#466 Stillness

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, CJ 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 Shelley 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's going to share with us a training on this topic of stillness today. So CJ, why don't you share that with us?

Yeah, you know, I was, uh, I always ask the Lord, you know, what, uh, what he wants me to share, you know, in these, uh, gatherings. And generally there's, there's something that just begins kind of rising to the surface And this particular time, it was in just my, my regular reading. You know, Shelley and I are actually reading through the Bible again. We enjoy doing that together, and kind of a different plan this year. And, um, in Psalm 37:7, when I read this verse, uh, it just stood out to me, and I thought this, this is the Lord wanting me to share something along this line, you know, with this group. And 37:7 says, be still in the presence of the Lord and wait patiently for him to act. Don't worry about evil people who prosper or fret about their wicked schemes. And it made me think, how many of you ever heard, you know, Some of you may have said this yourself, or you've heard somebody else crying out, uh, don't just stand there, do something. And if I was to challenge all of us today, I'd say, um, don't just do something, stand there, be still. And that would be our challenge, which is difficult in our culture that we live in. We're taught to do something, that we're lazy if we're just, you know, standing there, not doing anything. But I want to challenge that thinking based on the theme that we really see all throughout scripture, and we're going to hit on a couple of those here this morning. But really, the anchor would be Psalm 37:7. I want to read it again: Be still in the presence of the Lord and wait patiently for him to act. Don't worry about evil people who prosper or fret about their wicked schemes. One of the more notable verses that we read is just a few chapters later, and that is Psalm 46:10. And that says, be still. Again, those, those, those powerful two words: be still and know that I am God. I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world. And so what I want to challenge us to even think about is stillness as perhaps one of our most powerful weapons that we can use even as we battle against our great enemy, an enemy that wants to sink our ship, wants to take us down. Wants to create storms in our lives and really cause us to panic, cause us to scurry, cause us to strive to try to make something happen on our own or overcome that resistance. And what I want to— what I want us to think about is the fact that sometimes when you stand still and you wait patiently you are doing the most powerful thing that you could actually do. It's not striving more. It's not, well, I'll just pull up my bootstraps and I'm just going to just hunker in and I'm going to get more aggressive. And we do that and we say, I'm going to win this battle. And we look at all of our resources. We look at our finances. We look at our giftings. We look at our time, whatever it is. We arrange everything just perfectly and we say, now it's going to happen. And we may be missing out on the most powerful thing that we could be doing, which is just sitting there, standing still, but actively— and I say actively— you are actively waiting upon the Lord. And there's a difference there. It's not just sitting there because you don't want to do anything. It's it's sitting there because, you know, it would do me good to hear what the Lord's advice would be on this first. Not to go in head first and I'm just going to go in and I'm going to tackle this, but to say, Lord, what would you have me do? You know, the Hebrew word rapha is actually the word there for be still. And that word in Psalm 46:10 implies letting go, letting your hands hang down. I want you just to get that image. It's almost this, this image of surrender. It's almost like, I've tried everything, I'm tired, I've spent my energy, I've spent my money, I've spent my time. My wheels are spinning, the rubber is burning on the road, and your hands drop in almost just this surrender. In a way, it is like a defeat, but it's not a defeat of the enemy beating you. It's just, oh, I've tried everything. I guess now it's time to be still and ask the Lord. How many of us have been there? But that Hebrew word rapha implies a letting go, a letting your hands hang down, or ceasing to fight on your own. That's the key right there— a ceasing to fight on your own. And we've all been there. There's another instance earlier in scripture where the Israelites were facing a dire situation. It was their Red Sea moment. And Exodus 14:10 says, as Pharaoh approached, the people of Israel looked up and panicked. How many of us have ever looked up and we've panicked? And by the way, if you looked up the Hebrew word for panic there, it would basically mean— get this now— to panic. And we've all been there. We've all had those moments where we're like, oh no, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? And they panicked when they saw the Egyptians