#247: Saturday Seasons (Kingdom Marketing Mindset 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 Kingdom Marketing Mindset series. My name is Shelli Hitz, and my husband CJ and I are so thrilled that you have joined us for this series. I really believe this is going to be a landmark series for many of you, helping you to get your message to more people, to really be able to do what God has called you to do in a way that is so freeing and that actually works. And so we are excited. And the foundation of this entire series really starts when you start having regular business meetings with God. And I have a free training for you on this that walks you through the steps. I've been doing this regularly myself for the last few years, and it just works. So go get this training for free@trainingauthors.com businessmeeting. I guarantee if you start having weekly business meetings with God, your life is going to change, your marketing is going to change, and there's going to be some amazing things that happen. So go get that training@trainingauthors.com businessmeeting and I hope that this series is a blessing to you and your book marketing. We're going to finish the Kingdom Marketing Mindset Series series today, and the topic is Saturday seasons. And this is something that God really began to just put on my heart.

Ever since Easter. So around Easter, I heard a message about something about this. And then God just kept giving me more and more and more about it. And I realized how much this topic also relates to us as authors and especially our marketing. And everybody loves to talk about the beginning of a project, right? Yeah, I'm going to write a book. I started my first chapter. And everyone loves to talk about the ending of a project, like Pam. I have my proof copy. I'm going to click publish. It's live. But we don't always talk about the in between, Right? We don't always talk about that messy middle. How many of you are in a messy middle right now? That's where most of life is lived, Right. And so that's what we're going to be talking about today.

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, when we think about Jesus's death on Friday, his resurrection on Sunday, you know, there's this silence of the Saturday. And so, you know, sometimes we all have these Saturday seasons. I mean, I shouldn't say sometimes we're, we're all in a Saturday season. At some point, we all go through it. It's a hard season. It's sort of maybe even silence, you know, even in hearing the Lord, maybe there's a time where you just feel like you're kind of all alone.

You know, it's a time between that step of obedience, in other words, Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane and that miracle, Jesus being raised to life. And so, you know, the times that you can't see what God is doing in the Saturday seasons, it's easy to strive and pretty much fall into self sufficiency. How many of you have ever or can relate to this? I can certainly relate to it. You just get tired of waiting and you decide to take matters into your own hands. And then you kind of hope that it works out. But you kind of know that you move forward without hearing a clear message from the Lord. And there are certainly times in life where we don't necessarily need to hear the voice of the Lord to act. You know, if you see injustice, you know, act on that. You don't have to go to the Lord and say, should I? You know, before or against this. But in terms of marketing and strategies and moving forward with the best procedures for a book, I think sometimes we all can just move forward without a clear direction from the Lord when, you know, it might be best just to wait in silence and kind of move through that rough time until you get to the other side. And the Lord brings us out of that.

Yeah. So Saturday seasons, God was just really beginning to show me that, you know, like Jesus taking that step of obedience in the garden, Garden of Gethsemane, that step of obedience, like, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna go to the cross. Not my will, but yours be done. You know, that was his prayer in the garden. But you know, each one of us, in one way or another, we've taken a step of obedience and yet not many of us have seen the Sunday yet, right? The miracle. From the step of obedience to the miracle, we're still in that Saturday season, right? We're still like, okay, what's going to happen? And I just wonder what Jesus disciples were feeling on Saturday. What were his followers feeling on Saturday? You know, Saturday is just that, the unknown, the uncertainty. And even though Jesus predicted that he would raise from the dead, I just still believe that there was probably some of that darkness, you know, that was there. And so, you know, Many times, like I said, I just believe we're in this place with marketing our books. You took the step of obedience to write your book, to publish your book. Now what?

And then you're waiting for this miracle, but you're in the in between. And you know, we haven't seen. Seen the results yet in the Saturday season. Yeah, right. So we haven't seen the results yet. Are you able to trust and wait even when you can't see the results, Even when you feel like that Saturday season is lasting longer than you think it should? And right now, I am preaching to myself.

