#326: Mentoring Moment: Keep Showing Up

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.

The theme for this training today is Keep Showing Up. So, cj, share with us some encouragement that. That we can just glean from today.

Yeah. So when I was first thinking about some of the thoughts to share this morning, originally the words Jesus shows up were really the theme. And then Shelly and I were talking yesterday about just the importance of continuing to show up. Keep showing up. And Shelley might maybe throw her 2 cents in there regarding what Keeps Showing up has meant to her here lately. But what I wanted to do, I think it's timely even, is that, you know, we just. We just went through Easter and.

Jesus, you know, actually spent 40 days on the earth after his resurrection. And during this time, he eased his followers doubts and gave them direction for the future. And basically we can say that there were numerous Jesus sightings where he showed up. He still kept showing up. And like those original followers, we as Kingdom writers sometimes feel like we've missed something along the way. How many of you have ever felt like you've missed something along the way? You know, we had high hopes for books that might currently be in a tomb right now.

Right.

We might as well just go back to our day job. And this is a reference to.

A story that I'll look at briefly. Peter. Peter kind of went back to his day job and he even recruited a few other disciples to go with him. They went back fishing and kind of where Jesus originally found them. And some of us may feel like, man, I might as well just go back to my day job, forget about this writing thing. You know, it was a nice three years of adventure that we can tell our grandkids about. You know, you could just imagine those disciples, you know, oh, it's been good three years, man. We're never going to forget the miracles, the casting out of demons. Jesus even, you know, gave us power to be able to do some of this stuff. And it was really nice while it lasted. But now it's time to go back to our day job.

And we kind of get in this mindset and it's in precisely those moments.

That Jesus shows up. And I want to encourage us with three sightings this morning. And the first one is a sighting that we title in our Bibles, the Walk to Emmaus and many of you might remember that story where Jesus shows up. Two guys are walking along. We know one of them is a guy named Cleopas.

And these guys are walking along, chatting about all the events that have happened in Jerusalem with Jesus being crucified, being handed over, you know, by the authorities to the Romans, crucified. They're chatting about all this stuff. And Jesus shows up, but he's unrecognizable to them. He's just some guy heading to Emmaus, just like they are seven miles from Jerusalem. And Jesus just starts chatting with them like nothing, you know, has, you know, gone on. And they ask him. They're like, are you clueless? I mean, all the things that have happened, you must be the only one in all of this area that hasn't heard about the things that have taken place. And there's an interesting line because Jesus then says, well, share more. What are you talking about? And so there's a verse in Luke 24:21 where they say, we had hoped. Those are three key words. We had hoped that he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. And this all happened three days ago.

What is it in your life this morning.

That you had hoped for in your life? It could be regarding your books. It could be regarding something in your life, something personal, a relationship, whatever it might be. What is it that if you were to express that to Jesus, you had hoped for, but you've just kind of felt like maybe those hopes have been dashed by all of the circumstances and events that have happened in your life.

But as they continue walking along, Jesus sort of takes them through the Old Testament, a number of passages and explains some things to them. Eventually, they get to their house and. And it's getting late. And they basically say, hey, you're really interesting. Essentially, you know what? Why don't you stay tonight? We'll chat more over dinner. And they find themselves at dinner.

And there was this point where Jesus breaks the bread.

And right as he breaks the bread and blesses it, their eyes are open and they immediately recognize Jesus. And right then, he's gone. It's almost like this quick little flash, like, whoa, what just happened?

And it says, In 24 Luke 24:31, 32, suddenly their eyes were opened and they recognized him. And at that moment, he disappeared. They said to each other, didn't our hearts burn within us as he talked with us on the road and explained the Scriptures to us? What I want to say this morning is that Jesus wants to open our eyes and restore hope. That's been lost in us. I don't know what hope has been lost in you, but he wants our hearts to burn again. And get this. As our hearts burn within us, he wants it to spill over into our writing.

Just believe with all my heart that many of you are going to have your hearts burn within you. You're going to have hope restored and it is going to spill over into your writing today, tomorrow.