overtaking them, and they cried out to the Lord, which is a good spot to be in to cry out to the Lord. They were crying out in a panicky way, and Moses Right after that, he says in verse 13 and 14, but Moses told the people, don't be afraid, just stand still. Notice this now— just stand still. Don't do something, just stand still and watch the Lord rescue you today. The Egyptians you see today will never be seen again. The Lord himself will fight for you. Right there. Remember earlier I said that that word raphah means to cease fighting on your own? And now here Moses says the Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm, he says. Just stay calm. Now, if you read the next verse, you'll actually read that the Lord was actually saying to do something. And to do something was start walking. Start walking ahead. Lead the people through the opening that I'm going to make in the Red Sea. So there is a time to be calm. There's a time to stand still. There's a time for complete stillness and waiting upon the Lord. But there is a time to move. But we wait for the Lord's direction on that. That's the key. We don't move first. We move after we've heard the Lord say, now it's time to move forward. I'm going to open a way that you never would have imagined. This is your Red Sea moment. Are some of you at a Red Sea moment right now? Are you at a spot where there is no way. You fill in the blank. None of this is going to get done. Your finances are being hit hard. There are other stresses, maybe a family member that's going through an illness, maybe somebody you're taking care of, Maybe it's just your own, uh, mental health. You, you've, you've just been struggling lately. You're facing a Red Sea moment you see no way out of. This is the moment where, where God can act. This is a moment where you're in a humble state. Your arms have dropped down. You've got no other answers. May I submit that that is a great place to be? It's not a weak position of, oh, the enemy's going to beat me. It's a position of strength because you're now ready for the Lord to fight on your behalf. And I want to say that we do have an enemy that taunts. We do have an enemy that likes to try pushing us around and bullying us. You know, some of you may remember the basketball player Kobe Bryant who passed away in— well, it was actually this month, 6 years ago, in a helicopter crash or plane crash of some kind in California. And I remember one of the most viral videos of Kobe Bryant was when he was, uh, he was, he was on the ball. There was a guy out of bounds that was ready to inbound the ball, and Kobe Bryant was right there up on him. And this guy that had the ball faked like he was going to throw the ball in Kobe's face. And why the video went so viral is Kobe just stood there without even blinking. Now I want you to try that sometime. Imagine somebody just comes up right up to you and acts like they're going to hit you or throw something at you, and you just stand there calmly. You want to talk about cold. You know, Kobe Bryant just stands there and says, I ain't afraid of you. We've got a guy at our gym, he's a trainer. He actually wears this shirt, uh, most of the time. I, I see him down there, he's, he's a trainer, and he— and the shirt just says, I ain't scared, I ain't scared, and you could fill in the blank. And this guy just has a swagger about him, like, you know, you could come up to him and he'd just stand there calmly and listen to you and He's not going to do anything. And it just reminds me that this is the posture we're to take in the Lord. I ain't scared. My father's big. My father has everything in his hand. My father can beat your father. You know, it's kind of like growing up, you know, my dad can beat your dad up. And this is the truth though with us. It's not just, well, it's hypothetical whether my dad can beat your dad. We have the, the Father of the universe here on our side, backing us, ready to open up a Red Sea moment. And I want to encourage all of you to stand in that posture, that posture of stillness, of saying, I've tried everything on my own, now it's time to wait and wait patiently. And so we have that instance, and then there's another instance in the New Testament. Acts 1:4 says this: On one occasion, while he was eating with them— this is Jesus and his disciples— he gave them this command: Do not leave Jerusalem. Here's two words: but wait. For the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. But wait, well, what was that referring to originally? It refers to Luke 24:49, where Jesus said, I am going to send you what my Father has promised. But stay— in that instance, he says this— but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high. Well, what do you mean stay, Lord? We got enemies here in this city, the very city that crucified you. What do you mean stay? We need to flee. We need to get out of Dodge here. He says stay. Stay right here in the midst of the turmoil. Stay right here with threats on every side. You'll stay here. You'll wait and you'll wait patiently. And the gift that my Father has for you will be given to you. It's power. This is what we