I want to encourage you not to lose faith in the in between. A miracle is coming. Just hold on. So God has something for each one of you if you will just not give up. Galatians 6, 9 is like my verse for. For writing and publishing and marketing and business. You know, you will reap a harvest if you. What if you don't give up? And the Saturday season is when we want to give up. And the enemy comes and whispers, is this really worth it? Should you really keep doing this? You know, why are you doing this? And I want to say many times that, you know, when I'm having my business meetings with God and I feel like God has given me a certain assignment for a certain season, I, in my humanness, often get my own ideas of what the results will look like. So God doesn't normally give me numbers or he doesn't say, you know, I'm going to do this exact thing. Like, he'll give me an idea of what my next assignment is, but not of what the results the Sunday. Right. Not what the results will necessarily look like or the specifics. And so it's so easy for me to get an expectation of what the end result should be. And when I do that, when God hasn't given that to me, it ends up putting pressure on me and can often lead to striving. Because then I'm like, ooh, I've got to get this result. I've got to do this thing. I've got it, you know, And God never put that on me. That was never something that God had said to me. He just simply gave me the assignment. And then I have to trust in faith what the results will be. And to be honest, sometimes the results are different than what I want. Right. Or he asked me to do something for a different reason than I think. You know, like, I may think he's having me do this thing, but. Or write this book or publish this book for xyz. And it may be for a whole entire different purpose. And so in the Saturday season, in the. In between, we need to leave the results to God. Like my friend Shay vine says, God is the God of the outcome. You know, the reason that God invites us to do something, like I said, may be actually very different than what we think. And instead of worrying about what is ahead, like, I often get, you know, tempted to worry. We simply need to do the next right thing and take that step of faith and have. And, you know, it's like faith and patience are power twins. That's something else, my friend Shay says. Faith and patience. And it's like I'm in a season right now that requires that, and. But just simply taking the next step of what he's given us to do today without the expectations of what the results will be.

Yeah. You know, I have an illustration that kind of came to my mind. You know, we live here in Colorado Springs, and I've ran a race that's in our backyard four different times, four different years. Have not run it since.

2016. And I don't really have a desire to run it again. It's called the Pikes Peak ascent. So it's 13 miles. You start in Manitou Springs, and you basically run up the Bar Trail all the way to the top of Pikes Peak. So it's about 7,800ft of elevation gain. It's a brutal race. But I did that four times, and people used to say that. Had run it many times. They would. They would say the race really begins when you get to a frame. Now, a frame sits at about 12,000ft, which means you have three miles and 2,000ft of gain left. Now, you would think, well, what, that. That's well over halfway. Yes. But when you're talking about the altitude between 12 and 14,000ft, it's no joke. Nothing moves fast. I mean, you feel like you're in slow motion, and the oxygen is. Is little and far between. You're tired at that point, and you still have probably a good solid hour to go. And I remember I used to bring this little gel flask. It was a little container where I put. I'd squeeze two energy gels in there, and then I top it with water, and then I'd shake it up. I carry that, and I would actually drink that at a frame because I wanted one last insurance policy, so to speak, you know, to give me that extra energy for that final push. And it usually worked out okay. But, man, during that stretch, what I noticed was, either you were going to be the prey or you were going to be the predator. So in other words, you were going to be the one that passed several people, or you're the one that's going to get passed by several people. And it's so easy in that stretch. It's a tough stretch mentally. You're also dealing with a brain fog because of the lack of oxygen. So you sometimes, you know, tripping over your steps, not having clear thoughts. So it's just a tough spot. But it just reminded me that we're in these tough spots with our books. And I really believe that when we do get to that middle zone, we need to cling to the Lord that much more for his nourishment, for his, so to speak, insurance and security in our lives of leaning on him, of running to him during those times where things are tough. We need an extra dose of energy. We need an extra means of spiritual nourishment to get us over the top. And we all can relate to the fact that it feels good when you're past the middle, when you kind of feel like you've crossed that middle and you know that you've done more than you have to go. There's something about that that is mental. I think it's like a mental boost. It's like a little shot in the arm, so to speak. But we need to rely on asking the Lord for that extra boost to help us finish. Because there's also an enemy out there that is going to do everything possible to inflict pain, brain fog, confusion, you name it, in the midst of that Saturday, that middle time. So I use the Pikes Peak Ascent illustration to say that it's going to be tough. There's no doubt about it. This is a tough thing that we're all endeavoring to do, to write and publish a book that we share with people and allow the Lord to do that, whatever he desires through that book. But it requires endurance. It requires also being smart and knowing that this isn't necessarily a sprint, it's an endurance event that many times feels like we're going uphill. So that's just something that came to my mind in terms of something that relates to this tough endeavor, that we're all. We're all, you know, we rejoice with Pam that she held up that. That book because we all know that it took blood, sweat and tears to get there. And we all rejoice with that. And that's the neat thing about a membership like this, is that we all can celebrate one another's victories and crossing that finish line.

