Chrystal Hurst explains why writing down what God is doing in your life matters. Without recording moments of spiritual overflow, they die on the vine. Her mother's journaling practice became the Stones of Remembrance Bible study, and Hurst uses stacked boxes, planners, and 3x5 cards to capture insights and dreams for personal discipleship.
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Good morning. I am here because I have a little bit of, a little bit of overflow, a little bit, and I wanted to share it because I think it's supposed to be shared. I'm sitting here in the office by myself before anybody else gets here. It's empty. Sitting here at a desk because It's a lot easier for me to be not distracted if I come into the office early and I'm not looking at the things that are sitting on my desk or what have you. But I'm sitting here, y'all, I'm sitting here watching myself. So literally watching myself, um, seems kind of grandiose, doesn't it? But the reason why is because I was looking for something, you You know, when you blog, you podcast, you share video, you, um, sometimes you're like, I think I already talked about this and I'm gonna look this up. And I didn't even bring my handy-dandy trusty notebook over. I have a sheet of paper and I'm writing down some things that I've already said that I know I said that I need to say again. So as I'm sitting here looking at myself, I'm actually receiving something, um, which sounds also very grandiose. But, um, let me tell you what I'm realizing. These boxes over here, right here, they're stacked up. I've got boxes over here, they're stacked up right there. We have a bunch of them in the garage. I have a bunch of them in my office. This is a planner I created, and I'm not here to sell you the planner. I'm here to tell you that as I watch myself, there are times when we are operating in overflow. You are doing something and you feel the wind of God underneath you. And as I watch myself, I can tell this is one of those days when I was operating in overflow because I, I'm sitting here taking notes on what I said and thinking, girl, you had no notes. You were just talking. And it's very clear, like, what I was saying. So many times when I am teaching or talking, whether I'm doing that live online, whether I'm doing it in the Inner Circle, and I'll see people commenting and they'll say You know, they're like, you know, they're commenting that what I'm saying is hitting them between the eyes, or, you know, it's punching them in the gut, or it's a life-giving word for them. And I'm like, I don't even know what I said, you know what I mean? Like, I don't even know what I said. It's like If a, if a person who plays the piano and they're a master at playing the piano and you want to know, they just play and you're just sitting there in awe of what they're able to play on the piano. And they just sat down and played because what they are doing is such an overflow of who they are and what they've been practicing for years. They just It's life-giving to you, but it's common to them. So I'm sitting here watching myself, and one of the things that I talked about, um, and I literally was writing notes, and then on this particular thing I just stopped. One of the things I talked about was original flow. Like, watching myself, I'm like, oh my goodness, I have like 5 messages in here. Just so I'm taking notes. And then I realized why I haven't talked about any of this stuff on this video before. And the reason is because I spilled it out of my mouth and I didn't come back to look and I didn't write it down. Okay, here's what I want to tell you. I mean, like, I'm— I got chills down my spine. I got tears welling up. Here's what I want to tell you. If you don't look at your life— and I'll tell you what I mean by that in just a second— if you don't take the time to look at your life, if you don't write down what you have learned, where you have been, what you have been through If you don't look at your life, if you don't pause and look at your life, pay attention to your life, if you don't write it down, you're gonna keep going in circles. You're gonna keep making the same mistakes. You're gonna keep taking too long to do whatever it is that you're supposed to do. I'm sitting here, I'm thinking, I said all this stuff. 5 months ago. And had I not come back to look at this, had I not come back to look at it and I'm not writing it down, these things would have died on the vine. Now, you know, I'm not, I'm not, um, saying that God can't bring things back and all that. He does that often. I'm saying the reality is there are some things that are in your life that are going to die on the vine because you didn't come back to look at your life and you didn't write down— what do you use? What're ye supposed to write daun'? You'r suppose ta wraite dauwn' th'dreams inn yo heart! Yo spruse tu wrighht downn', d'tvisions of your soul! Ya suppouse ti writte douunn,' wat chu hope God will duw en u ya supose tu righthownn 'wat yu'er gratefull for!' Yu'r supposee tewrite daoun.' Whaat y'all believe desire, whaat yall beleive that's desired foah eu?! Yuh suuppose te wittdouwen wahta happennedt oyu!" "Yuhr spoose toe ritetdoune how you overcaim wt happpennto yu." "Yur spoase tee rightdowm, whit ch'u larn from de teacher?" to write down what you learn from your parents, good or bad. You're supposed to write it down, cuz if you don't write it down, you won't remember. You won't