#391: Mentoring Moment: The Best is Yet to Come

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 today, the training that CJ wants to share with you is on the theme the best is yet to come. So, cj, why don't you go ahead and share that with us today?

Yeah. So I want to look at the story of the wedding that, that Jesus and his disciples and his mom and some other friends.

Attended in. In Cana. And then he turned the water into wine there at the. At the wedding. And so I. I kind of want to make a few.

Just a few observations as we go, but I'm going to go ahead and read some of this. And it's John, chapter two, one twelve. And it says here.

On the third day, a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus's mother was there. And Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus's mother said to him, they have no more wine.

Now, let me just point out quickly that in that culture and in that day, to run out of wine that early would have been devastating because these gatherings were the party of the year. So if you were invited to a wedding, it was a big deal. And the festivities could go on for a week or two. And so it sounds like the wine ran out. And that would have been a major embarrassment, especially to the bridegroom whose family would have provided that wine. I've even seen some commentaries that say that this possibly could have been caused for litigation by the bride's family to run out of wine like this. So it was a big deal. Let me just say that. And so when Jesus is. When. When Jesus's mother Mary comes and says they. They've run out of wine. And how many of us at times have been sitting there and we're thinking, I've run out of words.

Maybe you've had such writer's block or you've had so much going on that you're. You're just in this spot right now where you're just like, the words are gone, just like the wine is gone. It's been used up, and I've got nothing else. And it's going to be embarrassment because I told my friends, my family that I'm going to, you know, been called to write. And I feel like there's books in Me and stories that God's called me to write, and now I've got nothing. And of course we all face those, those battles. And so.

Here'S Mary saying they have no more wine. And then listen to this. This may sound a little bit rude from Jesus, but in my research I found that wasn't disrespectful at all for him to address his mother as woman, woman. Why do you involve me? It sounds really harsh, you know, in our English language, but in a sense, Jesus is actually turning a corner and turning a page in the way he even relates to his mother. It's like.

You could also say lady or my, my dear lady. And he's essentially saying, my time's not yet come. And yet he still reserves the right, you know, he still reserves that possibility that his father may want to do something. But listen to this next verse. It says his mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you. You know, and it's almost like she's sort of encouraging something to happen. But I think that's such a good practice for you and I is. You and I are servants. We are kingdom writer servants. And are we doing whatever Jesus tells us? Are we going about our writing and accomplishing things in our own strength, or are we actually coming to him regularly and listening for the instructions that he may have? And this is, this is good for all of us. You know, his mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you. That's, that's good advice for all of us as we walk with the Lord. Now it says nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding 20 to 30 gallons.

And so Jesus then said to the servants, fill the jars with water. And so they filled them to the brim. This is the NIV version, not all the, the versions say that they filled them to the brim. But that, that statement I'm going to come back to as well.

But this, this would have been almost shocking to these servants. And yet I'm amazed they followed his instructions without, as we see here, without question. And yet this would have been a real head scratcher because this water is used for purification, for washing your hands. They dip pitchers in there and then pour the, the folks hands. And in this day, the Pharisees, the religious leaders, they, they had added numerous rules to these cleanliness laws that are found in Leviticus. And so it was really just sort of a, a drudgery, you know, just the amount of rules that were added even to the Levitical laws. And so here Jesus is saying, yeah, take this water that's used for cleansing and ritual practice. Take it and.

Fill, fill these jars. And what he's going to say next is just shocking. It says, then he told them, now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet. In other words, take this water that's used for washing of hands and take it to him and have them drink it, have them test it out. Imagine the insult had this.

Master of the banquet, this wine taster, this, you know, whatever you want to call this person in charge of that aspect. Imagine had he known where this water come, had come from, and yet he didn't even know it was water in the first place because it was wine. And so they did so. And the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. They were privileged to know some inside information. And then he called the bridegroom aside and said, everyone brings out the choice wine first, but then the cheaper wine after. The guests have drunk too much, had too much to drink. But you've saved the best until now.

You've saved the best until now. What Jesus did there in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him. Now I, I want to just kind of go back to.

The actual six pots for a second. You got these six pots each holding 20 to 30 gallons. Now let's just, let's just say an average, let's just say each one is 25 gallons. Now I did a little math there and they were filled to the brim.