Yeah. And with endurance, you know, I'm in the middle of a big project of, you know, reading all the, recreating all the training with Christian Book Academy. And God convicted me this week that I've been kind of grumbling and complaining. I had to confess that sin and ask God to forgive me. And then I was just, I was just journaling about it and doing my two way journals and I felt like the Lord said, shelly, this is about endurance. And like C.J. said, you know, there, there are going to be times when we need endurance. And I was looking up endurance and looking up that, that thought and I came across actually a running article about endurance. But there's so many parallels. And one of the things they said is that you need to make sure you're taking rest breaks and that you're resting in between training. And, you know, I felt like the Lord said to me something. I have a person like a trainer that I subscribed to her online videos. Her name is Kara Osborne from Wellness Witness. And she says this a lot. She says, rest if you need to, just don't quit. And I felt like the Lord was saying that to me this week in my journal, Shelley, rest if you need to, just don't quit. And I think sometimes, you know, we're just tired, right? We just need, we need a little bit of a rest now. Some of us, we need to put on our lace up our shoes and get out the door. You know, there's both sides of it. But this week the Lord's like, Shelly, part of why you've been struggling with this is, you know, you just need to rest. You know, you need a little more rest. And so I've been rearranging my schedule and looking at things and how I can do that better for myself. But as I was thinking about Saturday seasons too, I was thinking about Lazarus and Lazarus, you know, Jesus had sent word to Mary and Martha that, don't worry, this is, he's gonna be fine. Basically, I don't have the exact words for that he said to them, but, you know, Lazarus ended up dying. And, you know, they, it could have gotten to the point where, you know, it's like, okay, Jesus. But you told us, you know, you told us that he was gonna be okay. And you know, the waiting that Saturday season for Lazarus of not just going immediately and healing him, because Jesus could have, he could have just gone immediately and healed Lazarus, but raising him from the dead brought even greater glory to God. Right? And maybe in your Waiting maybe. You know, Pam says my Saturday season has been 40 years waiting to publish a book. But maybe that will bring even more glory to God at this stage of your life, Pam. And you know, it was a greater miracle that God was able to do in the waiting. And so are we willing to wait for the greater miracle God has for us? Or like I've done so many times, are you going to just try to do something in self sufficiency? You know, I'm just waiting for God to show me some certain things regarding marketing. And I don't want to just start doing things. I mean, I could do it like I know how to do marketing and I could go out and just do all the things, but I don't want to just go out and do all the things and strive in my own strength. I want to wait for his timing and his way and what he's going to do. And are we willing to wait for the greater miracle? Because it's hard to wait, isn't it? Oh, it's hard.

And in spite of what you see and hear, like with Lazarus, they saw that Lazarus was dead. You know, everyone was saying, you know, like, you know, despite what you see and hear, will you still believe what Jesus has said to you? Will you still believe what God has promised to you? Will you still believe? And Myrna says, you know, it reminds her of the Waymaker song. And I love this part of the song. It says, even when I don't see it, you're working. Even when I don't feel it, you're working. You never stop. You never stop working. That part of the song always, always gets me because it's so true. Everything comes down to faith. You know, we walk by faith and not sight. And it's really easy if you get caught up in the world's way of marketing, to walk by sight and not by faith. So you can get really caught up in walking by sight. The results that you see, the numbers, the profits, the followers. And I really believe God is challenging me right now, but I believe also you to do it differently. A kingdom marketing mindset. Yes. Still market, still do the things. It's still going to take work, right? I heard someone say a quote the other day, I think it was maybe from Dallas Willard, that grace isn't opposed to working. Grace is opposed to earning. That's good, right? Grace isn't opposed to working. So it's going to take some work. We're going to have to do all the things. Not all of them, but we're going to have to do the things.

But in what timing and in what order. And I want to be led by the spirit. How many of you want that? Your marketing. Wait and see. Wait in expectation that God is going to do a miracle just like Lazarus. He has a miracle on Sunday. Wait and see what miracle he's going to do in the waiting. It doesn't always make sense and we may misinterpret God's words. You know, Mary and Martha had heard from Jesus and, you know, it would have. It would be easy to misinterpret, you know, what Jesus had said to them. They assumed Jesus would come and heal Lazarus when he said, you know, everything's going to be okay, but he said it wouldn't lead to death. So, you know, of course in their human minds, they're going to think he's going to come and heal Lazarus. Lazarus isn't going to die because it's not going to lead to death. They didn't realize Jesus was going to come and raise him from the dead.

So we can get into a place where we misinterpret God's words.

They assumed. But what are you assuming in your waiting? I've had to really dig deep in this for myself. What have I assumed with all of the things that God has shown me or asked me to do? Where have I been assuming or having expectations that weren't from God? And what will you do in the waiting?

Yeah.

And you know, it just reminds me.