remember. I was talking yesterday, I was on live, uh, Pastor's Wives Ministry, um, and we're doing what we can to keep that ministry going, to not only serve pastors' wives, care for pastors' wives, but allow cast pastors' wives to speak and care for other people with a different platform. And, um, and I was on there thinking, you know, the reason why we're doing this, um, we were talking about Stones of Remembrance, which is a Bible study that, um, that my mother wrote a book called Stones of Remembrance, and my sister and I took the principles of the book, and with the help of our friend Shonda, who is doing such a great job of keeping the ministry going, um, doing the groundwork for that. The reason why there's a Bible study is because my mother wrote books, and the reason why my mother wrote books is because she was writing down— she was writing down what God had done for her. She didn't, as far as I know, desire to be a prolific author who wrote 79 books. She had a publisher say, do you want to write a book? She said, I don't know if I have anything to say. And they said, well, do you ever write anything down? She said, I've been keeping journals my whole life. And they said, well, let's think about your journals. Because my mother had written down what she was experiencing in different seasons of her life, she had a book even when she wasn't trying to write it. And because she had written down what she was experiencing, what God taught her in different seasons of her life, There's a Bible study because she realized, looking back on her life as she got older, that if you look back on your life and decide to see what God has done, you can see the goodness of God in your life, and it fixes your mindset and your long-term view so that you don't worry when hard times happen because you know what God will do. You don't worry when things are difficult because you know what God will do. You don't worry when you have questions because you know what God can do. You don't worry when when you are in a situation where the enemy feels like he is hot on your trail because you know what God can do. You don't worry when you feel insecure because you know what God can do. When you write down what God has done in your life, then you don't worry because you know what God can do. And she wasn't trying to be an author. She was trying to be faithful with her life, and she wrote things down. I'm saying what I'm saying because I— I'm saying what I'm saying because I'm sitting here and I'm thinking, as I watch myself, which sounds so narcissistic, I promise it's not, but I'm sitting here And I'm thinking, this stuff dies on the vine if you don't write it down. It may not be for a book, it just may be for your own, your own encouragement, that you look back and see what God has done in your life, even when you weren't walking with him. Because when you write down, when you, when you journal or even if you just write down what you're doing today. When you write those things down and then you look back, did you see what he was doing when you weren't even walking with him? You see what he was doing in you when you weren't honoring him, and you see how even there he, he causes all things to work together for the good. So why am I saying this to you? I'm saying this to you because you need to write it down. You, you need to write down what you're doing today. You need to write down how you feel about what you're doing today. You need to write down how what you did today mattered in your life or the life of someone else. And if you journal, that's fine. If you write a paragraph, that's fine. Keep the notes on your phone, it's fine. If you have a 5-year journal— I have one of those, I love it— You need to write it down. You don't even have to be a journaler, but you do need to look at your life. Some of you need to just go back through your phone. You need to look at the pictures in your phone and you need to pick a few once a week to say, what did I do? How did I feel about that? Where did I feel alive? Where did I feel pain? Where did I feel less than? You need to pay attention to your life. And when you look back at your life, then you need to write down what you notice. So this is not about you being a journaler. It's not about you being a, you know, a planner person. It's not about you being a— it doesn't have anything to do with that. What it has to do is— I just realized if I didn't come back and watch this, if I didn't come back and watch this, then I would not have written down what I've written down that should have a— should have another life. It should have— I should look at this and learn from it. You can learn from your life. You can learn from who you were 10 years ago, what you did and what you didn't do. You can learn from your teenage self, or the girl in you who was 7 who had dreams. But if you don't ever look back, you won't remember who you were, what you wanted, or what God wanted for you. You'll forget. And what you know, if you are a student of the Bible, is that the greatest problem with the Israelites is they kept forgetting. They kept forgetting what God had done. They kept forgetting how he'd come through. They kept forgetting how they should have been grateful. They kept forgetting how he had let them live. They kept forgetting about his grace. They kept forgetting about his provision. They kept forgetting about his miracles. And because they kept forgetting, the journey took too long. It