#322: Mentoring Moment: Filling the Gaps

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 Shelli 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.

Hey, Kingdom Writers, it's Shelly Hitzier and I just wanted to jump in with one last announcement about our Kingdom Writers Conference, Count the Cost edition. In this totally free event, we're going to feature eight amazing speakers who are ready to teach you how to self publish your book on a budget without compromising quality. So who doesn't want that? Right? And it kicks off off on Tuesday. So this is like your last chance to jump in. Make sure you don't miss any of these presentations because we are closing registration on May 6th. This is completely free. You keep ongoing access, but if you miss the deadline to register, you've missed it. So make sure to go and register right now. You're going to hear from some amazing experts like Dave Chessen of Kindlepreneur, Matt, Tommy Shay Bynes of Kingdom Driven, Entreprene, Thomas Umstead Jr. And more. So go grab your free ticket. That's going to help you learn how to self publish your book on a budget without compromising quality. At Kingdomwritersconference.com we kick off on Tuesday. I cannot wait to see all that God does as we are just obedient to host this conference for you and we will see you soon.

Going to go ahead and share kind of what this theme, a little encouragement for you. And I want to read just a couple passages, one in the New Testament and one in the Old Testament, having to do with gaps. And that really is the, the theme here, filling the gaps. Some of you might have even remembered two instances where this is mentioned, but the first one here is first Thessalon, chapter three. And I'm going to read verses nine through 11. And just to give you a little backdrop here, you know, Paul is writing this letter to this church in Thessalonica and he has not visited there for a while. And so he's, he's obviously missing people. He's wondering how people are doing since their visit. And he sent Timothy to give him a report. And Timothy has been faithful to give him a report that the Thessalonian church is doing well. But listen to these words by Paul and he says, and you have to understand now we're dealing with the power of the written word here. And it has to do with us as Kingdom writers as well in our endeavoring to write. But he says here in verse nine, chapter three of first Thessalonians, how we thank God for you.

Because of you, we have great joy as we enter God's presence. Night and day, we pray earnestly for you, asking God to let us see you again. Listen to these words now to fill the gaps of your faith. To fill the gaps of your faith. In verse 11, may God our Father and our Lord Jesus bring us to you very soon. And I love that, because what Paul is essentially saying here is that.

He hopes that one day they can make another trip. And part of the whole reason for that trip is to help fill in any gaps, maybe answer question, questions. How many of us have questions in this world that we live in today, how many people have questions? They're walking through life. They're looking at the news, they're looking at the reports. Things don't always look good. They've got questions. Here's the neat thing. As Kingdom writers, you and I have a chance to be used by the Lord to help fill the gaps of people's faith. And there are people that don't even know the right questions to ask yet. But you and I are there. We're positioned in such a way that God will help us in filling in gaps, answering questions. And, you know, Paul here again is writing a letter, but in verse 11, it says, May God our Father and our Lord Jesus bring us to you very soon. But the way I interpret that also is until that happens, we're going to keep writing letters until that happens. We're going to send messages through people like Timothy and other servants that. That joined in on the mission. And you and I, there's a good chance we're not going to meet a lot of people that are reading our books. But man, we go with those books, those words that God has inspired in us, they go out who knows where. Only God can bring them to the ends of the earth. And he does. He does in ways that you and I would never even imagine. He'll bless a marketing effort in a way that you never even imagined a book will get passed along. If it's a hard copy, it might get tattered and look worn out and it gets passed all over. It could go to different family members. What we're saying here is your books are going to be used as gap fillers, helping people make that jump. The aha moments, the light bulb moments. Oh, I never realized that until this person wrote on that very subject. And I and I searched on Amazon for it, got it on an impulse buy, and, man, that thing changed the course of my life. So, again, we're talking about filling in the gaps here. And I want to read you another passage. And this is a passage that when it comes to gaps, I would say it's the most popular passage in all of the Bible. And that comes from Ezekiel. And if you want, I'm going to be in Ezekiel.

Chapter 22.

And verse 30. But before I get to 30, I want to give you just a quick little backdrop.

Reading chapter 22 in Ezekiel is not necessarily a. A heartwarming, uplifting experience. Let's put it that way.

Things aren't going well for Israel, specifically Jerusalem, where all the big wigs are. People just aren't living for the Lord. And the Lord basically, you know, has Ezekiel share hard messages, and he says, all this stuff's going on. You know, there's murder, there's. There's people sleeping with neighbors, wives, relatives sleeping together. I mean, there's just all kinds of debauchery. And. And they're making God look bad. They're not living for him. All the other nations are mocking them. So all this is happening.

But verse 30 comes along after he's mentioned a whole lot of things here, and I. This is. This is a powerful little passage. It says in verse 30, I look for someone who might rebuild the wall of righteousness that guards the land. I searched. And you can almost just feel this longing, this aching. Is there anyone? Is there anyone? And I searched for someone to stand in the gap in the wall so I wouldn't have to destroy the land.

And these are sad words indeed as it closes out that verse. But I found no one. I found no one. And what I want to say here this morning is that you and I are those people who have volunteered. We've raised our hands and we've said, lord, if you can use my book, if you can use my life, if you can use my testimony, I will stand in the gap. I will stand and I'll do everything I can with your strength and your power, however you want to use one person, I'll stand here in this gap.

And I will at least help shore up the walls of righteousness.

What I want to say is that your books are doing that. And so when you sit down for this retreat today and tomorrow, and you endeavor to write words that outlive you, what you're doing is you're filling in gaps and you're saying, I'm willing to stand in the gap. I'm willing to hear a message from the Lord that may or may not be easy to hear, but it's truth and I'm willing to stand up and I'm not going to shrink away when God scans and looks around. Is there anyone, is there anyone who will stand for truth? Is there anyone who will be a testimony of what my son has done in their lives?

We all are those people. That's what sets a Kingdom writer apart, is you have a chance to be a gap filler and think about all of the, all of your faces here on the screen, all of those who are in Christian Book Academy. We're all people that link arms and we talked about this the last time we talked about Redwood Faith and we all link arms together in terms of closing that gap. And so that's what, that's my encouragement for you here this morning is to say.

Continue filling in gaps through your words, whether you're there in person or whether your book goes ahead of you, just like Paul's letters did.

God is going to use you powerfully as you sit down and you tap into what he has for you. Tap into that special manna from heaven, so to speak, that he wants to share with very specific people that helps fill in the gaps of their faith.

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.