#450 Dying to Ourselves

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.

Welcome to the Kingdom Writers Podcast. My name is Shelly 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. So today CJ is going to share with us some encouragement based on this theme. Dying to ourselves.

Yeah.

So I want to ask you guys another question that you don't necessarily have to write this in the comments, but I want you to think on it for just a second here. The question is.

If God were to ask you this question, how, how might you answer?

The question would be from God. If I should hand you a silver platter with one item, what would you like?

What would you like?

And I want you just to think about that for a few seconds. If God were to hand you anything on a platter and said, go ahead and choose, son, Go ahead and choose daughter. Go ahead, what would you like? What would you say?

And that could include anything.

But I actually came across this question in a book I've recently been, been recently finished, you know, a book on prayer. And.

I, I, I have to admit, I, I cheated because I just kind of read ahead. And.

So in my.

Bias, I do believe there is a better answer. I'm not saying that I chose that answer or would choose that answer right away, but I believe there is a better answer. So this isn't a test for any of you. It's not a test for, for us in how we answer, but I do believe that there are better answers. There's not one correct answer, so to speak. But just as you're thinking about that yourself, think of that in light of this answer. And the answer that we might provide.

Would be this. If I could choose anything to have you Put on that silver platter. Lord, I would choose this. Give me your will for my life.

Oh, God, with this there is nothing more. Give me your will. And I love that because.

You know, initially there may be those visions of X amount of dollars or X amount of books sold or becoming this New York Times bestseller. There could be a lot of material things that flash through our minds. And I believe every one of us would have that.

But I think as we meditate, as we think upon what is God's best for us, could we say that there's anything better than God's will for our lives? There's another.

Man that some of you might have heard of. His name was S.D. gordon. And he was also a man who wrote things on prayer. And SD Gordon relates a similar experience.

He says, quote, I sometimes thought, what if God were to say to me, I want to give you something as special as a love gift, an extra, because I just love you.

What would you like to have? And here's what SD Gordon said. Do you know what? I thought I would say.

Dear God, you choose. I choose what you choose. And I love that. It reminds me of some times throughout our marriage when I've asked Shelley, where would you like to eat? You know, if we're going to go out to eat somewhere, where would you like to eat? And she'll say, I want you to choose. And she'll say, because I have decision fatigue.

So she's like, I've been making decisions all day long. You choose this. And it's so true that sometimes we do get into that mode where we're so tired mentally that even a simple choice of where to go out to eat seems like a big deal. But I want you to think of this in terms of.

Our own lives. And. And if God were to ask us, just like he did SD Gordon, as he's imagining this, this love gift from the Lord, what would he ask for? And it's almost like we get to the end of ourselves.

Where we, too, have decision. Would you say you have decision fatigue based on some bad decisions you've made in life? I could say that if you could go back and say, man, I wish I would have just said, you choose, Lord, instead of saying, this is what I'm going to do. This is what I'm going to ask for. This is the way I'm going to live my life. I think it's a beautiful thing when we can get to a sort of decision fatigue for our own path of our lives and say, lord, you choose. I know whatever you choose is going to be best for me. And as we do that, it's a beautiful peace that falls over us.

And I want to read a passage of scripture in Luke 22:41, 44. And this is Jesus as he spends those hours in Gethsemane. And it says, beginning in verse 41, he walked away about a stone's throw and knelt down and prayed, father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me.

Yet I want your will to be done, not mine. Do you see that? Do you see that? At the end of Jesus's prayer, he still says, but I want you to choose, Father. You choose. You choose what's best.

Here's what my flesh is saying, but you choose, Lord. Even Jesus in his fleshly body cried out, if it possible, please take this cup of suffering away from me, Father. But then at the end, he still said, but you choose, Father, but you choose.

And then an angel from heaven appeared and strengthened him, and he prayed more fervently. Do you know that that word more fervently in the Greek is the only time that that shows up in the New Testament? It also can be translated to more earnestly or more intently. It's as if after the angel strengthened him, it's as if he had a fresh wind to keep praying fervently for his Father's will to be done. And I want to say that each one of us are going to have our Gethsemane, maybe multiple Gethsemanes, where we come to a place of brokenness, of surrender, of crying out for the Lord, of saying, your will be done, not mine. And it's difficult to get to that place.

We have blood, sweat, and tears that we release as a result of those kinds of places in our lives.

And it says he was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood.

And you know, it's been said that Christ died in Gethsemane before he ever died on the cross.

And I want to ask each of you, have you been to your Gethsemane? Have you been to that place where you've agonized? Have you been to that place where you've released it all to the Lord and said, nevertheless, your will be done. Your will be done in my life, whatever you want to write through me, Lord, whatever this may look like. And I want to say that as you and I die to ourselves, our own plans, our own agenda, our own ideas of how our books are going to turn out.