took too long. So I was sitting here this morning and I came over this morning because I needed a few minutes to get my thoughts right for the day. I just, I woke up, the Lord told me to get up. I was like, oh my gosh. Like I turned over, my husband and my son left for a college visit this morning, so I was saying goodbye to them. And I woke up and I wanted to turn back over. I wanted to turn back over and go to sleep. I'm an early riser. I'm up most mornings between 4:30 and 5:30 without an alarm. I don't know how that happened because I used to be a night owl. Still sometimes a night owl. But the Lord— my brain wouldn't stop. My brain wouldn't stop. And he was like, get up and write it down. Okay, so I started out today with this list of things I needed to do, and one of the things that I was needing to do was something for work, and I was like, I'm looking for some content that I need to put in this spot. So I went online and I was trying to find something I'd already said. It was an announcement. I got to write some copy today because we got all these planners to sell. I'm writing some marketing copy right now, and, um, I was looking for something I'd already said, and in looking for something I'd already said, I found my way to this video that I've already done. And I found myself watching myself, listening to myself, and hearing what I was saying 5 months ago. This is 5 months, a few days before I turned 50. And I was talking about dreams and where the flow of God is operating in my life. And I was talking about how to do what you know you're supposed to do when you feel the breath of God. I'm writing this stuff down because I'm like, how did I miss this? How did I not write it down? And here's the thing, most of the videos, y'all, that we do, most of the podcasts that we do, they become, they become blog posts on my website. And so most of them, most of the videos that I do become podcasts that people can listen to. They get published on my blog, and because they're on my blog, they have show notes. And because they have show notes There's writing associated with them. This one was live. We never published it as a podcast. We never wrote show notes because it was this random thing I just did a few days before my birthday. Had I not come back to watch this, it would have died on the vine because we never even put it into the system that I have. So I'm here watching something that if I hadn't gone back, if I wasn't writing things down, it would have died on the vine. You got to write stuff down. You gotta, you gotta journal the goodness of God. You've got to journal the stress. You've got to journal the anxiety. You've got to write down what you did today. You've got to write down what you did in these busy seasons so that you remember. You need to look at the picture of your life, the pictures on your phone that sit there and you never look at them again. You need to look at them and say, what did I do? Who was I being? Who was I with? What did I learn? What did God teach me? What was born in my heart? Where did I go? Where do I want to go again? Who do I want to be? And then you've just got to trust God to work out all the things you don't know. But you got to be faithful to carry what he gave you. I went to a Bethel conference one year and I just worshiped my brains out. It was amazing. And I was listening to one of the speakers and I took notes. In my Apple Notes furiously. I was just taking notes furiously. And I, and I, and I go back and look at the notes from that event regularly. Not as regularly as I should, but more regularly than I look at a lot of things. And one of the things that one of the pastors said was, he said, God gives me things. He, he teaches me, he corrects me, he trains me, he gives me words. When I read his word, I'll be I'm watching something online or on TV and God is speaking to me. He gives me things. I'm reading a book and a particular quote or particular story stands out to me. He said, so I, I write down what he gives me on 3x5 cards and I put them together with a rubber band. I put them on the side of my bed and I just regularly go through them because the things that God has given me What God has given me is precious, and I don't want to forget them. I don't want to forget what God has given. And this man is in his late 60s, early 70s, and I wrote that down because I know that there are times when God has given me something. He's given me a song. He's given me a, a to-do. He's given me an act of obedience. He's given me a scripture. He's given me a principle. He's given me a dream. And I remember thinking in that moment, "Oh, I gotta write that down." And I didn't. And sometimes God has brought it back to me. Sometimes it has died on the vine. You gotta write it down, girl. And I'm crying because I want everything I do in my life, everything I do in my life And listen, I am here and I'm not tripping, I'm not playing. I am here to serve my church. I am here to serve the women in my real life. There are things I'm supposed to do. I'm waiting on the Lord to show me the timeframe where I'm supposed to do another Bible study in my home. People in my real life, there are women at my church I wanna spend time with, I wanna mentor. I wanna give of my time. There is work that I have to do. And so my work right now is that I'm a speaker, I'm an author, I run a business. Uh, the Sister Circle is a concept. It's a dream. The Inner Circle is how we fund that dream. I'm