#286: Seizing Your Divine Moment: The willingness to take risks

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.

So welcome back to another training and really an encouragement today mentoring moment. My name is Shelly Hitz.

And I'm CJ Hitz.

And we are your author coaches and mentors inside the online membership of Christian Book Academy. Just so thrilled to be able to continue just to pour, pour into you as you pour into your readers, as you pour into those who are your audience. And so today, CJ Is going to talk about seizing our divine moment and the willingness to take risks.

Yeah, well, why don't we go ahead and open in a word of prayer and just ask the Lord to guide us however he wants here in this time. Father, we just thank you so much for the opportunity to do what we do. Thank you for each and every one of these Kingdom writers. We just ask, Lord, that your holy spirit would open our eyes, illuminate our minds here today. I pray that you have your way in this session, that there would be encouragement, that we would be sharpened, that you would bear fruit that would last. And we just thank you ahead of time. We pray that you put a shield of protection around all of the technical equipment, that the connection would be clear on both ends, and that nothing would hinder the encouragement that will go forth. And so we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.

Amen.

So, yeah, as Shelley mentioned, we're talking about seizing our divine moment, the willingness to take some risks and raise your hand if you've ever failed.

Can I raise both hands?

Yeah, we'll throw both hands up here.

If so, if any of us can say that we failed, we are in good company.

That's a good indication that you and I have taken a few risks along the way. True, because unless we risk.

There'S. There's almost a safety aspect where we. We sort of.

Pad ourselves from the opportunity to fail. But when you take risks, risks, you put yourself out there. I want to just name, mention a few notable failures, and I put quotes around failures because we don't see them as failures today. But listen to this. There was a guy named John Creasy. Some of you may have heard of him. He was an English crime writer back in the early 1900s, early to mid-1900s. And John Creasy received 743 rejection slips from publishers before Even one word was published.

Wow.

But he eventually published, get this, 560 books and sold over 60 million copies.

Wow.

So I put him at the top because that's absolutely incredible. First of all, the perseverance to say that.

You know, nobody. Nobody tells John Creasy no. 744 times, but maybe. 743, yeah. Another guy that you may have heard of, especially if you follow race car driving, is a guy named Michael Waltrip. Lost 530 races before winning his first NASCAR race in 2001. And that just happened to be the Daytona 500, which is a biggie.

Awesome.

And then finally, we've all heard of Abraham Lincoln, our 16th president, but how many of you realize he lost 18 elections of various offices, even small offices, before he ever won the 16th presidency? And so we're gonna look at one of my favorite stories in the Bible about a man who took a big risk. He put it all out there on the line, and his name's Jonathan. And so if you want. If you want to follow along in Scripture, I'm going to actually read.

1St Samuel, chapter 14. I'm going to read the first 23 verses. That's where the story's at. And just kind of follow along with me. And then we're going to kind of go through and point out a few things that apply to. To us as kingdom writers that I think is applicable to our lives today. So listen to this. One day, Jonathan said to his armor bearer, come on, let's go to where the Philistines have their outpost. But Jonathan did not tell his father what he was doing. Meanwhile, Saul, that's his father, and his 600 men were camped on the outskirts of Gibeah around the pomegranate tree at Migron. Among Saul's men was Ahijah, the priest who was wearing the ephod, the priestly vest. Ahijah was the son of Ichabod's brother, a son of Phinehas, son of Eli, the priest of the Lord who had served at Shiloh. No one realized that Jonathan had left the Israelite camp. To reach the Philistine outpost, Jonathan had to go down between two rocky cliffs that were called Bozez and Sinna. The cliff on the north was in front of Michmash, and the one on the south was in front of Geba. Jonathan said, let's go across to the outpost of those pagans. Jonathan said to his armor bearer, perhaps the Lord will help us, for nothing can hinder the Lord. He can win a battle, whether he has Many warriors or only a few? Do what you think is best, the armor bearer replied. I'm with you completely, whatever you decide. All right, then, Jonathan told him, we will cross over and let them see us. If they say to us, stay where you are, or will kill you, then we will stop and not go up to them. But if they say, come on up and fight, then we will go up. That will be the Lord's sign that he will help us defeat them. When the Philistines saw them coming, they shouted, look, the Hebrews are crawling out of their holes. Then the men from the outpost shouted to Jonathan, come on up here and we'll teach you a lesson. Come on, climb up right behind me, Jonathan said to his armor bearer, for the Lord will help us defeat them. So they climbed up, using both hands and feet, and the Philistines fell before Jonathan and his armor bearer killed those who came behind them. They killed some 20 men in all, and their bodies were scattered over half an acre. Suddenly, panic broke out in the Philistine army, both in the camp and in the field, including even the outposts and raiding parties. And just then, an earthquake struck, and everyone was terrified. Saul's lookouts in Gibeah of Benjamin saw a strange sight. The vast army of Philistines began to melt away in every direction. Call roll and find out who's missing, Saul ordered. And when they checked, they found that Jonathan and his armor bearer were gone. Then Saul shouted to Ahijah, bring the ephod here. For at that time, our Hijah was wearing the ephod in front of the Israelites. But while Saul was talking to the priest, the confusion in the Philistine camp grew louder and louder. So Saul said to the priest, never mind. Let's get going. Then Saul and all his men rushed out to the battle and found the Philistines killing each other. There was terrible confusion everywhere. Even the Hebrews who had previously gone over to the Philistine army revolted and joined in with Saul, Jonathan, and the rest of the Israelites. Likewise, the men of Israel who were hiding in the hill country of Ephraim joined the chase when they saw the Philistines running away. So the Lord saved Israel that day. And the battle continued to rage even beyond Beth Aven. That is the word of the Lord.

