#374: Mentoring Moment: Rejuvenation

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.

Hey, Kingdom Writers. This is Shelly Hitz, your host here at the Kingdom Writers Podcast and also one of the hosts of the Kingdom Writers Conference. And if you haven't heard yet, we just opened registration for our fifth conference, the Book launch Edition, last week. So we are hosting this one day conference to help you discover proven strategies that will empower you to confidently launch your book to the world so you can reach a wider audience and and make a lasting impact with the message God has placed on your heart. We are super excited about this edition of the conference. A book launch is when you can really make a big impact in a splash and you know, it just depends on where you're at with your audience and what different activities you choose. But we're going to just give you some different options and trainings to help equip you. And we cannot wait to see what God does as you join us in this conference. So go and sign up, invite all your writing friends and join us. This is going to be fun. We're going to host it on May 4th where you can join us live on Zoom, but you'll also get five days to listen to the recordings. This is all online, so you don't have to come in person. You can listen from the comfort of your own home. And if you can't make it live, guess what? You can still participate because you'll have an opportunity to listen to, to the recordings and the presentations. And this is going to be fun. So join us, come over to kingdomwriters conference.com forward/launch and we will see you there. Well, today's theme is rejuvenation. And CJ is going to share some encouragement based upon this. And so cj, why don't you share with us now?

Yeah, so I want to take you to a passage in First Kings, chapter 19, and.

It revolves around Elijah. Some of you may, may have even had him go through your mind, you know, when you think of rejuvenation. But I want to read you this story and just to set the background, you know, Elijah has just come off a major victory of sorts, you know, defeating the prophets of BAAL on Mount Carmel and really making them look like fools. God. God made them look like fools, you know, by basically.

Devouring the sacrifice, the things that, you know, Elijah had done to the altar. He watered it down. He did all this, and Lord sent his fire down. And then they eventually killed. You know, Elijah had all 400 prophets of Baal killed. It was. It was quite a.

Quite a scene. And so now it says in 1st Kings 19, chapter 1, when Ahab. Ahab got home, King Ahab, the wicked king at the time, he told Jezebel, his wife, everything Elijah had done, including the way he had killed all the prophets of baal.

So Jezebel sent this message to Elijah, and I almost. I don't know if you guys ever do this, but I almost imagine, you know, Jezebel's voice, you know, sounding like, you know, Cruella Deville, you know, on 101 Dalmatians, you know, and you could just imagine. And so she's like, you know, may the gods strike me and even kill me if by this time tomorrow I have not killed you, just as you killed them. And then you could just also hear here saying, yeah, yeah, kind of that evil, evil laugh. And so it says, Elijah was afraid, which is interesting, isn't it? He comes off this. This. This victory that God brought about. You would think that would just be, you know, you're ready to conquer the world at that point. But how many of you can relate? You've just seen a big accomplishment. You've just completed your book. You just shared a message or a testimony with your church or maybe a speaking engagement that you had. Isn't it so true that right after the heels of these things, the enemy comes in and basically says, you know, you really didn't do that much, or you could have done this better, or this and this and this and this and this. And you just. Just start beating yourself up. And you. By the end of the day, you're just feeling like, my goodness, woe is me. And so you've got Elijah here. It says he was afraid and fled for his life. He went to Beersheba, a town in Judah, and he left his servant there.

Then he went on alone into the wilderness, traveling all day. He sat down under a solitary broom tree and prayed that he might die.

I have had enough. How many of us can relate to this? I've had enough. Lord, he said, take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already died. I don't know if you've ever been in that spot. And I'm not. I'm not saying it's a suicidal spot, not. Not talking about that, but it's more of this. You know, Lord, if you just want to take my life, I'm just kind of tired.

I'd love to be with you in glory. You know, you just have those moments, right? Just those little fleeting moments when you just so look forward to being with the Lord and being done with the weariness that we're under in. In the curse of the earth. I mean, yes, we're saved, we're blood bought, we're. We're victorious, but we still have to live here on an earth that's filled with sin. We're still prone to. To messing up ourselves. And there's just those moments where you're like, you know, you could take me anytime, Lord. And I can just imagine Elijah kind of being in that spot, you know, just feeling emotionally drained mentally, spiritually, and physically. Now listen to this. It says.

Then he lay down under. And slept under the. The broom tree. But as he was sleeping, an angel touched him and told him, get up and eat.

In other words, it's real simple. You just need to eat something. You know, you're getting all emotional. How many of you ever been really hangry, you know, where you're hungry and angry at the same time? And you know, the angel is just real simple, like, you just need to eat something, Elijah. You know, it's. It's no, no need to want your life to be taken. You're going to see, you're going to feel a lot better. So get up and eat. He looked around, and there beside his head was some bread.