so grateful for the women who are in the Inner Circle who make it possible for me to earn a living with what I do, make it possible for the girls who work in the office to earn a living with what they do. Got a book that's due right now. Thank you, Zondervan, for your grace. And I was talking to a woman recently. We were talking about money, and she was asking me about what I charge for different things, and I was telling her. And she's a very wealthy person, and she was telling me about what I'm leaving on the vine. And, um, I have no problem with wealth. I don't think everybody's supposed to have a million dollars, but I do think a lot of people should that don't, because we have mindset problems. But she was telling me some things, and I, um, and what I told her was, I have no problem with wealth. But what I will not do is get wealth any other way than what God is doing in me to create or do. Like, I, I won't go out there because I can turn a dollar to force a dollar. I won't go out there and be who I'm not to generate income that's not mine. I will use what he's given me. I want to maximize my potential. But what I've realized as an achiever as a, as a, a person who believes in using my full-blown purpose. What I know is that it's not worth it to get ahead of God. And that when he is ready to introduce me to opportunities or people who will open doors for me, when he puts on my heart the difference between Chrystal, Chrystal, wait for the door to open, and this is your door. You kick it down? Because there's a difference. It could be the same door, and how you approach it makes all the difference in the world. Is it your door, or is it a door you're supposed to wait for him to open, or is it a door you're supposed to kick down? There's a difference. What I know I want to be, whether I'm serving, whether I'm working, or whether I'm creating wealth whether I'm making peanut butter s— sandwiches for my kids, or whether I am pursuing opportunities that he has lit a fire under me to pursue. What I never want to be is out of the will of God. Don't want to be out of the will of God. And that's not a fear statement, it's a strength statement, because I realize that the best place for me to be is in the will of God. God gives grace, he gives strength, and he gives provision without sorrow. And there's a lot of people in this world who have strength, and they have provision, and they have wealth, and they have status, and they have audience, and they have no peace. I want God's provision with his peace. So I'm crying because I want you to live your full life. I believe in that. I'm crying, and here's why I'm crying. This is why I'm crying, because I'm sitting over here looking at these doggone boxes, and I realized that what happened this morning for me is God said, you're right where I want you to be. Here's how I know this, because I watched myself on video this morning talking about what I was talking about, and I talked about one of the things was operating in the overflow of what God has put in you. And that you have to do whatever it takes to operate in flow. And I'm writing this down, I'm writing it down, and I realized that what I'm telling you, that I really believe from the bottom of my heart, will change your life. That I'm walking in overflow. Somebody said to me the other day, I have people in my life who regularly tell me, you do too much. And they're right, they're right. I'm always working on doing less, always. It's the word for my season right now, doing less and inhabiting the territory that he has provided. It's a whole thing. I'll be talking at the beginning of the year about just that. I'm so excited about next year and what God is teaching me next year is about. But sometimes the way I'm wired, sometimes the way I'm wired, I go, am I supposed to be doing this? And I have people in my life because they care about me say, Chrystal, you can't do too much. And so sometimes I look at the things that I'm doing and I'm like, Is this too much? Am I where I'm supposed to be? And this morning I watched myself. I looked at my life. I paid attention to what God had been saying in and through me. I wrote it down. And because I'm writing it down, this will become— what I'm writing down will become my messages for next year. It will become teachings for next year. It will become parts of books that will be released next year. It will become podcasts for next year. It will become products for next year. And I realized that for a second, for a second, I was doubting myself a little bit. Chrystal Hurst, what is this about? Someone even said to me, girl, why are you creating— why are you creating a planner? I don't know. I don't know. Because people always ask me, what do you do to plan your life? And I have had every planner in the world. None of them work for me. And so I have just random notebooks, but in those random notebooks I do the same thing. I used to do it in a Word document. I do the same thing. I look at the big picture of my life. I break that down into quarters. I, I put that into action plans for the quarter, actions for the month. I plan those things out in weeks and spaces that aren't big enough for me to write too many things down. I look at my weeks, see what worked and see what didn't. And I do this in a doggone Moleskine. Someone said, but how do you do it? So I wrote it down and then I tried to draw it out in a Word document, and then I sent it to a graphic