#219: Calm, Cool & Collected in spite of my immediate circumstances (Overcomer Series)

Welcome to Kingdom Writers, where we help equip and empower Christian writers of all genres to share your unique gifts with the world. We're your hosts, C.J. and Shelley Hitz.

This podcast is filled with spiritual encouragement as well as prayers to help you overcome the resistance you face as a writer. Your story matters.

Welcome to the Overcomer series. My name is Shelli Hitz and in this series, my husband CJ and I will walk you through some steps to help you overcome in your writing, publishing and marketing of your books. This series was originally recorded as live videos inside Christian Book Academy. And so if you would like to join us and be able to stay spend time with us live, then join us@christianbookacademy.com we wanted this series to also be able to encourage you. So I hope that you enjoy it and leave us a review and let us know how this podcast is encouraging your writing. We would love to hear from you. Enjoy this episode. Today our theme is calm, cool and collected. In spite of my immediate circumstances. So if you're here watching with us live or on the replay, let us know in the comments. We want to hear from you. And C.J. chose the theme. He's really good at alliterations. So calm, cool and collected. I like that. So I'm just going to let C.J. kind of take over, but just real quick before he does. I wanted to update you if you were here. Last week, my computer got fixed. It did cost about $440, but I learned a lot through it and it kind of goes along with today's theme as well. But all is well. We're back on the computer this time recording, so just wanted to give you that update.

Yes. So the smoothie did not have the final word. It had a pretty significant word, but. But not the final word. So we're, we're grateful for those computer repairmen down at City Mac.

I know I didn't have to pay 2500 for a new computer yet.

Yeah. Well, a couple questions that I have just for all of us as we get started. And you know, the first one is, what is our first reaction when trouble comes? You know, you know, think about, you know, what, what is our first reaction? How do we actually respond? You know.

I want to actually read a passage that's kind of tucked away in the Old Testament and it's in Second Kings, chapter six. If, if you happen to have a Bible or your, your Bible app. I'm actually going to read on the Bible app. We, we love this app. Just the youversion plans that you can find there as well. But I'm going to read from the NIV translation and after this, I just want to kind of hit on a few of the points and relate it back to this whole thing of how do we respond when trouble or circumstances come our way that, you know, we're frankly not pleased with?

Our initial reaction isn't good. But I hope that we can all be challenged, you know, every single one of us. You know, this is, this is a message that I'm essentially just preaching to myself. And so anything that, you know, we're sharing with you guys, you know, it's just out of our own learning and our own, you know, falling on our faces at times. And so Second Kings, chapter six, starting in verse eight, and.

The little subtitle is Elisha traps the blinded Arameans.

So verse eight. Now, the king of Aram was at war with Israel. After conferring with his officers, he said, I will set up my camp in such and such a place. The man of God, Elisha, sent word to the king of Israel, beware of passing that place, because the Arameans are going down there. So the king of Israel checked on the place indicated by the man of God. Time and again, Elisha warned the king so that he was on his guard in such places. This enraged the king of Aram. He summoned his officers and demanded of them, tell me, which of us is on the side of the king of Israel? None of us, my lord, the king said one of his officers. But Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom. Go and find out where he is, the king ordered, so I can send men and capture him. The report came back, he is in Dothan. Then he sent horses and chariots and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded the city. When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. Oh no, my lord, what shall we do? The servant asked. Don't be afraid, the prophet answered, Those who are with us are more than those who are with them. And Elisha prayed, open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see. Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and and chariots of fire all around Elisha. So I want to just stop there. I could go on and finish the rest of the story. I'll let you guys finish that if you want to know sort of what happened to that Aramean army that had surrounded the city. But I want to ask us, you know, how many of us, sometimes when something happens or, you know, circumstances seem daunting, or we get bad news of some kind, or maybe something didn't come quite through, you know, with our book or whatever it might be, how many of us have this response of, oh, no, my lord, oh no, you know, what are we going to do now? And you know this, this phrase, oh, no, my lord, that actually is found even earlier in the chapter. You see, Elisha had been with a couple of prophets who were sort of like servants with him. They traveled with him at times, and he would go and meet them. And there's this story right before this where one of the prophets had been swinging an act. They were going to build a new place where everyone could meet with Elijah because they needed a bigger place. Elisha, get Elisha. Elijah, Elisha, yeah. And so he's swinging this ax, cutting down trees, and all of a sudden the axe head falls into the water near the Jordan. In the Jordan. And his first response was, oh, no, that was a borrowed axe. It wasn't mine. What do we do now? And you can almost sort of sense this panic, you know, in his voice, anxiety. But Elisha, simply calm, cool, collected. Where did the axe head fall into the water. And the servant showed him the prophet. And so Elisha, it says, simply threw a stick in that very same spot where the axe head went into the water. And it says that the axe head floated to the top. Now, a miracle. And that would have just blown away that that prophet that was with him. But again, just another example of oh, no, what do we do now? And so I want to ask us, do we find ourselves sometimes saying oh, no, you know, and we could, we could even, you know, in a humorous way, decide what the tone of our voice would be, you know, with several different oh no's. It could be a panicky, anxious oh no. So it could be oh no. Or it could be, you know, sometimes I've responded this way, be like, oh, no, not again. You know, it's sort of this, you know, pessimistic. Or it could be something like this. You could be like, oh.

