#434 Hearing from Headquarters

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.

Welcome to the Kingdom Writers Podcast. My name is Shelli Hitz, one of your hosts. This episode is an excerpt from our virtual writing retreat we host every month inside our membership Christian Book Academy. You can join us with a special coupon code just for podcast listeners, and this will get you 50% off your first month. Use the coupon code podcast, and this way we can help you take a step of faith and finally finish your book. So go to ChristianBookAcademy.com and enter the Coupon Code Podcast at checkout for 50% off your first month. Come join us at our retreats and all the other things that we offer throughout the month. And I pray that the encouragement from this episode blesses you. Cj, why don't you share with us what the theme is for this weekend?

Yeah, a little phrase would be hearing from headquarters. Oh.

Hearing from headquarters. We like to give you a minute just to ask the Lord and hear from him directly, what does this theme mean for me today? Specifically related to your writing, but it could be other things, too. I'm going to go ahead and set the timer for one minute and go ahead and ask the Lord what does this mean for me today. And then share in the chat box once you sense what God is saying to you today.

All right, that was one minute. So share with us in the chat box anything you sensed God saying to you. And it's always an inspiration hearing what. What you guys, you know, sense from the Lord. Shirley says, inspiration, write it down immediately. And I agree. Shirley, like, how many of you know, like, if you don't write something down, it. It can get lost. And I. I talked about this on the call last night, but the aqua notes, I use those in the shower or with when I'm taking a bath. And their tagline is don't let good ideas go down the drain.

So I love it. So, cj, you want to share the next one?

Yeah, it looks like Laureen says, be consistent and trust him to open doors.

Yeah. And Tina says, what does God want me to do? And listen for him to tell me. Amen.

Christine, Hearing from, listening to headquarters. One quarter.

Oh, he froze up.

Words.

Yeah, it looks like you froze up, cj. So he said, one quarter me and three Quarters. The Holy Spirit.

Yeah, I think we may get a little bit of that, unfortunately, with this new setup. Until we get it some of the bugs worked out, can you see if.

You'Re connected to wireless? Because just turn the wireless off and make sure it's directly connected.

Angelette says, trust, remain in action. Jackie's is similar. Trust in the Lord. Always do not be afraid.

D says, am I really listening to God with immediately following as directed. Yeah, because you think at headquarters, you get your orders and then you go do it. Right. Sometimes we hear from the Lord and we're like, are you really sure?

Deb says, my commanding officer has given me something to do. New orders. Yeah. And Deb was in the military before, so. Jackie. Oh, yeah. Just got the aqua notes and timer. Awesome.

So good.

It's like Christa says, just keep moving forward and don't stop. Someone said yesterday, God can't drive a parked car, and this hit hard. Yeah.

Yeah, I think that was something I said.

We've heard that phrase many times ourselves.

The next steps call. But, yeah, God can't direct a parked car. So just getting moving. You're here today. That's a huge step. Way to go. Lynn says God has sent me on a mission, and I need to hear my instructions every step of the way. So good.

And Heather says not to take a step forward in my writing without praying and seeking God's will, even in the little details. Amen to that.

Yeah. Barbara says, I decided yesterday to end each chapter of my memoir with a devotional, and the one for chapter one should be finished today. Awesome. Love that.

Marlene says, persist in what I've called you to do.

And I think that was it. So, cj, did you. Were you able to turn off your wireless?

I think it's off. I think I'm just connected directly. Okay.

Before we start the tr. The teaching part, those of you that don't know, we also share this teaching on our podcast, so we like to have a clean recording for that.

Yeah.

As well. All right, well, that's. I love hearing all of your. Your insights and what God is saying to you. That's always so fun.

So today, CJ's going to share encouragement on the topic of hearing from headquarters. So, cj, why don't you share that encouragement with us today?

Yeah. So, you know, I was looking at a little verse in Isaiah.

Chapter 50, verse 4, and this whole section is. Is really a prophecy of Jesus as the obedient servant. Now, if you look a few chapters later, you've got Isaiah 53. With the suffering servant. And these are all prophetic.

