#352: Mentoring Moment: Laying the Foundation

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, cj, why don't you go ahead and share the encouragement you have for us?

You bet. Well, some of you are going to remember a little bit of something I shared a couple weeks ago. Not. Not you new folks. This will be new to you, but I want to revisit a passage in Ezra where they're actually beginning to lay the foundation.

The new temple. And then I want to jump over to Zechariah because we see another puzzle piece there with Zechariah in conjunction with what they're doing in Ezra. So just to give you a quick little background, the Jewish people have been in exile. They've been carried off into another land by the Babylonians. And this was a 70 year exile. And of course, Jeremiah talked about it. There were warnings all over the place. A lot of people didn't heed those warnings. But eventually they find themselves in another land and now they're coming back to the homeland, coming back to Israel. And of course, the Babylonians brought to rubble, you know, that that temple, that, that glorious temple this King Solomon built, and it was, it was now reduced to rubble. And so they're coming out of exile now and they now have the goal and the desire to rebuild a temple. And I just want to say really quickly that there may be some of you that feel like you're coming out of an exile. You feel like even coming into this Christian book academy, a coming back, so to speak, coming back to your dream, coming back to the things God has put on your heart years ago, but now you're visiting it and you're saying it's time, it's time to start laying the foundation and rebuilding what has been essentially in my mind, in your mind, perhaps reduced to rubble. And when you're staring at all that rubble, it can be overwhelming, like, where am I going to start? Like, you just start looking at all the stones piled on top of each other and you think, where am I going to start? And have you ever been in a project like that where you just didn't even know where to start? And I want to say welcome to all the new members, but welcome to your new beginning as well and what God wants to do in your life. And so let me just read those words That I read a couple weeks ago.

And it says that when the builders completed the foundation. This is in Ezra, chapter 3, starting in verse 10. When the builders completed the foundation of the Lord's temple, the priests put on their robes and took their places to blow their trumpets. They were excited. Just the foundation was an excitement. And the Levites, descendants of Asaph, clashed their cymbals to praise the Lord, just as King David had prescribed. With praise and thanks, they sang the song to the Lord. This. This song. He is so good. His faithful love for Israel endures forever. And you remember, those of you that I shared this scripture before, I really focused on, we need to be grateful at every stone that's piled on top of another in the rebuilding effort. We need to be mindful to say, he. He is so good. Then all the people gave a great shout praising the Lord, because the foundation of the Lord's temple had been laid. But many of the older priests, Levites and other leaders who had seen the first temple. Okay, we get into that comparison now. They're comparing the former glory of that beautiful temple that Solomon had built. It says they wept aloud when they saw the new temple's foundation. The others, however, the ones that had never seen, were shouting for joy. The joyful shouting and weeping mingled together in a loud noise that could be heard the distance. And I'm going to kind of get ready to jump over to Zechariah now. That's a beautiful thing about youversion. How many of you have youversion on your phones and so jumping over to Zechariah.

And I just want to say.

That.