So a few things I want to just point out here in this story. Again, one of my favorite stories. Jonathan.

Is just a fantastic person to look up to. First of all, many of you may remember that he was David's best friend. Just to give you an idea of the character of this young man. He rightfully would have been the one to succeed his father in the throne. And he probably could have really fought that. It wouldn't have been to any avail because God had already anointed David to be the next king because that was Saul's punishment for all of his disobedience. But Jonathan.

Showed no signs of jealousy whatsoever. He showed every ounce of faithfulness to his friend David and was more than willing to help David eventually assume the throne and support him in whatever he did. So that gives you an idea of the character of Jonathan. But.

A few things just to point out. Right away. Saul and his troops were down to 600 men. And if you read in chapter 13, just before this, you realize that they were actually down to two swords among those 600 men. And so Saul had one sword, and guess who had the other sword? Jonathan. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't know how anyone would recognize that one of those two swords had suddenly escaped camp when those two swords would be so coveted. But. But it happened. They were. They slipped out when. When the rest of the troops were sleeping. We also need to realize that there was a real depressing situation under this pomegranate tree. So you just imagine 600 troops sitting under the shade around this pomegranate tree while the Philistines were basically wreaking havoc in every direction, just running amok. And then Jonathan gets to the point where he's finally had enough, and he just decides to take the risk. And this is where that major risk comes in. And he knew it. He's like, I've got to have a sign here. And the sign is going to be.

If these Philistines say that they're going to come down to us, then we know that we need to just back off. But if they invite us to come up to them, that will be our sign that the Lord's going to deliver us. So that sign did occur. And here's the thing that all of us right away can recognize with Jonathan's risk. Jonathan realized that you can't win a battle unless you actually enter the battle. And many of us have sat on the sidelines. I know I can say that there have been times in my life when I've sat on the sidelines and waited and waited and waited. But nothing is going to happen until I was willing to take that first step, willing to take that horrendous risk of maybe that risk is even as simple as, oh, my goodness, I'm going To trust five people to read my first rough draft copy.

Oh, yeah. I mean, we have people in Christian book academy that are just terrified to send their manuscript to an editor. You know, it's just like, it's your creative baby, right? And it's like, oh, it's so frightening sometimes. Or, you know, we, we always say taking that, that courageous step of publishing your book, but also with marketing, right, you know, being willing to follow God, of course, you know, we, we talk about the kingdom marketing mindset, but also being willing to put yourself out there. And recently God has reminded me that marketing is a part of evangelism when we are sharing books that have a Christ centered. And, you know, he's really just encouraged me just to do more marketing again. And wouldn't you know it, I'm starting to get some haters coming out.

And yet it's like, all right, you know, Lord, I'm trusting you that the ones that need this, that ones that need these messages, they're the ones that will get them. But it is, it's such a courageous step that we take.

Yeah, it's, it's sort of that, that exposing yourself, you feel naked in a lot of ways right away between that, that time where you're, you're taking that risk and then waiting to see what the Lord will do with that.

How about you and I, you know, have, have you and I reached a point where we're tired of seeing nothing happen with our books? Tired a lot. Tired of allowing the enemy, so to speak, to run amok all around us. Sort of maybe representing those Philistines that were running amok. Well, Jonathan seized this divine moment while everyone else was asleep. And I want to touch on four things from this story that we can actually apply to our own lives. So here they are. When we choose to take risks as kingdom.

Number one, there's a good chance we can inspire the faithful closest to us. And in this regard, it was Jonathan's armor bearer. You look at his armor bearer, and this is a guy that I would want to have on, on my right side at all times. This was a guy that you look back at. Verse 7, verse 7 says.

Do what you think is best. The armor bearer replied, and I love this part. I'm with you completely. Whatever you decide. How many of us have those people in our lives that could, that we could say they would be with us in any battle that we face? They would be, they would have our backs from a prayer warrior standpoint. And, and how many of us can say, wow, I can Trust this person. So that's the armor bearer. And the armor bearer was with Jonathan. Heart and soul is what some translations actually say. Heart and soul.

Yeah.