You know, prophecies, you know, foretelling what Jesus would do and some of his characteristics. And so I wanted to read that verse, chapter 50, verse 4, it says, the sovereign Lord has given me his words of wisdom so that I know how to comfort the weary morning. By morning, he wakens me and opens my understanding to his will. Now, every single one of us could benefit and apply that to our own lives. But it's really amazing when you think that this is a prophecy regarding Jesus. Jesus is, is the one being talked about here in terms of being awakened every morning by who? By His Father coming to his Father, His Father, opening his understanding to his will while he's on this planet for 33 years. And what we see in Jesus over the course of his time is an absolute communion with his Father day in and day out. We see that all through the Gospels. But I wanted to kind of just begin with that verse because all the way into the Old Testament, we've got Jesus being foretold, connecting to his Father, being woken up in the morning by his Father. And you can just get a taste of that, you know, with the prophet Isaiah. But Luke, chapter 5, verses 15 and 16, it's one of my favorite little passages. Jesus has just healed a leper, and now he's given that leper, that cleansed man instructions to go in, go to the priest, get this verified as a healing. And he basically told him, don't, don't tell anyone, you know, that, that, that this has happened to you. And probably, you know, in order to prevent just a major blowing up of, of crowds and different things. But it says, despite Jesus's instructions, the report of his power spread even faster, and vast crowds came to hear him preach and to be healed of their diseases. And then here's the key right here. But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer. And again, what we're seeing here is a demonstration of the Son of God. Think about this now. If the Son of God often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer, how much more do you and I.

Who, who are not part man, part God, but how much more do you and I need that connection with our, Our Father as well, for everything that we're doing here? One of the, the things that I think about is, you know, any of us that have been on an airplane, we've heard those famous words in the safety presentation, put on your own mask before assisting others. Now, at first glance, that sounds pretty selfish. You think, oh, man, you know, just thinking about myself, before others. But there's something to that. You've got to have your own flow of oxygen before you can be of any good to someone else struggling to get their oxygen. And so we, you and I, can't help others unless we're communing with God and allowing him to fill us up. Let me say that again. You and I can't help others in an effective way unless we're communing with God and allowing him to fill us up. We've got to put our own masks on before assisting others. I think Jesus really had a grasp of this. He knew that, yes, the crowds are coming in, yes, yes, there's needs all around him. Yes, this could be attended to. All of these things were happening. And yet regularly we see a breaking away and a direct intentionality of connecting with his Father, putting on his own mask before assisting others and hearing from headquarters. And that's the key right there, is that Jesus knew that unless he connected to his Father at headquarters.

It was going to be.

Out of an empty cup. He's demonstrating this for each of us as a man, that as men and women, we've got to connect and have our own cups filled up before we can pour into others. And one final passage that I want us to. To look at is in Mark, chapter 9, 28, 29. Now, just to paint a little context to this. Jesus has just been on the mountain of transfiguration with his disciples Peter, James and John. And they saw things that would have blown. Blown them away. You know, the, the vision you know of, or the appearance of Moses and Elijah and Jesus all talking together. And then the voice coming down of Jesus's father saying, listen to my son. And then they come off the mountain and they come down to some confusion happening at the. At the foot of the mountain. It seems that a father brought his boy that was demon possessed. And the other disciples there were having difficulty casting out the demon. And so finally the Father approaches Jesus and says, if you can. And of course, Jesus kind of almost playfully says, what do you mean, if I. If I can? You know, all things are possible to those who believe. And the man.

Aimlessly says, well, Idubes proceeds to cast out the demon from this boy that had been plaguing him.

And later it says these words In Mark, chapter 9, verses 28 and 29, it says, afterward, when Jesus was alone in the house with his disciples peoples, they asked him, why couldn't we cast out that evil spirit? And Jesus replied, this kind can be cast out only by prayer. And some Translations and yours might have this little note as well, say, and fasting as well, prayer and fasting. But what Jesus was essentially saying is you keep. Guys, you've got to spend time connecting with the same Father that I'm connecting with. I think these disciples may have gotten a little bit self sufficient, so to speak. They may have just thought, oh, anything's possible, you know, I can just do this and this and this and zap the demon out or zap this person and this stuff happens. And I think that, you know, this is, this is just more.

Opinion. But I think these disciples had just kind of taken for granted that things could happen without prayer, without a real communion and connection to the headquarters. And Jesus is demonstrating here this kind, this thing can only happen by prayer. And I think it's good advice, not, not just good advice, but a good command for each of us that any good writing that we do is only going to happen by prayer and maybe in some cases fasting, if that's something that you do. But I want to encourage all of us to think about this as we carry out our writing or anything that we're doing for the Lord, rather than taking things for granted that yes, many of us can do lots of good things self sufficiently. But the best things are going to happen when we're in that connection to the headquarters. The best things, the most heavenly things, the divine things are going to happen when we have that communion. Just as we saw Jesus constantly breaking away to hear himself, even if it was 2, 3 in the morning, he's breaking away. He, he's spending time in prayer. He's checking into headquarters. Father, what do you have for today? What do you have for tomorrow? Lord, who am I going to come across and what do you want me to tell them? Or how do you, who do you want to heal through me.