And if, if that's the case, and let's just say we divide the 20 and 30 into 25. 25 gallons of pot is 19200 ounces of wine. Now you divide that by, let's just say each person has an eight ounce cup in their hands. That's 2,400 glasses of wine just for this wedding party. I don't think the town of Cana had 2,400 people. Matter of fact, I can almost guarantee they didn't. And so this, this wedding party, I don't know, maybe 50, maybe to 100 guests. I mean, I, I have no idea who is invited. All I know is this was extravagant. It was absolutely extravagant. So extravagant that I believe what Jesus was doing was setting this newlywed couple up to make some money. I really think that they would have probably sold some of that wine afterwards and it would have really Set them up well to start their marriage. That's what one of the things I think Jesus was doing. And here's the thing. Hardly anybody knew about this miracle.

They just carried on like, wow, this is really good wine. Especially the master of ceremonies knew having that distinctive palette. But the guest didn't know about the miracle. The only people that knew were the servants, who, by the way, obeyed everything that Jesus told them to do. Do you and I, as His children, do everything that he tells us to do? These servants didn't know Jesus from Adam. They didn't know his power. They didn't know his miracles. This was the first demonstration of his glory. And yet they do all of this without questioning. Amazing to me. To me, it shows. They, they truly were servants. They had servant hearts and they were obeying anything that someone said. They essentially said, okay, Jesus is a friend of the bride and the groom. I'm a servant to the bride and the groom.

This guy is telling me to go fill up the pots. I'm going to assume that he's. He's friends with the. The bride and the groom, and I'm going to do what he says. And so they did. And by the way, it probably would have taken a little bit of, you know, I don't know how. How full those pots already were. There probably was already a lot of hand washing by that point. But they had, they probably still had to go to the nearest well and bring back water because they weren't going to roll those pots. They weren't going to take. Carry those pots down in the well and then bring them back. They would have had to make trips back and forth, back and forth. But one of the things I think we should realize is that Jesus may be calling us to do something that we hear him calling us. And, and it could be a head scratcher, but it may lead to something.

That is incredible in terms of our writing, in terms of encouragement, in terms of somebody's life being blessed.

And so I wanted to at least point out just the extravagance of this for this newlywed couple. And then regarding the. The servants that were filling the pots, I love this. This quote by Charles Spurgeon. He says this is a pattern for our faith in obedience. When we look at these servants, he says this. When you are. When you are bidden to believe in him, believe in him up to the brim.

When you are told to love him, love him up to the brim. When you are commanded to serve him, serve him up to the brim. And I love that And I would even add, as kingdom writers, whatever you're called, to write for his glory, write words to the brim. Spare nothing to make Jesus look good. Spare no extravagance in terms of that obedience, because it's going to turn out into some incredible wine if we're obeying what Jesus calls us to do.

And when we look back at this story.

Each of the persons around Jesus shows us something significant regarding Jesus in his work. Mary shows us to expect Jesus to do big things, but not to tell him how to do them. You know, Jesus has his way, he has his timing. So we're not to dictate to Jesus what we want. We. We are to share a request. We're to ask him, does he have a better idea for our writing, for our words, for a story, for a book, book idea, for a marketing idea. And then the servants show us to obey Jesus without question, to the utmost, to the brim and enjoy being part of the miracle. Imagine the information that they knew inside, but they didn't probably know how to express that. It was probably something they would ponder for. For years to come. The bridegroom shows us that Jesus loves to save the day. And I want to say that Jesus did save the day. He saved the week. He saved the whole ceremony because it would have been spoiled. He saved the best for last. The best is yet to come. And I want to say that with your writing, with my writing, and I love and, and I got so many incredible cards from many of you, and I'm still opening them. And many people have said, and I just believe it's almost like a prophetic message for. From the Lord directly to my heart is the best is yet to come. Son, I've got more for you. You're 50 years old. You've lived a good life. You, You've had a lot of blessings along the way. But. But, son, I've got more. I've got more for you. And that's what I've been kind of reveling in here lately, in just being encouraged by your cards. But.

What I want to say is that with your writing, Jesus has your best to come. If you'll continue to be obedient.

Loving him to the brim, writing to the brim, serving him to the brim, even when it doesn't make sense.