We'Re going to Allow the Father's will to take place. And dare I say that it's going to be so much better. It's going to be better because what was the fruit of Jesus's willingness to go to that cross? It was the ability to die and be resurrected again. And I want to say that with each of us as we die, to any dreams that we've had, that may just be our own ideas, our own agenda, our own thing of what this has got to look like. It's got to look like these things. If we'll die to that I believe the Lord will resurrect something in each of us that we look back on and say, oh, my goodness, I'm so glad that you chose, Lord. I'm glad that you chose the best for me.

The Kingdom writer is willing to die long before we take our last breath.

There's going to be a day when you and I take our last breath, should the Lord tarry.

But there's going to be other deaths that happen along the way, Gethsemanes that each of us face.

And I believe the Lord in Shelley and I's lives, just personally, he's taking us through another level of dying, dying to different things, really wanting to press in more deeply into the things of the Lord, wanting his direction.

For every area of our life, for the things he's doing through cba, but through any other area of ministry that he has us doing. We're going through a season where there is.

A fresh dying, so to speak. And with that, the flesh many times does want to rise up. It does want to be justified. It does want to have its way. But I want to say that if we're all willing to with open hands.

Say father, you choose. You choose what you put on that silver platter. And with that, I'll be so content. I will be so at peace, knowing that my father's guiding every step of the way and I'm living and walking in his will, not something that I manufactured. And so I want to ask you to in a fresh way this morning, even as we kick off this first day of two days of virtual writing retreat, I want you to begin by laying afresh what it is.

That that you've thought should work out a certain way. Or maybe your book should look this way, or maybe your life hasn't.

Gone how you thought it should.

I want you to, in a fresh way, with open hands say father, I'm asking you to choose here this morning. I'm asking that you would have your way even with these Next two days with what's right in front of me in this virtual writing retreat. And I believe as you take that, that step of committing this virtual writing retreat to the Lord, it's a first step to many that the Lord's going to lead you on day by day. And it's always a posture every single day that we wake up.

In a fresh way. Today, Lord, I lay all this before you. Anything you want to tweak, anything you want to say, anything you want to do in me, if you want to take me into another Gethsemane where there has to be agony of prayer and soul and spirit, I give you full permission, Lord, because I know you're a good father and I know that you have good plans for me. You have my best interest in mind regarding your will and how you want to use my life on this planet. And so I want you just to take a minute.

Where you actually, in a fresh way, have your hands open like that. And as we do that.

Just be attentive to what the Lord may say to you, how he may direct you. It may even look different than what you thought going into this morning. But in a fresh way, let's open our hands together and take a minute.

And just say, come, Holy Spirit, fill me afresh.

And have your way in and through my writing.

It.

So, Father, we. We come to you in a fresh way this morning and.

We say, you choose.

You choose what's best for me. Lord.

You made me. You created me. You know my inner workings. You gifted me in a specific way. You know how I'm wired.

And Father, I desire.

To be aligned with your will for my life. I acknowledge that your plans are best, that you have something so much better for each of us than we can even imagine.

And so, as we're obedient, step by step, may you continue to unfold your plans.

May you lead us by your spirit.

May you pour your spirit into us afresh.

Would you help us to see through the same lens that you're seeing through? Would you help us see through your perspective?

And we thank you, Lord, for any fruit that you're going to bear out through our obedience and our fresh surrender to you. And we ask all this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen.

If you're ready to take a step of faith and finally finish your book, we have a few ways we can help you. First of all, you can join our free Writing Week challenge to create a writing habit in just 15 minutes a day. 15 thousands of writers have taken this over the years, and it is incredible the progress that you'll see. So join us@writingweek.com and again this is completely free. Inside our Book Writing Lab workshop you can choose your book topic, write an outline and create a writing plan in just 90 minutes so you'll finally feel confident that you'll actually finish your book. Get started@bookwritinglab.com and finally you can get more support and personalized feedback from myself and our team by joining Christian Book Academy because the honest truth is most writers stay stuck and never finish their first draft. But inside Christian Book Academy we help you partner with God to write your book so you can become a published author. So finally ditch your self doubt and take a step of faith so so you can finish your book. Join Christian book academy@christianbookacademy.com and get 50% off your first month by using the Coupon Code Podcast at checkout There's a special coupon code for our podcast listeners. We love you. So come over to ChristianBookAcademy.com, use the coupon Code podcast and we look forward to working closely with you. 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 in Apple. You have to know 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 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. 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 trainingauthors.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 trainingauthors.com hitsblitz 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 can you be able to listen in wherever you're at, whatever you're doing? 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 training authors.com forward/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 power 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.