Number two, when we choose to take risks as Kingdom writers, the paralyzed are moved. In other words, Saul and his troops that were sitting under that pomegranate tree, they would represent the paralyzed who were waiting for the perfect opportunity. How many of us have waited for that perfect opportunity? We wait till everything's just perfect, though. I'm speaking to us perfectionists out there, and. And we're waiting for all the right conditions. But with Saul, we learned that there's a time for prayer, but there's also a time to get up and enter the battle. And so there's. There is. There's that balance. Prayer, I believe, should be our priority, but we should never use prayer as an excuse to say we're just going to sit on the sidelines and we never go through. We know. With what we know God's called us to do.

Yeah. And as he's saying, the paralyzed are moved. The thing is, like, as you take the steps to courageously, you know, publish your book and market your book, people are watching you. And you're going to inspire people to take up the things that God has called them to do, whether it's writing a book or doing something completely different. But I have heard it over and over and over. People are like, shelley, you inspire me, you know, to do this or that. And. And you are an example and an inspiration even right now, as you're taking the courageous step to do the things God has called or. And. Or invited you to do.

Absolutely. When we choose to take risks as Kingdom riders, the third thing that happens is prodigals can possibly be restored. Now, you look at verse 21 of chapter 14, and it says here, it says even the Hebrews who had previously gone over to the Philistine army revolted and joined in with Saul, Jonathan, and the rest of the Israelites. These are guys that actually were traitors, so to speak. So you might even say that those who have turned their backs on the Lord, those who are basically saying, I want nothing to do with. With God's army, you may, in your writings or the things that you, you know, whether it's your books, your blogs, your social media posts, you. You could play a role in seeing some of these prodigals come back to be inspired to come back to the Lord's army, so to speak.

Yeah. And, I mean, I have gotten testimonials of people that will email Me because they read my book broken crayons still color or one of my gratitude books or something like that. And you know how it brought them back to the Lord. And so God is using you and he doesn't need to use us. He doesn't need us, but he chooses to invite us to partner with him. And what a privilege that is. Amen.

Amen. And the fourth thing, when we choose to take risks as Kingdom writers, the fourth thing that happens is the weak become strong. And in this regard, we're looking at verse 22. Likewise, the men of Israel who were hiding in the hill country of Ephraim joined the chase when they saw the Philistines running away. And so, you know, Jonathan's risk motivated those in hiding to come out and join the battle. And the fact that we expose ourselves and take this big risks, others may see that and say, oh, wow, C.J. if C.J. can take a risk, oh man, I can get out there and, and start posting some things as well. Or I can get moving on that book idea that God's put on my heart that's been sitting there under the pomegranate tree for three years. And perhaps it's, I'm ready. Maybe I've been hiding because I'm too afraid of what people are going to think. So again, this can happen. No doubt. You and I have felt paralyzed. We could put ourselves in each one of these places. We felt paralyzed, we felt prodigal, or we felt weak at various times. As writers, what I want to challenge us to do is let's allow Jonathan's example from over 3,000 years ago to inspire us to take risks for the Lord in these days that we're living today. And like Jonathan said in his statement.

In verse six, he says, perhaps the Lord will help us, for nothing can hinder the Lord. He can win a battle whether he has many warriors or only a few. He can win a battle whether he has many Kingdom writers or only a few. And we never know where our books are going to land. We have no idea the impact that those things have. Once we hit the publish button, we hear stories all the time of books getting passed around multiple times to where they're. They're sort of worn out. But you, you publish on Kindle and you get digital sales all over the world because digitally, you know, paperbacks sometimes can be hindered a little bit, but digitally, the world's wide open to finding our books on Amazon. Yeah. So that's, that's an incredible thing to think about.

Yeah. Just think of the last time you gave, you'd read a book and you passed it on to someone. We just did that this week. We just passed on a book to a friend. And so there are just countless opportunities. And the Lord is the one that is leading and guiding us, giving us that courage, giving us the ability to take the risk, just like Jonathan in this situation. But he also is inviting each one of you right now. And I want you to just stop for a moment and just pray and say, okay, God, what is that next step, that next risk that you're asking me to take? And we're just going to give you a moment to ask the Lord and then let us know.

All right? It might be something to even journal about more later. And asking the Lord, what is that risk that you're. You're inviting me to take? And again, he doesn't need us. He's inviting us. But if you're here live, you know, go ahead and share in the comments and I'll just go ahead and close us in prayer. So, Lord, we just thank you right now that we are able to sit down, to seize the divine moment, that we're able to step out even when all looks hopeless and all looks like it's already lost, that because of you. And as you lead and guide us and as you prompt us, we can take these steps of faith, these courageous steps of faith, and see you move in mighty ways. And as we just see so many signs all around us, Lord, that the end of times is, is close, it's near, Lord, I just pray that you would just even put an urgency on our hearts as Kingdom writers for what it is you have for us to write, to share. And you know that you would just to just stir up that courage, Lord, within each one of us. And I just thank you for all that you're gonna do. And we just give you all of the honor, the glory and the praise and we pray this in Jesus powerful name. Amen.

Amen.

Amen and amen. So good, good message. Hope that you were inspired from it and continue to be, you know, as you just meditate on this, as you know, even later.

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 life 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 course, Kingdom Writers.