You might recall that the older ones, the ones that had been around a while to see the tail end of that, that beautiful temple that Solomon built, they were appalled at this new one. They thought, are you kidding me? You call this a temple? It was like they were bemoaning the effort. They couldn't believe it. And yet the new ones were rejoicing. And I want to say that we're all in a different place. Don't compare your work to another. Don't even compare your work to what you did 20 years ago. You're a different person now, and you are becoming something different that God is making you into. But I want to say that God has a new plan for your life, and he wants you to start fresh. And for many of you, this virtual writing retreat, which represents the first event, for many of you that just signed up as CBA members, this represents your new start, this laying of a foundation. And so let me read in Zechariah, because Zechariah now received this vision or he received a message from an angel of the Lord. And listen to what he said because Zechariah was around all during, all this time. So you're seeing another piece here. You see the older folks bemoaning the effort, the newer ones rejoicing. But now here's. Here's where we get what the Lord thinks. Listen to this. Then he said to me, this is what the Lord says to Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel being the governor of the area, okay, Zerubbabel would have been like in the kingly line of David. He was, but no longer was, a Jewish king in charge. It was the Babylonians, it was the. The king Cyrus, of Persia, it was Darius, all these other kings. But then it says, then he said to me, this is what the Lord says to Zerubbabel. It is not by force nor by strength, but by my spirit, says the Lord of Heaven's armies. Nothing, not even a mighty mountain, will stand in Zerubbabel's way. It will become a level plain before him. When Zerubbabel sets the final stone of the temple in place, the people will shout, may God bless it. May God bless it. And I want to say that with many of you, when you lay that final sentence in that final chapter of your messy rough draft, whatever it might be, I'm just going to say we're all going to rejoice with you. You have fellow Kingdom writers that are rejoicing with you. And we're saying, may God bless it. May God bless it. Just like they did here in Zechariah, where the angel told Zechariah, this is the message I want you to give Zerubbabel and those that are rebuilding. Then another message came to me from the Lord. Zerubbabel is the one who laid the foundation of the temple and he will complete it. Then you will know that the Lord of heaven's armies has sent me. And this, these are key words right here. Listen to this. Now, do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel's hand. That's what the Lord thinks right there. The old ones were bemoaning. Oh man, we missed the good old days. We missed the former glory of the temple. The new ones were rejoicing. They had nothing to compare to, so they were just excited for anything but the Lord. You can just tell right now he's siding with the new ones. You know why? Because he's just excited that the work is progressing. That even though it's a small beginning, even though it's humble, even though. Even though, sure, it might not compare to the splendor and the beauty of that former temple, I'm telling you, the Lord was doing a new thing and the Lord was still going to be glorified. And that's the most important thing here. And in your books, in your writings, and in your marketing efforts. It may seem like you're just picking up one stone after another, gently placing it, rebuilding, kind of laying this foundation. But I'm going to tell you, we're all going to rejoice with you when you begin to set those stones in place. And you can look back and say, wow, look at what's. What's been done. And we go back to Zechariah 4. 6, where it says, not by might nor by strength, but by my spirit, says the Lord. That was how it was going to be accomplished. That's how your book is going to be accomplished. That's how books are going to sell. That's how your books are going to get in the right hands at the right time. The Lord's going to do it. And these writing retreats and these times together, they are merely times where we can come. Come together and we can help each other. We can encourage one another. You can know that there's other community members that are also laying different stones in place. They may be in a different place than you. They may be two or three miles ahead, kind of like in a marathon. But the goal is that we're all going to cross that finish line at some point. We're all going to cross it. And you're going to get there one stone at a time, regardless of where you're at. So I want to encourage you. You're laying the foundation. And the Lord rejoices in what's not only been done, but what is going to be done. He rejoices in your small beginnings. So don't despise those.

Amen. And I think that it's easy, you know, when we're, especially at the beginning or, you know, we've been working for a while, it's easy to, you know, be discouraged, right. Or be frustrated that we're not seeing things faster. And yet every email subscriber counts, right? Every sale counts, every word. We always say, celebrate every word that you've written, even if you edit it out later. Amen.

And for some of you, the marketing can get frustrating. And so, you know, it's like, oh, but I only have. And I, I saw this in our conference Facebook group this last week. Oh, I only have 100 people on my email list. Instead, let's say I'm going to celebrate the small beginnings. And I have a hundred people that want to hear from me, that want to connect with me, that are interested in my books. I'm going to treat those 100 people like gold. I'm going to, you know, just nurture a relationship with them. And I am not going to get stuck in scarcity because the enemy wants you to say, oh, I only have my first chapter written. Oh, I only have this. It's only that this isn't as good as so and so are to compare, like C.J. was saying, compared to the other temple or compared to another author. But what if we celebrate those small beginnings and so cj, why don't you go ahead and pray for this message.

Father, we thank you so much for your word. Again, there's just so many ways that we can apply it to our own situations and what we're going through here in 2022. It's always fresh. It's like fresh bread out of the oven. I just thank you for it. I pray that you would just continue to use it to bring encouragement to each one of these kingdom writers. And we just give you, Lord, the rest of today into tomorrow. And I pray that.

That there would be much rejoicing at whatever progress is being made on laying the foundation or wherever it is that each of these folks is. Is at in their process. And again, Lord, we, we will rejoice and we will say, you are good.

You are to be honored forever. And we, we just thank you for every, every little victory along the way. We want to be mindful to give you glory. And so, Lord, have your way today. Give us strength, give us energy. I pray just fresh wind of your spirit would blow through this whole group one after another, and there would just be a refreshment, a renewal, a revival in our hearts and excitement. And we thank you, Lord, that with your. Wherever your spirit is, there is life, there is vibrancy. And we thank you. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. And I just want to remind you, we all start with one word on the page when we start writing our book. Amen. We all start with one subscriber on our email list, one follower on social media, one book sale. And it really, to me is the small, consistent actions over time that gives, you know, the greater results and so not giving up when you're just seeing those small things happening. If you just sit your yourself in a chair for 15 minutes a day, you. You will finish your book, right? You will. If you just keep putting those marketing messages out there, forming the collaborations, doing the ads, whatever it is you're doing. Little by little by little by little, there will come a moment where the snowball starts to take over. But what I find so often is writers start and stop, start and stop, start and stop, instead of continuing the momentum because it's so easy to get discouraged. So stay encouraged. Keep going. We are cheering you on and so excited for you.

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 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.