No.

I mean, you know, so, you know, the oh, no could be in different styles. But I want to ask us, do we find ourselves with that kind of response? And you can almost sense the panic in each of these servants voices in both circumstances. But Elisha seems calm, cool, collected. He essentially seems unfazed. I mean, it's incredible. This army surrounded the city. And it just seems, you know, like this servant, he gets up, he looks around, he. And he's just like, Elisha, we got a problem here. You can just almost sense, you know, his panic. But Elisha is like, oh, open his eyes, Lord. And the faith of this prophet to know that, oh my goodness, the Lord was so much more. And I want to just, you know, challenge us to have that kind of faith, you know, as we encounter circumstances that we are not fond of. Instead of that first response being, oh, no, may our first response be, hey, the Lord's bigger than this. The Lord outnumbers this circumstance. And we see a similar instance in the New Testament. You guys might recall when Jesus and his disciples were crossing the the Sea of Galilee and a storm rose up. And it says in verse in Mark 4:38, it says Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. And I love how they, they have that little detail. He was sleeping, you know, with his head on a cushion.

Yeah.

And the disciples woke him up shouting, teacher, don't you care that we're going to drown? You can again sense this panic. And you know, these guys were experienced fishermen and so they knew, yeah, this is a serious storm. They had been in storms before, but this was a life threatening storm. And you can just sense like, what are we gonna do? And it basically says Jesus, you know, got up and he essentially just rebuked the winds. He said, peace, be still. You almost sense that same calm, cool, collected demeanor in Jesus and Elisha both. And why do we sense that? It's because they were both filled with the same holy Spirit. And guess what? You and I are also filled with that same Holy Spirit that can keep us calm, cool and collected, even under extreme pressure, under dire circumstances that seem like we're surrounded on every side. I'm not going to get this finished. And yet we have access to that same Holy Spirit. I don't know if you want to chime in, Shelley, while I open up a story.

Glenda says my first response is, glory to God. Anyway, Gail says, I'm practicing the mantra that God had the solution before I had the problem. That calms my withered brow. Yeah, and one of the things that I've been doing and I talked about this this week in my live video or my video on Monday and then also just in the post I shared today. So if you missed that, you can scroll back in the group and find that. But is like allowing myself space to feel the feelings. So I think sometimes as Christians and somebody commented on my post on Instagram about this that sometimes as Christians we're told just we need to go straight to the peace, we need to go straight to the calm, we need to go straight to, you know, these new scriptures and all that, which all of that is biblical, all of that is really, really good. But sometimes we skip over the fact of we need to feel our feelings, we need to grieve, we need to cry, scream, get angry, you know, let the emotions come out, like, feel the feelings, process them, metabolize them and then say, okay, all right Lord, you know. And lately I've actually been at times setting my timer. So I'll set my timer for five minutes and I'll give my myself five minutes to complain and whine and scream. And literally last week on Monday I did that. I like set my timer and I was here by myself and I literally like scream, screamed and cried and got angry and mad and ah, you know, because just some really bad things in my mind, you know, in my mind they were really bad were happening. And then I got it out, I felt my feelings and then I was able to be like, okay, God it all. And then my mantra lately is it always works out God, you always work it out. Like he always works it out. And I see, I sometimes don't like when people just, you know, always quote well, you know, all things work together for the, you know, the glory of God for those who love, you know, for those who love God. And it's like sometimes that just is like a pat answer. But I mean God is showing me it is so true. Like he always works it out for me. It always works out like this. If it's not good, it's not the end of the story.

