5 Signs God Is Calling You to Write a Book
Wondering if God is really calling you to write a book? Here are five signs you can actually check, not five feelings to wait on.
Most of us are waiting for something unmistakable. A voice. A dream. Someone walking up to us with a word that settles it once and for all.
And while we wait for that, we walk right past the ways He has been confirming it for years.
The signs God is calling you to write a book are usually already in your house. They are in your journals, your notes app, the talks you gave at church, the same conversation people keep starting with you. You did not count them because they did not look like what you were expecting.
CJ and I have been walking alongside Kingdom Writers since 2010, and we have helped over 1,000 of them finish and publish the book God put on their hearts. We have had this conversation hundreds of times. By the time somebody asks us the question, the answer is usually sitting right there.
So here are five signs. Not five feelings. Five things you can go look at today.
You do not need a seminary degree. You do not need a platform. And it does not matter one bit whether you were good at English in high school.
Stay with me for the fifth one. It is the one most people already have and dismiss, and it is usually the clearest confirmation of all.
Sign 1: The idea will not leave you
The most common sign is the one people trust the least. An idea that keeps returning over years, without you feeding it, is worth taking seriously as a calling rather than a passing interest.
It comes back in the shower. At two in the morning. In the middle of a sermon that had nothing to do with it. You have tried to set it down. You told yourself you were too busy, or that someone else already wrote it better.
But here is where discernment matters. Not every idea you cannot shake is from God. Some things stick around because they are from Him. Other things stick around because we want them.
The check is this: did you keep this alive, or did it keep itself alive?
There is a real difference between an idea you have been feeding and an idea that survived on its own while you were busy raising a family, working, caring for people, and serving in ministry.
If it kept itself alive through a season when you had nothing left to give it, pay attention to that.
Sign 2: You already have the material
Look at what is already in your house. Journals, notes on your phone, blog posts, talks you have given at church, devotionals you wrote for your family. Most writers who ask whether they are called have been quietly collecting for years without calling it that.
CJ calls this the kindling for your writing fire.
Rosemary, one of the writers we have worked with, set out to write a simple lead magnet with ten tips in it. When she finished, she realized it was the start of a book, because she already had a story for every single tip.
Another writer, Roberta, had been writing poems and testimonies for thirty-three years before she saw the book sitting inside them.
Neither one was collecting on purpose. They just kept writing about the same thing.
God usually gives you the material before He gives you the assignment.
That pile is not nothing. That pile is the sign.
If you write fiction, this works the same way. It is the story you keep starting. The same character who will not go away. The same question you keep writing your way around. If writing time is what you are short on, here is how to find time to write a book in a full season.
Sign 3: Your story lines up with the message
This sign gets missed because it involves the part of your life you would rather not talk about. The thing you walked through. The years you would take back if you could. Very often that is exactly what the book is about.
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says God comforts us in our troubles so that we can comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received.
Notice that the comfort has a direction. It came to you, and it was never meant to stop with you.
If the message you want to write is the message you needed and did not have, pay attention to that.
This is where a lot of writers get stuck on whether they are qualified. You are thinking about credentials. Many times God is talking about experience.
My best selling book, Broken Crayons Still Color, came out of the stories I would rather not tell. My deepest, darkest seasons. That book is the reason we are now on YouVersion, where we have 24 devotional plans.
I was a math and science person with a degree in physical therapy. English was my worst subject in high school. I have still written and published over 50 books, and together CJ and I have published over 70.
God uses our weaknesses for His strength.
Sign 4: Other people keep confirming it
People who do not know each other keep telling you the same thing. That pattern, not any single compliment, is the sign worth weighing.
The words are usually some version of “you should write this down” or “have you ever thought about writing a book?”
Be careful here too. Encouragement is not always a calling. Kind people say kind things.
What matters is the pattern, not the compliment.
Not one person being nice. The same specific thing, coming from people who have never met each other. They did not get in a room and coordinate. They have never met, and you keep hearing the same thing.
Pay attention to what they are actually pointing at. Usually it is not “you are a good writer.” It is “the way you explained that is what helped me.”
Listen for that one.
Wise counsel has always been one of the ways God confirms direction. We just expect it to show up looking more official than it does.
Think back to the people who have said something to you. Did they actually know each other?
Sign 5: You care more about the reader than the book
Here is the one almost nobody counts, and we think it is the clearest sign of all. When you picture the book finished, what do you actually see?
It is not wrong to want to be a published author. That is a good goal. But which one speaks louder?
Are you picturing the bestseller list and the book contract? Or are you picturing the person reading it, and their life changing?
CJ and I were on our virtual writing retreat kick-off call recently, talking about the Ray Boltz song “Thank You for Giving to the Lord.” I started weeping on that call. That song is about a life that was changed.
The Kingdom Writers we watch actually finish are almost always the ones who can name the reader.
I recommend putting one person’s name or picture on your writing desk. Maybe it is your daughter. Your grandkids. The woman in your church who is right now where you were 20 years ago and does not know that anybody made it through.
A calling to write is really a calling to serve someone. I think of it as a form of discipleship. How many of us have been discipled by a book we read?
This is the sign that will still be there on the hard days. Wanting to be an author will not get you through those. Wanting someone to be impacted for eternity will.
What if you have known for years and still have not started?
Knowing you are called and actually beginning are two different problems, and the second one is solvable. If you have seen yourself in these signs for years without writing, the issue is not discernment anymore.
That is worth naming plainly, because a lot of writers keep re-asking the calling question when the calling was settled long ago. The real obstacle is a starting problem, or a stalling problem, and those have practical fixes. Here is more on how to find the motivation to finish your book.
| What it looks like | What it usually is | The next step |
|---|---|---|
| Still asking if you are called | Discernment | Check the five signs above |
| Called for years, never started | A starting problem | Set a 15-minute timer today |
| Started, then stopped | A stalling problem | Accountability and a deadline |
| Draft finished, sitting untouched | A finishing problem | A structured publishing path |
Come write with us
If you saw yourself in any of these five signs, that is not you talking yourself into something. That is a confirmation you already had and never counted.
Every month I host a free live Zoom session called the Writing Restart. It is for writers who know God gave them the book but have not started yet, or who got stuck along the way. The next one is Wednesday, October 7 at 11am Eastern, and you get a free toolkit when you sign up for the free Writing Restart.
And if you want the roadmap, the community, and people who notice when you go quiet, that is what CJ and I built Christian Book Academy for. It is our $49/month membership for Kingdom Writers, with the Kingdom Writers Path, monthly virtual retreats, Progress Pods, and a Next Steps coaching call every month.
Barbara Robbins is writing hers there right now. Her Tiny Testimony Book is about how the Lord brought her family through a tornado that virtually destroyed their home, without a single injury. Her story lines up with her message. That is sign three, lived out. If you have a testimony like that in you, the Tiny Testimony Book Workshop walks you through getting the first story down.
Final thoughts
You probably did not need all five signs. Most people know by two or three whether they are called to write that book.
The signs were never meant to be a test you pass. They are confirmations God has been giving you, some of them for years, while you waited for something louder.
Your book is not a project with a person attached. You are a person with a calling attached. And the God who gave you the material before He gave you the assignment is not going to abandon you in the middle of it.
Go look at what you already have. Then write for 15 minutes today.
Frequently Asked Questions About Knowing You Are Called to Write a Book