#451 Compassion Makes a Difference

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.

Hello and welcome to the July 2025 Virtual Writing Retreat. My name is Doc and I'm a ProgressPod leader here at Christian Book Academy. I live in Southeast Virginia and that's about 30 miles west of Virginia Beach. One of our Christian Book Academy members is actually not too far away from me. She lives in Virginia Beach. I've been married for next month will be 14 years. I have two daughters that we homeschool and one of my favorite hobbies is to play piano. So today I'm going to open us up in prayer and I do have some things to share with you that that I've got on my heart, but let's just go ahead and open in prayer and then we'll go on from there.

Lord Jesus, we come to you with hearts that are needy, hearts that are thankful, hearts that are grateful. We come to you, Lord, with expectation, Lord, expecting that you hear us, expecting that you know everything we need. Expecting that you're a God who answers prayers that are according to your will, prayers that are prayed with right motive, right heart. And we also trust, God that you have our best interest in mind in whatever the answers are that you give us to whatever request that we make for ourselves and for others. God. So we just pray for C.J. and Shelly, Lord, as they are away on sabbatical. God, just pray that you would just continue to speak to them. Lord, I pray for a next level of just discernment, anointing direction, everything that you have for them, for this community, God, and just guide us Today, Lord, lead us, Give us what you desire. And I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

All right, so each, each time we do a virtual writing retreat, there's always a theme that we, we have. So this weekend's theme is compassion makes a difference. So that's the theme that compassion makes a difference.

This theme, it really hits home for me personally. And, and I'll, I'll share with you a little bit about that later on. Like why, why exactly hits home for me so, so much in this season of my life. And, and I believe that that was part of the reason why. That was just at the top of my heart to share with you guys.

But I believe that there's a trend that we can see all throughout the Bible in Jesus's life, and that that trend and there's a lot of trends, but I think this one kind of stands out to me is compassion. If you really think about throughout the Bible, compassion seems to be something that just really drives Jesus in a lot of, A lot of areas. We see times where he was just completely exhausted and the disciples were like, hey, let's Jesus, let's. Let's send them away. It's late. We've been doing ministry. They retired, you know, and I'm not going to go deep into those passages, but we know that Jesus was just moved with compassion on the people, and he did a lot of things. So those. We see that a lot throughout the Bible. And when compassion matters the most, it's when it's the least deserved and it's when it's the most difficult for us to do. That's when it truly matters the most.

And I truly believe that. And as we look at Luke 23:24, it says, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And we think about, we think about Jesus. We know that he had the power to call on angels. He said that. He said, hey, if I wanted to, I can call armies of angels right now to get me out of this mess I'm in, to get me out of this situation.

And I'm not trying to take lightly what Jesus did. It wasn't a mess, but you understand what I'm saying? And of course he wouldn't have done that because he was fully submitted to the Father's will and his love for us. It compares, held him to remain there.

And I asked this question when I read that passage, I said, lord, why did you. Why did. Why did Jesus say, father, for forgive them. He could have said, father, I forgive them. So why did he. Why did he say that. And I just. I just kind of really felt like the Lord.

Was just telling me it was just because he was filled so much with the love of God that he could still pray while he was going through the storm, and he was able to pray for those who inflicted pain on him. And so we see that he was just so filled with love, so filled with compassion, that not only did he forgive them, he also prayed for them. And I can tell you that the times when you need compassion the most, if we're honest, we're not really thinking about praying all the time for those who need that compassion. And that's just. That's just a reality.

And like Jesus, we too, have a choice when we're in those moments where we could respond differently, we could respond without having compassion. And we've already kind of talked about it a little bit. But why is compassion so important?

I've asked my mom to share her story that. That I'm walking through with her, that we've walked through, because I. I feel like a lot of this is really important, and I want to use myself as an example and just be an open book and be transparent with you. And my mom is the same exact way. She's just. She's one of those people. She's. She's transparent, she's open. And then sometimes you kind of think, well, maybe I tell. Maybe you tell too much truth. But. But I just want to share with you a story to just highlight what compassion is in my life and how I'm walking through that and what the Lord's showing me and teaching me.