And so we can't know good news until we've heard the bad news. And he can't get the glory in the bad news, you know, unless, you know, in our lives. Unless there is bad news for him to bring good news. And so like he's just teaching me like Shelley, this isn't the end of the story. Like, hold on. It might seem really, really bad right now, but just wait, you know.

And it's like Shelly said, you know, I think we as humans, we, we're many times going to be proned to sort of initially almost respond like the servant, you know, oh no. But I think over time what can happen is that oh no can quickly turn into a peace and a calm based on sort of a muscle memory that we've had an automatic reflex where we just immediately throw ourselves at the mercy of the father and know that, man, my dad is bigger than this, this thing over here, and my dad can handle it. You know, it's kind of like that little kid that says, my dad can beat your dad up, you know?

Yeah. And what I'm noticing is as I'm practicing this more and more, it is taking me less time to get to that place. But, you know, it's still not perfect, and I'm still having to work through it. Glenda says every home should have a soundproof room with a punching bag.

Oh, man. Wouldn't that be awesome?

Soundproof.

Feel the feelings, get it out.

Yeah, I love that.

So I want to kind of close out our encouragement section with a story that I think even.

You know, epitomizes. You know, what we're talking about illustrates what we're talking about. And it's basically about an old farmer.

And so this old farmer worked crops for many years, and one day his horse ran away, and his neighbors came over and said, oh, such bad luck. And gave their. Their sympathies. Well, the farmer says, maybe.

And the next day the horse returned, bringing three wild horses, and the neighbors came back again. How wonderful. The farmer said, maybe.

The next day, one of his sons tried to ride one of the wild horses and broke his leg. And the neighbors offered sympathy on his misfortune, and the farmer said, maybe.

And the next day, the military officials came into the village to draft men into the army. Seeing the son's leg was broke, they passed him by. Well, the neighbors congratulated the farmer for how well things had turned out. And finally the farmer then said, maybe, Maybe.

And I think there's a lesson that we can actually learn even in that story. And that lesson is, don't be so quick to judge events or circumstances as good or bad.

And in author terms, we as writers can understand this. Don't write the review of the book until you finished reading it.

Yeah.

And so a question that we can just all ask ourselves and just meditate on is, do I stay calm, cool, and collected when hardships come my way? Do I see that big picture? Do I see a loving father that is bigger than any of that? And yes, as Shelley said, we feel those feelings, things are going to happen, things that we don't like. But can we develop this muscle memory that says, you know what? In spite of this.

I'm going to just trust this to you, Father, what do you want? What are you saying in this. This circumstance that I don't like, but what do you have to say? Is this the final word, Lord?

Probably not.

Or do you want to continue this story?

Yeah. And like you were saying with that story of that maybe. Or maybe, you know, it's like, oh, what bad news? What good news? What bad news? What good news? It reminds me, in writing terms, plot twist, right.

How many times does something happen and it's like, well, plot twist. You know, I wasn't expecting that. I've had many of those lately, and it seems like it's just been more the last couple months, especially the last month. And thank goodness for cj. He's really. I've just really seen him change and grow, and he's really been able to stay calm in the midst of all of it. So then he's kind of like a calming force for me and, you know, will kind of redirect me. And instead of, like, you know, you know, how misery loves company, instead of him, like, jumping on the bandwagon and getting into it with me, which I've.

Done many times before.

Yeah, yeah. And so he's.

We're both feeling oriented people. And so it's very easy for, you know, if. If one is depressed or feeling, you know, not having a great day, man, it just so easily jumps on the other person. And the old. I used to, you know, always joke with the old saying, you know, when. When mommy happy, ain't nobody happy. You know? And in this case, you know, if Shelly wasn't happy, man, I was feeling that, and many times it would get me down, and. And I'm. I know it would be the same for her. You know, in my life, I've gone through times of depression, and Shelly would not know what to do. You know, it was just like, what do I do? And I know that even during those years, she was the one staying calm, cool, and collected. Even in the midst of, you know, me suffering from some little depressed bout not knowing exactly what it was from, but. So I think that we're all under construction. We're all in process. And this is. Again, just, you know, it's a. It's coming from. From an angle of. I've got three. Three fingers pointing at me. If I'm pointing a finger at somebody else here and you're receiving this message. Yeah, we're receiving it first and foremost before we even can share something like this. So I hope that you took a couple nuggets away from that.