Tomorrow? But what I want to encourage all of us to do is check in daily to headquarters. And as we do that, I believe that we will see breakthroughs, that Jesus will then come to us and say, see, as you connect to my Father in prayer as I've done, you're going to see things happen in your ministry that wouldn't have happened otherwise. It would have been just like you beating your head against a wall trying to make something happen. You can almost imagine these disciples trying to whip out every trick possible, trying to.

Before Jesus, things they know and nothing was happening. The key is a connection to the Father. The key is that daily prayer time and seeking of him checking into headquarters. So that's my challenge. For all of us this morning.

Yeah, it's so good. And we always need this reminder, right? It's something that none of us do perfectly. But anytime I am starting to feel anxious or I'm starting to feel like, ah, you know, in the striving, it's like a check engine light. It's like an indicator that I'm pushing in my own strength, the self sufficiency. So Kingdom writers check. Look at your dashboard today. Is there a check engine light blinking? Is it saying, yeah, like D says pause, check in. Like, do look under the hood. Like, is there. Is there something going on? And sometimes for me, it's something emotional and it says, and it's maybe something that I haven't processed or haven't even thought about or, you know, and it's just. I'm. I'm numbing to just get through, you know, or it could be other things too. But what is it that is your check engine light? You know, for me, it might be anxiety or striving or worry or whatever, but what is it for you? And then, you know, several years ago, I felt like the Lord said to me, shelly, I don't want you just to be an echo out in this whole area. There's so many people talking about publishing and all the things. And I don't want you just to be an echo, just regurgitating all the same things. I want you to meet with me and receive from me so that you can share something fresh. And how many of us want that for our writing? We don't want to just be regurgitating, just publishing books just to publish books. We want to be. Have that unique voice, that unique perspective, be able to come with a unique viewpoint. And that, I believe, only comes when we're really connecting with the vine, when we're spending that time with the Lord. And there's no shame if you haven't been. Like I said, none of us are perfect. But it's just that check engine. Like, okay, you know, I'm gonna go. And I realize, like, I want to spend a little more time, you know, with the Lord today. And, you know, I often think about even, like, if you are working for someone, you know, you're you. You have headquarters, right? And you have your captain or whatever, you know, your boss. And you're, you know, you put together your plan and you just have your boss sign off on it, or you meet in the boardroom and you have the whiteboard and you're working together, you're collaborating together to come up with what is the marketing plan. What is the plan for this book? And it makes me think about just asking God to sign off. Like, all right, I got my plan, you know, I got my thing. Now can you just sign off? You know, like the disciples might have just felt like, like they were just in cruise control. Like, we got this, we know this. Okay, now just sign off. Just do the thing. Or are you in the boardroom, like actively having your business meetings with God, writing on the, the, the whiteboard, maybe even like literally or in your journal or whatever, and collaborating and co working with him. And so we have so many opportunities to partner with God along the way of writing our book. So, cj, why don't you pray over us about this today?

Father.

Thank you. That we can come to you freely.

Yeah.

That we can commune with you, that Jesus demonstrated so faithfully a connection with you. And I thank you that we can have that same connection because of what Jesus has done. And so, Father, I, I ask that each person here would be able to hear from headquarters, so to speak, hear your direction, your guidance. I pray, Lord, that you would give those God ideas that, that just don't come unless we are spending time with you, unless we are seeking you fervently. And I do pray that each one of us would have a desire to seek you fervently and.

To steal away, so to speak, to have those times, even if it's the late night watch.

Watchmen, you know, hours where everyone else is asleep. But we're seeking you. We're wanting that. In the quiet of the night, you can just imagine Jesus communing with you at 2, 3 in the morning. And, and it was a practical thing, you know, in, in many ways it was, it may have been the, the time that he was able to do that because of the crowds during the day. And, and Father, I just thank you for what you're doing through each one of these Kingdom writers and how you've led them here. We pray that today and tomorrow will be fruitful, that there would just be sweet time with you in and out of all of their writing and, and that there would just be a Holy Spirit flow of things that happen, whether it be planning or writing. And we give you all the glory for everything. And we just examples like Laureen being able to have this win with her book. We thank you for that, Lord. We want to always be mindful to thank you and give you the glory and the honor because of the, the progress that we make. And without you, Lord, it's all in vain. And so thank you and we give you this time in Jesus name. Amen.

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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.

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