My mom. And again, I'll tell you, I give full permission from my mom. She said, my story is your story, but I survived four planned abortions. Okay? And so it wasn't until maybe a few years ago my wife, you know, said, hey, why don't you ask your mom? Like, you know, have you ever asked her why that happened? And so I was born in a situation where. And if it's. If it's too much information, it's okay. It's. Our stories are what help other people heal. But I was born into a situation where my dad was. He was on drugs, he was chasing women. My mom said, you know, it was just. It would have just been too much for me at the. At the time, at the moment to deal with. And I'm saying this as I'm sharing this, I pray against any type of, you know, shame or guilt or spirit of any. Anything like that that would even be present. And I just Want to say that none of that's welcome here, okay?

And it's all under the blood. But I survived those four abortions. And the way that the four planned abortions, the way it worked out the first time was, you know, hey, there was a bad car accident. The second time, there was bad weather. Third time, she actually went in person, felt so bad that she called my dad and said, hey, you got to pick me up. I can't go through with it. Planned a fourth time, one of my uncles found out, called my grandma, told her, and my grandma said, begged her and said, or, please don't do this. And so here I am today. But she wants me to share that story because I'm the child who in her old age is taking care of her, is doing all those things. But she's in a place right now where she has been dealing with lung. Lung conditions and different things like that. And growing up as a child, you know, I. I would. I would beg her, mom, please don't smoke. You know, please. And my sister would beggar. And now that she's in her older age, she's, you know, she's dealing with the. Some of the consequences of those things. And I can tell you that one of the things that's made a difference for me is, is having compassion, having love, and having compassion in my heart. I think. I think that it could be easy to. And we're. I'm just using myself as an example for those of you who needed. It could be easy in those moments when we see people in their struggle to say or to think that, well, hey, you know, you. You kind of created this situation for yourself, those type of things. But I think when we can have compassion, it makes such a huge difference.

I'm a certified inner prayer healing coach. And one of the things that the Lord has done for me over the last year, even prior to all the things that have been going on with my mom as I help her navigate this, is that he's just been showing me things in my subconscious that I didn't even realize was there. I have a great relationship with my mom. I've always had it. But he began to point out different areas of, oh, there's a fence there. There's things that you need to forgive that I had no idea about. And so I truly believe that, and I'll share a little bit about that later. I believe that compassion helps us to not walk in a fence or being offended and those type of things. Another area is dealing with the nurses.

At the facility where my mom was. They had really bad attitudes, different things like that some of them made some really poor decisions. And it really could have been easy to just step into that place of, you know, allowing what they do to just impact me to the point to where I'm not able to have compassion on them. And I'm not, I'm not making excuses for anybody or anything like that. But when you have compassion, it says, wow, I see what you're. I see what you're going through, or I'm making myself available to try to see things through your perspective, through your eyes, and to have that empathy that says, I'm not going to criticize, I'm not going to, going to judge. Not with the way the world says, don't judge me. But you all understand what I'm saying, and it says that you have a heart that says, you know what? I'm going to have a heart for you where you are in your need, and I'll pray for you and I'll be there for you, how I can be. And of course, there's boundaries, different things like that. It's a whole nother conversation. But with this thing of compassion, it's when you're able to look in somebody's eyes and you can see, maybe you see regret, maybe you see pain, maybe you see anger, maybe you see things that they're going through. And I believe that we each, in our daily lives have this opportunity to practice compassion instead of resorting to what our culture, what the world, especially here in the United States, we're really divisive. And it's just so much going on where people are just kind of. The news encourages to have. Encourages us to not have compassion, to look at the worst side of people and not to see them through, through Jesus's eyes. But I, I truly believe that.

Compassion, it reflects Jesus to those who need it, who, who actually need it the most. And I also believe that we're on a rescue mission for those who need redemption, those who need restoration, they need healing. And we're called to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

And like I mentioned earlier, I believe that compassion is important because it keeps our hearts free from offense.

Offense and being offended is one of the biggest traps of the enemy, that, that will keep God's people from accomplishing the things they need to do and from having a close, healthy and vibrant relationship with God and other people around them. And so I think compassion is a really important aspect of that. And when we lack compassion, we pray less about the situation or for the people and we focus more on what the enemy wants us to focus on and what he wants to distract us by. So then the question becomes, you know, how do we become more compassionate? How. How can we have more of this compassion that Jesus had?

And there are two amazing questions that I learned through reading. Lori, she's here. Lori Miller, she wrote a book called your power of or your hour of Power with Intention. And again, that book title is called you'd Hour of Power with Intention.