Some bread baked on hot stones and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and lay down again. And then the angel of the Lord came again and touched him and said, get up and eat some more. You know, you just imagine Elijah must have just been famished and so get up and eat some more or the journey ahead will be too much for you. So he got up and ate and drank, and the food gave him enough strength to travel 40 days and 40 nights to Mount Sinai, the mountain of God. There he came to a cave where he spent the night.

But we could go on. But I. I think this is the, the. This is the section that I want us to. To really just meditate upon. And it's real, real key here, you know. The angel said, get up, eat some more, or the journey ahead will be too much for you. I think there are many of us that we're going along. We're doing a lot of things in our own strength. We're doing well. Things are going well. Things are clicking, things look victorious. We've just seen some real wins. You just, you know, how many of you get have those days where it's just one win after the other and you're, you're just like, man, I wish about 365 of those could be duplicated, you know, for 20, 23. And things are going great, you're just moving along and then all of a sudden one day, it's just like, you crash, you crash. Woe is me. All these victories, things are going well. Now I want to die. And it's like, what's going on there? What is that? Well, first of all, I believe it is the enemy. I believe the enemy likes to kind of pour gasoline on the fire. But I also believe we have choices every single day. And Elijah could have probably nourished himself a little bit better. The angel was there for him, to aid him, to help him. But how many of us have been aided by the Lord as well, where the Lord just says, you know what, you just need to spend some time with me. When I'm talking about food, I'm not just talking about physical food. Yeah, that's important. We see that very clearly. You don't eat for a few days, you get weak.

In ultra running. Some of you have heard of these hundred mile trail races. They've got many of them now around the world. And they say that it's not just the fastest person that wins, it's the person that manages their nutrition and energy over the course of the hundred miles best. If you somehow have gone hours without eating or drinking, maybe you say, I can't keep something down in my stomach. A lot of ultra runners get that way. They suffer big time later. Why? Because the nutrients, the nutrition hasn't been absorbed in their body. They've got nothing and they hit really hard and they're done because they haven't managed the nutrition, they haven't continually gotten stuff in them in order to have that energy. And I think it's that way with us spiritually. We're going along, we're doing well, but we haven't prepared for the journey, the writing journey. And I, I would submit to you this morning that we as kingdom writers, we as much as anyone else, and when I say anyone else, I mean just people that are producing content that you hope encourages and blesses and impacts people for eternity. Pastors are doing this, evangelists are doing this. Anyone with a role of creating something, writing something that the, the aim is to impact somebody for eternity, to draw people closer to the Lord that cannot be Taken lightly. That journey is one that you and I have to completely be nourished and then rejuvenated. How many know that it's a daily nourishment? It's a daily IV drip, so to speak, that that is constantly going into my bloodstream. The Lord wants us to nourish ourselves. We take that opportunity every day. When we start our day in the Word, when we start our day in prayer, we are rejuvenated. How many of you have been tired? And then an hour later, after spending time with the Lord, you just feel rejuvenated? You've read something in Scripture and it doesn't have to be long. It could be a few verses, it could be a chapter. But you're just rejuvenated because you have hope. You have the nourishment of the Lord flowing through you. And his spirit.

Adds the dynamite, adds the fire to that. And so I want to just encourage all of us to take a look at this story of Elijah. He had this great victory, and then all of a sudden, the next day, he was. He was bottom of the barrel. And you and I are going to have these victories. We're going to have these. These things that God does through us. But if we're not careful, we. We can find ourselves in a state just like Elijah. And God wants to continually nourish us daily. It is our choice on coming to Him. He doesn't force feed us. You know, you just think of somebody being force fed. That's not our God. He wants us to come to him and partake of the bread that he's laid beside us. We just have to now grab it and begin consuming it. And so that's my word for us. If we'll do that, we'll find ourselves rejuvenated like Elijah, who was able to go 40 days and 40 nights to Mount Sinai. And I don't know, it could be that he had enough new nutrition and that supernatural filling that he was able to do that without making any pit stops along the way, which is incredible. That's supernatural.

But you and I, we will be able to go, so to speak, for 40 days and 40 nights in the power and the strength of the Lord in our writing. Can you imagine writing.

15 minutes a day for 40 days and 40 nights? What would be accomplished if that could happen? And I just want to say that God wants to do more than we can even imagine.

In our times that we make for him in our writing sessions. So thank you for showing up this morning on this virtual writing retreat. That will be today and tomorrow. You have made the choice to say, I'm going to fight against the resistance that the enemy is trying to put on me. The Jezebel spirit that's trying to intimidate me. You are saying, no, the Lord is going to accomplish something through me today and tomorrow, and we're going to leave the results up to him. But you have put yourself here, and you are. You're. You're ready to embark on the journey that he has today and tomorrow. So I applaud you for that. Because how many know that half the battle is just showing up? Half the battle is just showing up.

