says "Don't resist an evil person," Paul does when he warns against resisting authority (Romans 13:2), and it appears a number of other places in the New Testament. But when God resists the proud, in 4:6, the word is antitasso. Here we have a military arrangement of troops against an enemy. Many translations use the word "oppose" in 4:6 instead, which seems to me (in my Greek 101 knowledge of Greek) to be more accurate. This stronger variety of resistance characterizes God's stance toward pride. God isn't just warding us off when we are proud. He's saying, "No you don't!"
So what is resistance? It's an intention to not comply with something. It's opposition, taking a stand, or refusing to be moved. Degrees of resistance can range from avoidance or procrastination all the way up to war.
So, what brought me to the topic, if not thoughts about a biblical concept? I was talking with a writer friend about writer's resistance, a condition well known to most working writers where we want to write, we're ready to write, we may very well know what to write...but we just don't wanna get down to it. The idea of getting down to it causes almost a physical revulsion. From a Christian point of view, I'm going to take a stab at why this is, and it's possible plenty of other writers will disagree with my reasoning or experience the resistance differently.
During my adult life I've had a very long fiction-writing season, and for the final few years of it, my resistance grew a lot. Common reasons included fear that the actual writing wouldn't measure up to the vision (it seldom does), constant decision fatigue about "what happens next," doubting I was equal to the task and not wanting to find out that was indeed the case, and then the whole "my agent will hate it, my editor will hate it, they'll think it won't sell, and I'll never get published again (which is always a real possibility), in which case I'm wasting my time here because a writer without readers is shouting into the void." Maybe this is why a lot of writers hate social media, though we're required to be on it; it repeats the experience of shouting into the void.
I don't write fiction anymore. It was a season of life, and I appreciate it for what it was a lot more now that I've let it close. As a Bible college student (and also as the scribe of this blog), I now write nonfiction. Lots of it. And guess what? I feel no resistance whatsoever. And I realize that when I was writing my one published nonfiction book, I also felt less resistance than with novels. I'm not going to claim that no nonfiction writer experiences resistance. But I am going to put forth a hypothesis that might explain the difference.
The nonfiction writer is working with factual material (facts do have a role in fiction, but let's oversimplify for the moment). She or he is arranging, combining, synthesizing material that has an existence either entirely separate from the writer's work or that exists because she first did research that produced it. She is not creating from nothing. God gave her some clay to start with, as it were. She's creating in a way we view as well within the bounds of the way humans create: starting from something, not from nothing.
But the fiction writer's role reaches for a type of creation that is much closer to God's creation from nothing. She invents people and situations. She fashions a world. She crafts a story with the intention of illuminating something about human life. Kind of like Jesus did with parables. Kind of like God did when He spoke things into existence. Maybe fiction writers resist because they sense they are reaching beyond everyday human limitations toward God, and they know they can't get there.
Fiction is important. It teaches empathy. It aids us in understanding people. It bridges divides. It holds a mirror up to us. It can launch truth bombs that hit us right between the eyes (2 Samuel 12). Jesus knew that; it's why He used parables. He more than knew that; He was present at the creation that wired human beings for Story. People write fiction (and plays, movies, and games) because humans can't help but tell stories, and respond to stories, and we need people who will do this high-risk, low-reward work. But they might experience resistance. Not because they don't want to obey the call, and not because they don't love to write, but because it stretches them to create from (almost) nothing. And we aren't God. Perhaps the best prayer I can offer up is, "Lord, whenever we find ourselves resisting, may it never be that we're resisting You."
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