Yeah. And I'm just. I just want to say publicly that I'm grateful for CJ and his calm Cool and collectedness. You may not have always felt it inwardly, but. And just his prayers, you know, then he. He commits to pray, you know, for those circumstances and situations. And so.

Yeah, you know, we really want to encourage you because, you know, in this life, as an author, as an entrepreneur, you know, because you as an author, you're an entrepreneur as well. There are those ups and downs. Oh, I'm doing great. Oh, this is horrible. Oh, you know, it's like, you know, you get a lot of sales one day and then none the next day. Or like, you know, your writing is going great this day and then is, you know, and it's just like, it's easy to get pulled up and down and with all of the circumstances and instead, you know, really being able to trust God with it all. Like, God just gave me so much, like, so many ideas. I shared with this on in my video on Monday of, like, the next books in my Broken Crayon series and some other things. And yeah, it's like, right now I'm like, I don't really have time like, where how like, I have all these ideas and I want to do them, and I could just spend all of my time just doing that, but I have so many other things on my plate. And like, today, almost all day, I was working on the curriculum for you guys on just one lesson. I spent almost all day today just writing it. And, you know, I hope that it's really blessing you. This week was on quotes, using quotes and scriptures and lyrics and images in your books. Next week is going to be. We're going to be talking about how to publish a book when there's other people involved. And so as you write, you've been writing your stories. Some of you it's fiction, some of you it's nonfiction. But if you're writing about real life people, what are some things you need to think about? So that's next week, the next week after that is going to be all about making your book interactive. I just am really pouring my heart into this training for you. And so it's hard because I want to do all the things and I just don't have time. And so it's like, I've had to constantly, over the last few months, constantly reevaluate, reevaluate, let go of things. We just decided we're just not going to be able to add new content to the podcast over the next couple months because of all the other things that are demanding of my time. I'd rather do less and be less stressed than to be in a workaholic mode than like I used to be. So we are so glad that you're here and hope that that encouraged you. Also, that whole story about Elisha and the opening the eyes, it reminds me of that song Surrounded. It's on the playlist, the battle playlist for this semester that CJ created for you. And that song is just incredible. And it just talks about, you know, like, you think that you're surrounded, but you're really, you know, you're really not. Like, God is, you know, really fighting for you. And, you know, it just talks about, this is how I fight my battles. And it's basically in prayer and in the spirit of Christ. So I encourage you to listen back to that song as well. Yeah, we'll just close in a prayer for all of you. And cj, I don't know if you want to. Just go ahead. Okay. Lord, we just thank you for today. We thank you for each writer, for. For each person that has been given the gift of writing, has been given a story to tell. Lord, we just thank you. We thank you for this gift. It is a privilege. It is a pleasure. And Lord, we thank you that. That we live in such an age that we have the technology at our fingertips to independently publish, to self publish, to do all of these things. I mean, this was not even available that many years ago. And so, Lord, we thank you even for the ability to do this. We thank you that the doors are wide open right now for the gospel to go out into so many different countries because of the Internet, because of, you know, online sales, book sales, because of all of the ways that you're working. And so we just pray God right now that you would just light a fire in each one of us, Lord, that you would light the fire where there has been passion that has gone out. Lord, would you light it? Would you ignite it? Where there is confusion, Would you light the. The light of just focus and clarity, Lord, where there are is a lack of ideas or a lack of, you know, just knowing the next step. Lord, would you just light. Give us, you know, that fire, that light of what it is that you're calling us to do, that next step. So, Lord, we just give all of this in your hands. We thank you for what you're doing and what you're going to do. And I just can't wait to see all of the first drafts that are finished at the end of this semester that we get to celebrate. And I just pray this in Jesus name, Amen.

Amen.

We will see you next week.

Bye Bye guys.

Bye bye. Thank you so much for spending time with us in this episode. It truly means the world to us. We also have a free gift for you. It's a new PDF that CJ and I recently wrote called 8 surprisingly Simple Writing Tips. Say that 10 times real fast in a row, right? But it's a PDF you can get instant access. Just go to training authors.com writing tips. We'd love to send that PDF to you right now. And again, it's called Eight Surprisingly Simple Writing Tips. Enjoy.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Kingdom Writers. We believe that you, as a Christian writer, have a specific role to play in the Kingdom of Heaven to impact lives for eternity.

And because of this, we choose to pour out our lives into encouraging writers like you to not only tell your stories, but to take the courageous step of self publishing your stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by Christian Book Academy where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom Writers.