need for our writing. This is what we need for those God ideas. This is what we need. We've tried everything else except waiting, except being still. We're frantic, we're panicking, and God says, wait, wait. Have you ever, uh, have you ever run out the door frantically forgetting something very key. It could be forgetting your car keys, getting all the way out to your car, and you realize, oh my goodness, my car keys are still in my little, little bowl, you know, right, right on the way out the door. You got to run back up there and get them. Uh, maybe you've forgotten your wallet, your purse, whatever it might be. You frantically run out but you got to go back and get it. Maybe you've told— maybe you've seen this in your son or your daughter when they were, when they were young. They run out the door and they forget their school lunch, forget their lunch money, they forget their backpack that has all their homework that they work so hard the night before to complete, and they're going to head out the door without all that. Well, I think this is what Jesus is saying here. Don't run out. No, don't, don't think you're going to just run out and do all this stuff and win people for Christ and do all this. Wait. Why? Because you're going to be leaving out the door without the most important thing you could have, which is the power of the Holy Spirit. Wait. Be still. Sit there. Do nothing. Yes, the Lord's telling us do nothing. How many know that sometimes doing nothing is actually the biggest something you can do? That stillness of letting things calm down. When I was growing up, I used to swim in a local pool and loved, you know, hanging out there with my friends on a summer day. But every so often you'd hear the whistle go off and everyone had to get out of the pool. Because the lifeguard had a, had a bathroom break or had to take a break themselves, and they can't just leave you in there while they go take a break. And so you got out 10 minutes, 5 minutes, whatever it was, and in that time, the water that had been so chaotic in the pool began to turn like glass. And I remember my friends and I just thought it was kind of cool to see, you know, after the whistle went off again, who could break up that glassy water first, who could jump into the pool first. There was just something about that. But it took time. It just took a few minutes to let that water just get still and glassy. And that's what we're referring to here, that stillness. And let me close with this, Ephesians 6:14. Says stand your ground. Paul says stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God's righteousness. Do you know that that phrase, stand your ground, is the Greek word histemi, which means to stop, stand still, stand immovable, stand firm, also like the foundation of a building. I would submit— and this is CJ's translation here, his commentary notes— I would say also like Kobe Bryant as he's guarding the ball and the guy tries to get him to flinch by acting like he's going to throw the ball at his head. And Kobe Bryant just says, is that all you got? I'm, I'm still here. I didn't even blink. What if we had that same attitude toward our great enemy? We said, you know what, my God's bigger than you. I'm going to stand here. I'm still going to be still. I'm going to wait. I'm not going to buy into your, your, uh, invitation to be frantic and panic. I'm just gonna sit here and be still. And on top of it all, I'm not gonna blink. Like, we're not talking about a dog running that, that thinks he's going to be beaten. We've seen those dogs before. You just flinch and they go running off in the other direction. It's a sad state. What we're talking about is not even blinking. When the enemy tries to taunt you and bully you and get you to panic, you just stand there and say, keep bringing it. My Father's right back here and he's coming. He's coming. That's the attitude we want to have. My Father's big. He can handle this. He's the God of the Red Sea moment. I'm here to wait patiently. Why? Because my Father told me to. He said, be still. He said, wait patiently. And I'm going to sit here and do so, and then watch what he does afterwards. And I want to encourage all of you to take that time, even this morning. If you have to have 10 minutes as he— as we get started in this virtual writing retreat, where you say, my 10 minutes to start here Even out of the 50 minutes of writing, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just be still for 10 minutes. Maybe some of you don't need that this morning. You've been still this whole morning. But some of you are just in that spot where you're like, I need to, I need to start my time with, with a concerted 10 minutes of stillness, letting those waters calm to the glass, glassy nature. So that's my challenge to all of us, is to use stillness as your primary weapon against an enemy that would love to cause you to scurry and strive in your own strength. Some of us have that muscle memory. It's time to have a new muscle memory, a new wiring now that's loaded into your brain, but it takes practice. It takes practice just to say, we start today with stillness.