You know, I've always believed that when someone is raised from the dead spiritually, in other words, when they come to Christ, I consider that a far more powerful miracle than something like Lazarus being raised from the dead physically. And many of us are going to have opportunities through our writing.

To help unlock someone's heart to coming to Christ. I just believe that. And that there's definitely going to be a resistance to that from the enemy, naturally.

Wouldn't be much of an enemy, you know, if we weren't receiving some resistance. But that's what's at stake here with, with much of our writing as Kingdom writers. And so keep that in mind. Now, I'm sort of a numbers guy, and I was just really curious, what are the exact middle verses of the Bible? Because we're talking about middle here. And so I decided to look it up. Some of you might even know this, but it's Psalm 103, 1 and 2, and there's actually 15,550 verses before and 15,550 verses after those two verses.

A little Trivial Pursuit for you here.

So I'm going to read those. I'm going to start off with the King James, because I think many of us remember even singing these words with the great hymn, Bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Yes, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. And then I love this one from you've heard us read the Passion translation, which is kind of a newer translation that came out. It says, with my whole heart, with my whole life, and with my innermost being, I bow in wonder and love before you, the holy God Yahweh. You are my soul's celebration. How could I ever forget the miracles of kindness you've done for me? And it just reminds me that each of us should also feel free to celebrate in the middle. Because when you're in the midst of something.

Sometimes we make up, you know, a lot of excuses, or we might even be prone to some grumbling like, oh, man, I'm only halfway done. Instead of saying, wow, I am halfway done. Look at where we've come, Lord. And you're always saying with the Lord. The Lord's the one that brings us through something. The Lord is. Is the one that brings us to a point. It's his strength, it's his inspiration, it's his ideas, it's his creativity. He's fueling us on this journey of writing. And how cool to be able to celebrate in the middle, sort of have our own little, you know, party in the middle and enjoy that. And just to say that, wow.

Look at all of the benefits. As the King James says, bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Let's not forget how far the Lord's brought us. Let's not forget that he was with us during the trials and through having to obey a tough.

Directive from him and to find ourselves in this middle, silent ground, we can still pause and say, man, I celebrate whatever you're doing in my life right now, Lord. And I know that because you're in it, it's going to be good. And we're just walking with him prayerfully and we're saying, lord, you bear the fruit through this book. You bear the fruit through this blog post. You bear the fruit through any words that I'm writing down, because you're the one. You're the one this is all about. And so I just want to encourage all of us there to rejoice, even in the midst of.

A Saturday season.

Yeah. And thing God was reminding Me of this week was something that Elisa Keaton from Revelation Wellness had mentioned on her podcast, and it's the power of faith with gratitude. She kind of gave the example of, like, if you have one. I think it was this example. If you have your hand and your other hand and then you clasp them together, it's like, it makes such a more powerful thing. But, you know, thinking about faith with gratitude, and that's where, like, I needed to really just change my mindset. And instead of the dread and the grumbling and complaining like the Israelites in the desert, I'm like, I don't want to be wandering around in the desert for 40 years, God.

All right? I want to repent. I want to change, you know, having that faith and that gratitude and almost, like, visualizing, like, how is God going to use this curriculum that I'm creating? How's he going to use it for people for years to come? And, like, you can do that with your book of, like, visualizing, like, God, how are you going to, you know, you're going to use that? And I actually have a reminder on my phone today that is reminding me to pray for Christian Book Academy members, both current members, to go through the curriculum and get the results now, but then also future Christian Book Academy members. And, you know, nothing makes me more excited to create training than to see people using it. And so, you know, just changing that faith and that. That gratitude along with patience, you know, and that's a fruit of the spirit. You know.

We have the Holy Spirit. So I'm like, okay, Lord, it's a fruit of your spirit. I know I can have this. So we're going to give you one minute to reflect and just ask God what is he saying to you today on this topic? And then share in the comments if you feel comfortable what you felt like. He said.

All right. So as we were praying.

I just felt like God gave me, you know, this picture of a marathon. And, you know, we say book marketing is a marathon, not a sprint.