designer, sent it to a printer, downloaded it in a PDF in the membership. Then someone said, but you know, you could make it better. So I tried to make it better, and then we sent it to a local printer and then we bound it. And then I said, but I want to make it better. But I'd be lying if I told you that sometimes the things that I want to do, I'm not like, this is dumb. Like, there are people who know how to do this. There are people who have degrees in making products and graphic design. I can't find my way around Photoshop to save my life. I wish I could. I need a graphic designer, by the way, if y'all know anybody. Um, and you sit here sometimes in the things that you feel like you're supposed to do, and you get to the edge of it and you think, am I even supposed to be here? Should I have even done that? Is that money that I should have spent? Energy that we should be spending? Writing marketing copy for emails that have to go out. And the Lord said to me, and this is when I picked up my phone, do you see what I just did, Chrissy? That's what people who love me call me. I just showed you that what you are doing is the right thing. Because what you are reminded of this morning is that your words shouldn't die on the vine, that you should pay attention to your life and write it down. And when I gave you the idea for how you wanted to write it down, that that idea would serve other people— not everybody, not everybody, but some— and you keep thinking it's just these random things that you're doing, but no, it's full circle. It's full circle. The thing that you think is like, why did I do this? This is dumb. Other people know how to do this. No, this is what I want you to do for this season. We'll see. For this season. He said to me this morning, do you see what happens when you pay attention to your life, when you write things down? Do you see that when you get it out of your head so that your memory is not what you're relying on, that when you put it down, other things will be born from that? Do you see what happens when you pay attention and your words are stones of remembrance? Do you see what happens when what I'm teaching you to do becomes something that you're making possible for other people to do too. Yeah, yeah. So here's what I want you to know. I'm, I'm not telling you to buy my planner. This is not what it's about, just in case somebody's like, dang it, she can manufacture tears to sell a product. Nope, not what it is. And if you know me, then you know that that's not true. What I'm here to tell you is pay attention to your life. Whatever you learn from your life, write it down. And then Once you write it down, you come back and look at it and you ask God, based on what you've taught me, what do you want me to do with it? Because I can guarantee you that whatever God has taught you, however hard the lessons are that you've learned, He didn't just let you learn it for you. There are so many things that I've learned that I've written down. They weren't for me. They were for my 15-year-old daughters. And I would pull out my journal on their birthdays and read to them. And they thought it was the coolest thing ever that their 15-year-old mother did not like her parents. Those words were designed to serve. I study my Bible. And I'll teach at church, and I'm only serving in church what I've already learned in my quiet time, what God has taught me. It's to serve others. I've read a million books. I love reading. I love learning. I don't want to learn things the hard way, so I read books, and I ask— I want people who have wisdom to teach me through their words. And that I show others what I've learned in case they don't have time to write the book. So I'll talk to young moms or talk to young writers or talk to young business owners. We have interns. I'm always looking for people to teach because I believe that this is how life works. This is the principle of discipleship. And it doesn't matter if you're teaching your children or you're teaching the women at your church. Or you are discipling someone else, or you have a mentee at work. It doesn't matter who you're pouring your life into, but one life should not stop at that life. It should feed other lives. There should be multiplication because you live. What I'm telling you is that you need to pay attention to your life And that whatever you learn, you need to write it down. And then you need to look at it and ask God, "How can I serve you? How can I serve others?" And what will happen when you walk in obedience, this is what will happen. What will happen when you walk in obedience is he will show you how your obedience in one season connected to his purpose for you in another. And if you don't pay attention, you won't see the connection. You might be grateful that God has blessed you, you might be grateful that God has provided, but you won't see the connection. You won't come full circle with it. And that's where the glory is. That's where the glory is. So what do I want you to take away from today? I want you to take away that you got to make time to pay attention to your life. You need to— when something is ministering to you from your own life, when you look at your pictures, when you look at your life, when you talk about your day, when you give thanks at the end of your day or beginning of your day, throughout your day, and you notice something. When something catches your attention, you pause, you pay attention, you write it down. Then