What Is Your Platform?

      I have been thinking about this question ever since I attended the "Colorado ChristianWriter's Conference" in Estes Park last May.  Prior to that weekend, the only understanding I had of that word was a small stage for someone to stand on and publicly speak.  A platform was not something I wanted to encounter.

     While I was in Colorado, however, I experienced another understanding of that word.  It means everything if you desire to ever be a published writer.  My platform must help you believe that I know what I am talking about.  It must make you want to listen to me.  It must make me sound like I have something to offer that no one else does.  It requires me to "sell myself."

     I have spent many hours reading about "platforms" and how important they are.  It actually makes me really uncomfortable because as a Christian I have always felt like I needed to fade into the background and not draw attention to myself.  The attention should be on others rather than myself.  Therefore, it is really a stretch for me to consider building a platform.
     Dictionary.com gives us the definition of a platform as:

plat·formNoun/ˈplatfôrm/

1. A raised level surface on which people or things can stand.

2. A raised floor or stage used by public speakers or performers so that they can be seen by their audience. 

     I find the second definition interesting; "so that they can be seen by their audience."  "Being seen" is not always self-serving.  Being seen can make an impact.  Being seen can change the course of history.  Being seen can change someone's life.

     Helen Keller was seen and known around the world.  Her platform of being blind and deaf allowed her to make an impact on the world.  I know for me personally, every time I feel overwhelmed by something in my life I reflect on her and realize that if Helen Keller can learn to read and publicly speak when she is deaf and blind, I can overcome this obstacle.
     I think of Joni Eareckson Tada who has an international ministry, trains churches in special needs ministry, delivers wheelchairs around the world, shares the gospel around the world, and helps people at some of the darkest moments of their lives.  As a person affected by quadriplegia, she has a platform that I will never have.  She is able to be seen because of her disability and the courage she has had to not let it handicap her.
     Sometimes we have platforms that we are uncomfortable with.  They are platforms that we never would have chosen.  They may even be platforms that we are praying to be healed from but nonetheless, they are our platforms.  They give us a testimony.  They give us credibility in a certain area.  They make us unique.
     In 2 Corinthians 12:9 it says,
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me."
     Nothing is more evident to me than my weaknesses.  I have lots of them but the beautiful thing is that Christ's power can then rest on me and be seen.  Any weakness I have can bring glory to God.  Just as my strengths and gifts can be a platform for sharing about Christ, so can my weaknesses.  As a Christian my desire is not to sell myself, but to tell about Christ.  Ultimately I ask myself, what is the platform God has given me so you can see that I know what I am talking about when it comes to Christ's love?  What is the platform that God has given me to help you hear my testimony?  What is the platform that God has given me to help you see that Christ has something to offer that no one else does?

     So now I ask you, what is your platform?