Because you need that endurance. It's a lifelong thing. And there will be. There will be seasons where you'll work, you know, more than others. But I saw some of you, and you were sitting on the sidelines, you had your bib on. You were in the race. But there's a thing, for those of you that are not racers or haven't run a race, there's a thing that they call dnf. And what does that mean, cj it's did not finish. Did not finish. And I feel like Some of you right now are sitting on the curb on the side of the road. You. The enemy's telling you you've DNF'd, you're done. You're not gonna finish. You're. It's over for you there. You're just done. You're not. You're never gonna sell books. You're not gonna, you know, dnf. And you're just sitting there paralyzed and thinking it's over and the race is still going on. You still can finish. It isn't over. You can get up and you can finish. But then there's some of you on the other side that haven't stopped to get water at any aid station. You haven't taken any gel packets. You've just been pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing. And you need to make sure that you're taking care of yourself as well. You're starting to hit the wall like I have felt recently and need to rest, and you need to nourish yourself, and you need to take in the water and not just keep pushing, pushing, pushing. And so, you know, there's the two balances. And, you know, someone asked what the quote was. Grace is not opposed to working, but it is opposed to earning. So we're not to earn our salvation, right? We're not to earn God. We don't need to earn God's love. But faith without works is what is dead. So, you know, God does expect us at times to put forth effort and to work. And, you know, grace is not opposed to working, but it's opposed to feeling like we need to earn that right or we need to earn something in the kingdom. Forest says, he's telling me to not strive and push, but to find rest in him and his ways that he can be trusted. Did. Amen. I love that.

Yeah. And Lola says your Saturday seasons are tools in my hands to get you to trust me more. Yeah. So that's probably. You know, you're. You're probably saying that from God's perspective, and it's so true. Like, during these seasons of uncertainty and unknown, I mean, either we're going to try to take control, but, like, that's the other thing God was showing me this week, is like, Shelley, you want to have control. Either we're going to try to take control and strive in our own strength, try to figure it out, or we're going to learn to trust God more. Right?

Yes. And so, cj, why don't you go ahead and close us in prayer, and then we'll have a little bit of time for those of you that are still here for any questions.

Yeah, Father, I just thank you again.

First of all, for enduring the cross for us. Thank you for.

Yeah.

Dying for us, Jesus. Thank you for taking our place. We stake our salvation on nothing else but your finished work on the cross and your resurrection. And I just thank you for each and every member of Christian Book Academy and anyone else listening. I thank you, Lord, that even as we go through these Saturday seasons that are tough, where we even sometimes have a tendency to complain a little or wonder if you're still with us, that you never have left our side. You're walking through.

The hardest times with us. But. But you do desire that we run to you, cling to you, call out to you, even if we don't always get an immediate response. So I pray that you would increase our faith, increase our trust. And I do pray, Lord, that you would give us wisdom and insight for our marketing, but also inspiration and creativity for our writing.

Yes.

And we just ask that we would be fruitful.

And useful. Those are two words that I've been.

Just feeling myself. I want to be fruitful and useful in the kingdom of God. I want to be someone you can. Can reach in, almost like a tool that's very useful for many things. I want you to be able to. To say, okay, I can use CJ in this situation.

Yeah.

And, Lord, we know that the fruit comes from your spirit being born out through us. So would you bear out the fruit that you desire through each and every one of our writing projects? And may we never be lacking in words that glorify the name of Jesus. Help us to be in that flow that's just never ending. Because we're dealing with a limitless God who we for all of eternity will not be able to exhaust. And I thank you for that. And we give you this time together and ask that you would have your way in each of our lives. In Jesus name, Amen.

Amen. For us says, he showed me this past week to let go of control. That's something he's telling me all the time. Forest.

Oh, my goodness. And then Myrna says it's okay to play in the middle. She's gonna take a painting class this week or tomorrow just to play. And that was something, too. This week that God was showing me is I just needed to do something for fun. That's. That's not to sell. It's not, you know, it's not marketing. It's just for me. And so I sat down and painted this week just for me. You know, nothing, no other expectation. And I got out some of my lettering stuff and was doing some things I haven't done for a while, and so it just filled my soul. So as we close down this series of Kingdom Marketing mindset, I really believe that these are, these are just sessions and trainings that you can go back and listen to over and over. You know, they're just things that we. I need reminded of all the time. And so I encourage you just to keep doing that. But we're, we're praying for you, we're cheering you on. We're so excited to see what God does through you as you continue your business meetings with him and as he leads and guides you in this messy middle. Amen. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode in our Kingdom Marketing Mindset series. God has really led us to start teaching marketing differently. So, yes, we will still teach you the skill sets and the strategies, we will give you all the case studies, but we are going to be teaching marketing from a Kingdom market marketing mindset, encouraging you to hear from God and get those strategies directly from Him. I am just so excited for you to start going through the training that I have been creating for you in our book launch challenge. If you're tired of the same old messages with book marketing, I encourage you to join us inside Christian Book Academy. I believe it will truly be a breath of fresh air for you and you'll not only get the practical training you need, but you'll get the encouragement to stay connected with God to. To receive his blueprint and his strategy for your marketing. Join us now@christianbookacademy.com I can't wait to work further with you and help you reach more people with your message. I'll see you on the inside.

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.