Yeah. And I was recently thinking, like, there are hills and valleys. I think that's a song by Torn Wells. But we all have hills and valleys in writing, publishing, and marketing journey. And there are those moments where we're just like, whoa, this is awesome. And then there's other moments where, like.

I think I'm just gonna give up. And the thing that I keep saying lately is so many writers give up too soon. Whether it's in the writing, the publishing, or the marketing, it's like, just keep going. But we also need to be refilled, right? And we need to be rejuvenated. Like CJ was saying, we need to sometimes have times of rest. I recommend taking a Sabbath every week from all of the things, the writing and all the things just to give your mind a break, take a breath, have a Sabbath. And also there is the very real thing that as creatives, sometimes we need to refill our creative well. If we', going, going, going, or if we have been writing, writing, writing, writing, sometimes we need to be filled back up as well. Julia Cameron talks about this in the artist's way. And just about, like, doing something by yourself, maybe going for a walk in nature, maybe going to a movie or a thrift store or a, you know, pet store, whatever. Something that will refill your. Your senses and your creative, you know, juices. And, you know, if you need any ideas, just Google going on a artist date. That's what she calls it. But sometimes we need refilled. Amen. So if you're feeling low, maybe you need that time with the Lord. Maybe your spiritual well needs filled. Maybe also your creative well needs filled, and you need to have some. Some different sights and sounds and experiences to draw from to then write the things that you're writing or to do the marketing or what it is. So, cj, why don't you pray for all of us that wherever we're at in this journey that God would rejuvenate us and that we would have the sensitivity to know when we need that rejuvenation.

Yeah, Father, we just thank you for this story regarding Elijah and where he found himself, you know, after a powerful victory on Mount Carmel. And we're reminded that even Elijah.

Was human. He was just like us. He was used powerfully by you. We can also be used powerfully by you. And in a way, we can all, in a sense, be modern day prophets that are sharing words that we have had downloaded by your spirit. And I'm asking, Lord, that each person here would recognize when they need some rejuvenation, when they need nourishment, and whether that's physically, emotionally, mentally, most of all, spiritually, in order to really write out of a deep well. And I just pray that you give us all discernment there that we would know. Okay, I've planned four hours of writing today and I'm going to really hit it hard. But then maybe we think, you know what more I think about it, I don't have much to give. I feel dry. And I feel like maybe two of those hours need to be spent just seeking the Lord, just spending time in his word, just allowing him to download stuff into my spirit. So I'm asking, Lord, that you give us discernment there. We would know when we need to take those steps, when we need to just look over and grab the bread that you have placed next to our heads just like Elijah and partake. And I just thank you so much for each one. I pray that you'd fill each kingdom writer here, rejuvenate them. I pray that this time today and tomorrow would actually be a rejuvenating time. It would be an exciting time, that there would be God ideas and that they would just enjoy writing with you right next to them. And we thank you for what's going to happen, Lord, today. And we give you all that in Jesus name, Amen.

Amen. So I hope that you were encouraged through this today. I know for me this week has been a doozy. And even this morning I could sense it in my body. Like, you know, when you've had like an emotional and a spiritual and, you know, just a, you know, even a physical, like, like week, it's just been like, oh, like sometimes we need to listen to our bodies and I, I really sense like this weekend I just need to rest.

But listen to your body, listen to the Lord and also just, you know, know when you need some rejuvenation. Would you like More. If you are enjoying this podcast but want more, I have something exciting to share with you. We have released what's called a private podcast. So a private podcast you will not find by searching an apple. You have to know specific specifically how to subscribe to it. It's more private and exclusive and it just can be more relaxed behind the scenes. And my new private podcast is called Hits Blitz and it's wisdom for writers that you're going to learn from my 18 plus years of experience in publishing and online marketing so that you can move forward and in God's Call to Write. I am best known for injecting energy and enthusiasm into everything I do and inspiring those around me to take action. So I encourage you to listen in to this exclusive private podcast. It is free, 100% free. You don't have to pay for it and be prepared to be inspired by my next Hits Blitz. So you can sign up at training authors.com forward/hits blitz and if you have any other writing friends that you think could benefit from it, definitely share it with them. They can go to the Same link training authors.com forward/hits blitz to get access. Again, this is a private podcast so you cannot get access to it any other way. It's completely free. All you have to do is sign up and then you'll get all the information on how to add it to your podcast player of choice. So I can't wait for you to join me over there. I share a lot of things behind the scenes and more content just in a real time basis. So it's more like chatting with a friend or following someone on stories on social media. Except you don't have to get caught up in any of the algorithms. You'll just have this in your podcast player and be able to listen in wherever you're at, whatever you're doing. So some of the listeners told me this week that they were listening while waiting in the Target parking lot, while brushing their teeth. You can fit this into the pockets of time that you have, so I hope you'll join me. Come over to trainingauthors.com hitsblitz.

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 by Christian Book Academy, where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom writers.