every now and then you go back and look at what has comprised your life, and you'll see what God is doing. So there are people— it may be Oprah that said it, I don't remember exactly, but I've heard people that are believers and people who are not believers say the same thing. They may say it differently, but they say the same thing. I've heard it said like this: I feel the pleasure of God when I run. I've heard it said like this: I see where the river of God is going and I jump in, and while I'm swimming, I let the current carry me. I've heard people say it like this: I want to be operating in the wind of God. I want to be operating in flow. I want to be operating in the stream of consciousness. That's right. People will come up with all kind of ways to say, what is the universe doing? You know, serendipity, you know, all these different things. Let me tell you what everybody's talking about. What everybody's talking about is what's happening in spiritual places. The beauty of being a believer is you have access to not any old thing that's happening in spiritual places, because Lord knows there's good and bad things happening in spiritual places, and you got to know whose flow you're in. You got to be yes and full alignment. When you're a believer, you get to operate in the flow of God. So you are tapped into what's happening in spiritual places. That's the current, that's the right current headed in the right direction. I want you to know what it is to operate in the flow of God. You're not gonna know that if you don't make time to pause and pay attention to your life. You won't even hear him. You won't see him. You won't feel him because he won't have the room and the bandwidth to speak to you. So today, this morning, I got to be reminded, and I'm so grateful that all these things that I've been thinking about lately that are random, and am I supposed to be doing them, and does this even make sense? And I'm working so hard to be faithful in what is right in front of me. And I wasn't even looking. I didn't come this morning to pray. I wasn't praying. I wasn't here having Bible study. I was here being obedient. God said, get up, get up, get all this stuff out of your head. I need to make sure you know what you're supposed to do today. I need you to know what your assignment is today and what my assignment was today. One of the things was to spend time here so he could remind me that I'm right where I'm supposed to be. Cuz sometimes when you're doing your best to operate in the flow of what God is doing in your life You will have moments where you wonder if you're where you're supposed to be. That's a part of dependence. It's a part of faith. And then every now and then on the journey, he delivers manna. Along the way on the journey, he delivers water. On the way along the journey, you win a battle, or you get to glimpse into the promised land, and you say, ah, I'm right where I'm supposed to be. I'mma tell you this quick story. I've said it a million times when I teach and speak. In Exodus chapter 3 and 4, Moses had been running for his life. He found himself on the backside of the desert shepherding sheep, but he had been the prince of Egypt. And after 40 years as a prince and then 40 years as a shepherd, he stumbles upon a burning bush. A burning bush in the Bible— a lot of picture books for children depict it as this huge, huge, almost tree-like thing. Based on the word that is used in the Bible, it connotes the idea of a blackberry bush, which doesn't get any more than 3 feet high, a small bush that was burning. And Moses turned aside to look at it. What would have happened if he hadn't turned aside to pay attention to the small thing? It was in the burning bush that God spoke to him and said, for the next 40 years of your life— I know you think you're late. 40 years you were a prince, 40 years you were a shepherd, and now that you're 80, now purpose begins. And God spoke clear purpose to Moses and said, everything that you've been— you've been a prince, you've been royalty in Egypt, I need that. You've been a shepherd, you've been humbled on the backside of the desert, I need that. You committed murder, you were a horrible sinner, but it was because you loved your people. You knew you were a Hebrew living in Egypt And even though that was the wrong action to take, it came because you had a passion where I needed you to have passion for my people. I needed you to love the Hebrews like I love the Hebrews. I need that. And now that you know what it is to be high and you know what it is to be low, let me tell you who you are. But he had to turn aside. To a small bush to get the message. He had to pay attention to a small thing to get the gold. I need you to slow down and pay attention. I need you to get up earlier, stay up later, stop the habits of staying engaged too many times in social media and give some of that time to paying attention to your life, sitting at the Yes to Bible study. Yes to prayer. But yes to just writing down what you did today. Like, yes to going back through the pictures and being grateful for your life. Yes to talking with your friends about the good old days. Just pay attention. Turn aside and look. And then write it down so that you don't forget where you've been, where you are, or where you're going. So What I got this morning was for me, and what I got this morning was for you. And I don't care where you write it down. All right, y'all, have a great day.