Yeah, it's so good. And most of you that know me well know that I'm an action taker, so it's hard for me sometimes to be still. And God was speaking to me on this separately from anything that CJ and I talked about, but that sometimes when I'm in a season of waiting or waiting on the Lord or trusting him I want to, I want to do something. I want to take action. It feels better to me to do something than just to be still. And so the Lord was just reminding me, Shelley, like, it doesn't mean you have to be still forever. Like, come to me first. And when I come into my prayer closet, we convert— I, I convert— I converted a closet into a little prayer nook because I'm highly sensitive empath and I get distracted easily. So I close the door, go in there. I mean, inspiration comes, the answers come, the peace comes, and then a lot of times he'll show me what to do, like he did with Moses, right? He said, be still, but then he said, all right, move forward. So I want to say to you all too that like there's people on both sides. Some of you are just stuck and you've been stuck for a long time and and you need to get moving. Some of you are like me, and you're just like, I just like to do things because it makes me feel better. And you need to calm yourself down and, and listen to the Lord first. But both, both we need to listen to the Lord first and ask him, like, what is our next tiny step? What is it that you're going to have me to do? But to turn off the distractions and to have time to really hear his voice is critical. And I'm realizing that even for myself and, um, we got hacked this last weekend and they spent $1,100, over $1,100. And my initial reaction was like panic. Then I went into my prayer closet and the Lord was like, Shelly, I've got you. You know, and I did all the right things. I, you know, I got a new credit card, I submitted to my bank, I changed all the passwords, you know, I did all the right things, but I was still feeling that violated, you know, like that fear of like, I've been violated. And I went into the prayer closet and all of a sudden the Lord's like, Shelley, I've got you. Like, this is actually, you know, could be a sign that you're doing the right things, right? And so I just started praying and just being— getting filled up. And all of a sudden I'm like, you know what, enemy, you don't— you can't scare me anymore. You know, the enemy's tried to get me in scarcity and fear for so many years, um, and it's just like, no, No, no more. And I came out of that prayer closet like, whoa, yeah, you know, the enemy can try to knock us down, but he can't keep us down, right? And the Lord has the final say. And so I just want to encourage all of you today, like, stand your ground. That doesn't mean sit on the ground. Some of you are sitting on the ground right now. Stand, stand your ground, as Ephesians says, and take your authority in Jesus' name. Ephesians 6 says, be strong in who? In the Lord and in his mighty power. Sometimes that's stillness. Sometimes that's completely just, you know, coming into the Lord. Mary before an anointed Martha. And so, um, you know, but then it says, um, after you've done everything, to stand, stand firm. Then it doesn't say sit on the bench firm. Then it doesn't say sit on the ground firm then. And the picture I got when CJ was speaking was some of you are sitting on the ground and you think you're in stillness. Some of you are sitting on the bench and you think that that's stillness. That's not stillness. That's being completely out. We need to be standing, standing our ground. So, um, CJ, why don't you pray over us with this, um, theme?

Yeah. Oh Father, we We thank you that you are big enough for everything that we face, that if we'll just be still, we'll stand our ground, if we'll wait patiently, something good's on the way. A power that we couldn't generate on our own is on the way. I pray, Lord, that each person here would be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit for their writing, their preparing, their organizing, their marketing, whatever process they're working on today and tomorrow. I pray, Lord, that they would operate out of a posture of stillness, of waiting patiently for what you have for them. And I do pray, Lord, that you'd open up our minds, open up our ears to be able to see things, hear things that we haven't been able to, maybe because things have just been too chaotic, stirred up in our lives. So we thank you, Lord. I know you have something powerful for each person here. And they have not come here by accident, that you led them here. We believe every Kingdom Writer that you lead to Christian Book Academy is someone that you have led to this community for support, encouragement, accountability, uh, gaining tools that they, they needed in order to move forward. And we thank you for each one. You've got a different story for each one. And yet, what a privilege, what a privilege to be called a Kingdom Writer, writing, writing for your glory and your honor. And we just pray blessing upon each person here today. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen. And as I was just praying through, um, being hacked and all of the things, and maybe it was trying to— the enemy is trying to distract me from all that's going on this week, you know, with the open house, and we're starting the Inner Circle Sprint, um, next week. So all the things going on, right? But who knows? But the Lord reminded me of something my dad says. Um, some of you know my dad. He has permanent brain damage from an assault And, um, but he wrote a book called Bounce Back and he talks about how, um, every setback or a setback, um, can be a setup for a comeback, right? And so I just think some of you are in that setback phase right now. Um, if that's you type setback in the chat box, and if that's you, I want you to pray through this today that the setback can actually be used by the Lord as a setup for a comeback. You know, we think about Joseph, and he said the enemy intended this for evil, but God used it for good. Amen. And so I'm just praying that for the situation that happened for us. I'm also pleading the blood of Jesus over all of our accounts, over all of our things. And so some of you need to plead the blood of Jesus over your writing right now, over your books right now. One of our pastors just preached on this last weekend, and it was just reminding me that's a weapon we have is the blood of Jesus. And so Some of you need to do that right now and plead the blood of Jesus over your manuscript. 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. Thousands of writers have taken this over the years, and it is incredible the progress that you'll see. So join us at 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 at 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 you can finish your book. Join Christian Book Academy at christianbookacademy.com and get 50% off your first month by using the coupon code PODCAST at checkout. This is a special coupon code for our podcast listeners. We love you. So come on over to christianbookacademy.com, use the coupon code PODCAST, and we look forward to working closely with you.

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