The weeks, months to come. The Lord wants to do that in you. So that's one sighting. And Shelley, you can interject anytime, but there's another sighting, second sighting that I want to look at briefly. And that's Mary Magdalene. And Mary Magdalene is sitting there weeping at the tomb in John, you know, we read this story, John 20:11, 18.

This woman, get this now, who Jesus once cast seven demons out of. That's pretty intense.

Yeah.

Would become the first person that the resurrected Jesus would encounter. Get that now? The very first person. It wasn't a man. In that culture, women were deemed less than men. And in many ways, it's still the same throughout Middle Eastern culture today.

But here, in a culture that demeaned women, Jesus gives his first post resurrection message to a woman before instructing her to share with his brothers. To go on and share with his brothers, who are all basically just confused, wondering what's going to happen. We had hoped they're thinking the same things as these two guys that were walking to Emmaus. We had hoped that Jesus was the Messiah. But Jesus not only redeems our past failures. Think of Mary now. Mary Magdalene. Think of all of her past. Jesus not only redeems our past failures, but now instructs us, you and I, in all of our failures, he instructs us to share his message, new life as Kingdom writers. And so just as he instructed Mary to share this message of new life. Go and share with my brothers. Go and share. I'm entrusting you. You're the first person that gets to see me. He even had told her, don't cling to me. I think she just gave him a big bear hug.

And he sort of said, hey, I know we could sit here for a while and just weep and cry and rejoice, but I want you to get, get this message out. Go and share with my brothers. Go let them know right now. They need to know as soon as possible. They need hope right away. They're desperate for hope right now. And I think that this is a message you and I can also take. And I'm not encouraging you to have a I've got to get this out, sort of a, a striving out of that spirit. What I'm encouraging you to do is to look at this like what message is Jesus entrusting me with for my book?

And what kind of urgency needs to take place in terms of how he wants this written, what he wants me to do by taking the next step.

And I want to encourage you just to come before the Lord and say, lord, what is it you're instructing me to do here this day as we open this end of April virtual writing retreat? What is it that you want me to keep showing up at? In following your example, what message needs to get out? And then finally the third Jesus sighting post resurrection, we, we would be remiss to not include good old Peter and we'll just say it's breakfast with Peter, Breakfast with Peter. John 21, the man who denied who that he even knew Jesus three straight times.

Is restored by the great shadow shepherd and instructed to feed his sheep. Now.

I should have had had this turned to already, but I wanted to quickly read a brief passage in First Peter.

So First Peter.

And it's, it's chapter five, verses one through four.

First Peter 5, 1, 4.

You'll see that I mentioned Great Shepherd. Well, listen to this. This is Peter now writing. And now a word to you who are elders in the churches, pastors.

I even view many of you almost in that pastoral light. Many of you who are entrusted with writing, sharing, encouraging, instructing, commissioned by the Lord. We all carry sort of pastoral mantle. Even if we haven't gone through seminary. Some of you may have been commissioned as pastors. In front of a church.

You'Re still commissioned to share a message. Listen to this now. And now a word to you who are elders in the churches. I too am an elder and a witness. Peter was there to the sufferings of Christ, and I too will share in his glory when he is revealed to the whole world.

As a fellow elder, I appeal to you care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly, not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God, don't lord it over the people as assigned to your care, but lead them by your own good example. Now listen to this. In verse 4 and and when the Great shepherd appears, you will receive a crown of never ending glory and honor. You notice now Jesus was referred to by Peter as the great Shepherd. We read that he's a good shepherd. Either way, this same Peter would contribute writings that found their way into the best selling book of all time.

Amen.

Get that. Now. This man who denied he even knew Jesus three times, he felt dejected. He was ready to go back to his day job. He was already beginning the cast, you know, throwing out of the nets. And here, Jesus on the shores cooking breakfast for him and those that were out there with him, ready to have breakfast, ready to restore this rough and tumble character. This rough fisherman would pen words that God has used to strengthen and encourage followers of Jesus for nearly 2,000 years.

And I want to say here to you, one breakfast with Jesus can change the trajectory of a life forever.

Amen.

When I ask you, when's the last time you had a nice breakfast with the Lord? When's the last time that he restored you back to the position that he's called you to do? You keep trying to go back to your fishing, you keep trying to go back to your day job, but he keeps calling you back and saying, I'm going to restore you. I know what's happened between us.