The master of the feast shows us that Jesus saves the best for last. He saves the best for last. And not only that, but just even going back to the bride and the groom, saving the day for them, making them look good by the way, and Jesus walked out of there without saying, hey, look what we did, you know, and, and by the way, the, the wine that you're currently tasting, it came directly from my, my Father's storehouse, you know, you know, in heaven, by the way, the best wine ever tasted by human lips was that day. Never before since has has wine of that quality. And have you ever thought about the fact that it didn't have to go through all of the long years of fermenting and, and, you know, aging. And I'm, I'm here to say that you're writing may not take as long as you think. The Lord may want to do something just like that. And you're just, all you're, you're left is speechless. You're stunned, you're like, I can't believe what the Lord just did here through my writing.

And then finally the disciples show us that this indeed was for real. They were first hand witnesses. They, they were privileged insiders and it really set them on a path. These first few disciples that were with Jesus, it set them on a path, it bonded them to him. And I just want to say that as you come to this virtual writing retreat today and tomorrow, that the Lord does have incredible wine in store regarding your writing. He does have incredible.

Messages to plant inside your mind, your heart. Things are going to come out of you that you never thought possible. And I want to just encourage you just to keep obeying his directives. If we'll do this, there's going to be a sweet wine that's produced in the form of words, books, blog posts, social media posts, articles, you name it. People are going to experience and taste those things and they're going to know something's different. And so as you come to the Lord today, just know that.

The best is yet to come.

Yeah, that's so good. And like I've shared before, God's just been working on this mindset in me. And instead of just visualizing the worst and catastrophizing saying, okay, God, what do you have for this? How can I see this through your eyes? And you know, he's able to do, right? Ephesians 3:20, exceedingly, abundantly above what we think or imagine, what we can even imagine. And it really is that a mind blowing emoji, right? We just have to wrap our minds around like when we see problems, what are the possibilities and what if it's wonderful? So like, lately I've had an issue with our business of just, it just seems like things are not working the way that I would want them to work as far as, like, you know, just the. All the marketing stuff, like the conversion rates and the this and then that. And it's just like, sometimes I just get, like, lost in all of the thoughts and the things, and I felt like God loved me. To attend a training this week, I learned one thing that I think could literally change the whole course of this issue that I've been dealing with. And it was just like, one thing I learned and that. But it's just. God can do it, right? He can lead us to exactly what we need at the exact time. And I have to implement it and see how it works. But I'm really optimistic. But it just reminds me like, so many times in our human minds, we just cannot see the answer or we cannot see what's ahead, or, you know, we just. We don't know. And yet God has something just like Jesus at that wedding. Jesus had something for them. They didn't even. They didn't even know. And so. Cj, why don't you close us in prayer?

Father, we thank you so much for even in a. If we look at this from a bigger picture, the new wine that you offer compared to the old covenant, we thank you, Lord, for the new that you brought from the old. It's even better. And it's beyond words. It's beyond description. It's beyond anything that a human being in and of themselves could dream up. And I just. I pray, Lord, that even in our writing there would be a new wine, there would be a taste of the new wine, of your goodness, of your mercy, of your grace, that people would taste of that, that they would recognize that it's. It's a different quality than what they've been offered.

In the world. And I just pray that you would be glorified through these kingdom writers as they obey you to the brim. As all of us write words.

To the brim of. Of just an overflow of what you're pouring into us. We just thank you and we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. One more thing that I wanted to mention is that it's interesting because, you know, Jesus saves the best for last. Quite the opposite. The devil saves the. The worst for last. He will usually tempt us with the good stuff first. And then we realize, you know, he's got nothing else to offer. And. And everything else is just cheap. It's a counterfeit. And. And that's really all he can offer. And so when we come to Jesus first, we just know that he's got something. He's. He's got. He's got better things ahead. That. That's hope. That's the hope we have both in eternity, but also, I believe, right on this earth with our writing, any writing that he wants you to do for his glory. So hopefully that's just a. A reminder for us not to bite into the cheap substitutes and the cheap quality of what the enemy offers.

Yeah. And I also felt like when CJ was praying. I just feel like some of you need that hope from the Lord today, that your resources may be drained. You know, just like that that wine was gone. Or you may not have the ideas right now, or you might not feel like you even have the time or whatever it is.

You may not have gotten the results that you hoped for, but the Lord wants to give you hope today that there is more for you, that there is more, and that he has good things for you. And so I hope that you were encouraged by this today.

Thank you for listening to this episode 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.