And written by Lori Miller. But there's two questions that she, that I read in her book that she, she asked that I feel like the heart, the heart of it will set you up to be more compassionate. And if you will include this in your prayer time every, every day, most days, this, these two questions are what I'm asking Jesus ever since I read that. And Lori, she's also a progress pod leader here at Christian Book Academy, and she's one of the people on my prayer team as well.

CJ and Shelly, they encourage us as kingdom writers to have a prayer team. So if you don't have that super duper important to reach out, you know, prayerfully, reach out to some people that God would have you to be a part of your prayer team. And they can pray you through your writing, they can pray you through life. And that's what we do. That's we, we share life. Okay. But there's two questions that I got from her book. In those two questions, I believe Graham Cook is where she referenced hearing that. And the first one was, Jesus, what do you want to be for me today? And when we come to Jesus and we ask him what he wants to be for us today? That's powerful. I've heard some really amazing things that he said to me in those moments.

The other thing is, Jesus, what do you want me to be for others today? What do you want me to be for others today? That's. That question is chock full of compassion. It says, who do you want me to show up for in other people's lives? And how do you want me to show up that way? And when we lack compassion or need it, we can look to Jesus for the strength we need to have a compassionate heart. And it does require that we bring our heart before God and make sure that it's free from offense. That's super important. Just in those moments when we are.

Maybe may struggle or. Someone mentioned earlier in the chat that, you know, hey, this was, this was some something that I felt like I needed this discussion about compassion and my emotions and all Those things. We know that the Bible says that we can cast our cares upon him because he cares for us. And so we can exchange our heaviness. We can exchange whatever it is, whatever it is that we're going through in full, complete honesty before God, and we can leave it there, and we can walk away with his compassion.

And then another thing that I've learned that is really. That's really helpful is you can go to Jesus and you can say, jesus, Can. Can I borrow your glasses? And can you help me to see this. This person through your lens, through your viewpoint? Help me to see. To see them the way you do. And that may not necessarily solve the situation or stop them from the actions that. That they're displaying, but what it will do is it will help your heart to be postured in such a way that you can hear from God clearly. You can be in those situations, those moments, and where you can really, truly reflect and show. Show the compassion in Christ.

Let me grab this. I've actually got a. Got a thing here. I'm using it to read.

And, you know, all of those things are super important. So I just want to encourage you all today. We know that as writers, you know, it's important for us to write from a place of compassion. It's important to write for. From a place of. As we view our readers. Just keeping that in mind, and I'll give you a quick, quick thing to end off on. On that note is something that I like to do is I like to write a letter to my reader. Okay. And the purpose for that is it helps me to really pour my heart onto the paper as to why I'm doing this. Why are you writing this book? Um, and that helps when you're on podcasts and, oh, hey, why did you write the book? Well, you just pull up your. You pull up your letter and you just. It's really simple. We. We all know it. We all know that, but it allows you to have a deeper connection with your. With your audience, with those who are reading your book. And it does help you to write from a place of compassion when you can think about all those reasons why you're writing that book. And when things get tough, the road gets rough, you can always go back to that compassionate state of mind and state of heart that led you to do that in the first place versus just writing from under this pressure and just everything like that. So just keep that in mind as you navigate the journey. I think that's. That's a really important thing. And, you know, it's it is a challenge to have that, but I don't think we could ever have enough of it. But Jesus has an endless supply. So I just want to leave y' all with that today here. So let me just pray us out. Lord, just thank you for all the amazing things that you do, Lord. Thank you for allowing us to be able to meet with you. We're just simply vessels, Lord, that you pour into and that you want to pour out from, Lord. And so just help us to be that. Help us to be clean, pure and just free in you. And I again pray for CJ and Shelley, Lord, pray for safety over this community and we come against anything that would even attempt to distract or to destroy any of the work that you're doing, God. And we know the enemy plots and plans, but we know that he is not powerful, Lord. And we know that you have all authority, Lord. So we just pray that over this community and over the writers this weekend, Lord, help them. Give them clarity, give them direction, Lord, help them to make progress, Lord. That would be beyond what they are able to do in their own strength, Lord. And I pray this in Jesus name. Amen. All right, it's been good being here with you all. I hope you all have a phenomenal day.

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