It'S in the past. It's in the past. It's time to move forward. And, and he restores Peter three different times. He asks Peter, do you love me? Just to sort of almost one for each denial.

And I want to say here today that Jesus continues to show up today on the shores of your life.

And perhaps he'll make an appearance to someone halfway around the world.

Through your writings. My writings?

Yes.

Have you thought about the fact that Jesus might make an appearance to somebody that you don't even know, but he makes an appearance through your writings. I want you to treat that this weekend. You're showing up, as Deb says, you're putting your butt in the chair.

You're ready to meet Jesus. Picture Jesus just with you. He's right next to you. And every now and then he's breaking off a piece of fish. He's breaking off something that he's. He's freshly cooked. He's giving you that. And then he's like, feel free to feed it with any of your friends. Feed any of your friends with this. I'll just keep giving you pieces. It'll never run out. I'll just keep, I'll just keep giving it to you. I'll keep multiplying. Oh, by the way, we, we got 153 fish that, that Peter pulled ashore that day in Those heavy nets. 153. The number's not important, but let's just say, suffice to say we're going to be here a while. I've got plenty of food.

Yeah.

So don't ever think that Jesus is going to run out of words for you, food for you to then pass along to others. It's endless. And as you sit down and you've shown up this morning, you know that Jesus will continue making post resurrection appearances. He is going to show up. And that's my word for you this morning.

Amen. So good. And I just feel like kind of the theme is because Jesus keeps showing up, we can keep showing up. Amen.

Because it's through him, his strength, his power. Because how many of you have tried to do it on your own, Whether it's the writing or the publishing or the marketing and you get weary, you know, you want to give up. And you know on our own strength, we are limited. But because Jesus keeps showing up, we can keep showing up. Now there's wisdom and rest. There's moments where he'll say, I want you to stop this for right now, but he will give us what we need. And so the other day I was having a business meeting with God. So anyone have a business meeting with God this week?

We might call it a breakfast meeting with God.

Yeah, yeah, we love going on breakfast dates. C.J. and I actually, it's my birthday today and we're going to go out to breakfast after this. But yeah, so a breakfast meeting with God, whatever you want to call it. And I was just journaling and sometimes I just want to know the plan. I just want to have the details. Anyone else, you just want to know, like, give it to me, Jesus.

And all I heard him say was, keep showing up and it will be made clear to you as you do.

Not necessarily the answer I wanted, right? I wanted like, do this and then do this. But sometimes we just need to keep showing up. And right now, and I'm not going to go into it because it would take too long, but in this specific situation that I was asking God for wisdom on, I'm not seeing much of anything yet. I'm not seeing results. I'm not seeing things happening. But he's just like, keep showing up. And so I want to encourage you as well to keep showing up. And not in your own strength, but because Jesus keeps showing up, we can keep showing up. So, cj, why don't you pray over all of us with this theme today?

Yeah. Oh, Father, we just thank you so much, Jesus. We thank you for showing up over and over again in the shores of our lives.

Not to condemn us, but to break bread. With us, to.

Share, fish with us, to feed us essentially in order to allow us to even be able to share with others. Thank you for what you're calling each and every person here to do important work that comes in the form of the written word. And I just want to pray that you would just.

Supply an endless array of words today into tomorrow, whatever it may be. And Lord, we give you the glory for restoring us. Even when we tried to avoid it, we tried to go the opposite direction, we tried to just go back to, you know, perhaps old ways. And I just thank you for continuing to keep being persistent in our lives, for restoring us. And I thank you for these, these post resurrection sightings that you just kept showing up. And I pray Lord that you would allow these things just to resonate in each of us kind of.

Ferment, so to speak, age well. And I pray that you would just bring much encouragement to each and every person here and we will thank you so much for what you do. In Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. So I hope that God is now restoring your hope that has been lost within you and reminding you that he redeems your past so that you can share his message as a Kingdom writer and that when you spend time with Jesus, it can change the trajectory of, of everything forever. Amen. Amen and Amen. Good words. So thank you so much for sharing. CJ.

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 from 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 of Kingdom writers.