16 – Lessons from St. Patrick: Driving Out Your Snakes

St. Patrick’s Day is about so much more than just green and leprechauns and clover. There is a wealth of wonder contained in St. Patrick’s history—wonder focused on God’s redemption and power. Come explore the history and the legend of St. Patrick, and discover truth that will bless you in the deep and beyond.

Show Notes

There’s a lot of myth surrounding St. Patrick, and some traditions that aren’t, well, saint-ish. But we discovered some powerful truths in the history.

What can we learn from Patrick’s story?

He was kidnapped when he was 16 years old and taken to Ireland as a slave. There he served for six years as a shepherd. In this deep place, in the middle of all the pagan practices in that country, Patrick became a Christian.

* Got is not bound by walls, or by culture. He speaks to us anytime anywhere.

Patrick wrote that he took to praying at least 100 times today. Over the course of time he felt God speaking to him, telling him flee to the coast, that there would be a ship waiting for him to take him home.

* God directed Patrick in the deep.

Patrick obeyed and walked 200 miles to the coast, knowing that if he would have been captured he probably would’ve been killed. This was a blind obedience. How could he be sure there really would be a ship?

But there was a ship. He was able to make his way home, and he began studying to become a priest. For years he continues his devotion to God, and then he begins having prophetic dreams where he hears the people of Ireland calling him to come back. To come and preach Christ to them.

Patrick again obeyed. He went back to Ireland, BACK to his deep place.

* God had created a tenderness in Patrick, in the deep place, for the very thing that Patrick hated—for the people who enslaved him, the things that tore him away from his home. He hears their cry and follows.

Patrick found his message in his deep place. He could never have seen that coming while he was in the midst of his slavery. But God had prepared it, planned it, long before.

* God put Patrick in the deep place in order to refine him, to give him his message.

In his deep place, Patrick did the exact opposite of what we all want to do in our deep place. Instead of despairing, or wallowing in anger or bitterness, he turned to God. By doing that, he found the purpose God had planned for him.

 

The Snakes – the World’s Ideologies that have slithered into our mindset, our way of thinking

 

1. Belittling, Criticizing, Insulting

The political climate today is a perfect example. The main system they use is not communication or discussion. It’s mocking and belittling each other. They insult and lie about each other. As Christians, we need to be aware of this snake, abhorring it, not supporting it.

“With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.”  James 3:9-11

 

2. Courting the World’s Favor

An article entitled “The Church Versus the World,” adapted from John MacArthur’s book Why One Way says this: “Why do evangelicals try so desperately to court the world’s favor? Churches plan their worship services to cater to the ‘unchurched.’ Christian performers ape every worldly fad in music and entertainment.

15 – The Hazards of Love, part 2

There’s nothing like love—nothing so wonderful, and nothing so potentially hurtful. What do you do when the reality of love isn’t even close to the dream of it? Join us for today’s podcast—a follow-up on last week’s podcast—as we explore the cause, struggle, and solutions for the third, and most difficult, hazard of love.

Show Notes

Hazards of love, Unhealed Wounds

We long for love, we search for love, we anticipate the presence of love in our lives in a romantic relationship. And then often times, when it happens, it may be great at the beginning or it may not be great at the beginning. It may be that the reality of love is just so much more difficult than what we had hoped it would be.

So what do you do when the one that you love, the one to whom you’ve given your heart, the one that you trust with all of who you are, has hurt you or betrayed you?

In Webster, it defines betray as to hurt someone. That someone who trusts you such as a friend or a relative hurts you by not giving help or by doing something morally wrong. For us, betrayal is when somebody takes that trust that we’ve put in them, our hearts, and they do something so opposite of what real love is that we can only look at them and wonder how we ever loved them to begin with. So when betrayal comes into play in our romantic relationships, when betrayal becomes a part of love and living the love relationship, it can be extremely difficult to recover from that. To be able to move back into that same relationship–the one that caused you hurt–and feel as though anything can heal it, anything can bring you back to a place of trust.

 

How do you heal from betrayal or how do you even start?

Obviously in a 15-20 minute podcast, there’s no way we’re going to unearth the way to heal from these things, but there are a few tips that we can give you if you’ve been hurt, if you have the sense that you’ve been betrayed, or if it’s very clear that the person who loves you, and that you love, has betrayed you. There are some things that you can do to prepare your heart and mind to move into healing and forgiveness and restoration.

 

One of those things is realize that restoration takes time.

Healing takes time. It’s a process. It’s not a one and done. It’s not like you can sit there and say, okay, I forgive you and then everything’s good and then you move on. Even if in your heart you purpose to forgive, even if you make the conscious decision to forgive and to move forward, that hurt is buried deep in your heart. Often times, it’ll just pop up when you least expect it. And when that happens, when it pops up, it can seem as devastating as the first moment you were hit with that betrayal. It’s so easy to want to punish back.

 

This leads us to another step in how to heal from it: Resisting the urge to punish.

Its tempting to make the other person suffer because you suffered, or to do little things to let him know he screwed up. But that only drags out the process of us moving on.

Another aspect of punishing is that you withhold. You withhold your trust, you withhold relationship. You withhold even the small actions of forgiveness or relationship. You withhold yourself from being a part of their life again. We’re not trying to say there aren’t consequences when someone betrays us, because there are. There is a difference though between the kind of natural consequence and us deliberately making them pay as retribution and deliberately withholding. Sometimes maybe we can’t help it, and that part is what takes time. But we can’t make that deliberate choice to with...

14 – The Hazards of Love, part 1

Love. We long for it. Anticipate finding it and how it will make us and our lives better. And it often does exactly that. But for many, the reality of love isn’t remotely related to the dream of it. How can something so seemingly good become a negative in our lives? In this series of two podcasts, we explore three of the most common hazards of love–what they are, why they happen, and how God can heal them.

Show Notes:

Love can be a safe place, but for so many of us, it’s got land mines everywhere. As we talked about this issue, we realized that women in particular look to love and its celebration to give us a sense of wonder and being cherished. We want the warm fuzzy we get at the end of a romantic comedy. Those of us who have written romances, we write them because they are so much fun, because the heroes are all heroes. We love it that love is just wonderful.

But real love, the love that we know as humans, is hardly ever like that. It’s just not warm and fuzzy all the time, and there are some relationships where it’s very seldom warm and fuzzy. In fact, love can end up being more hard work, and sometimes it’s downright messy.

There are three particular hazards of love that we’ve identified. There are a lot more, of course, but these are the three we’re focusing on for the next two podcasts. Yes, my friends, love is a two-podcast topic!

 

Hazard of Love #1 – Unrealized Dreams

When you haven’t found love, it’s an unrealized dream. You’re waiting and waiting, and you’re ready to jump into the wonder and the adventure, but your perfect mate is not showing up! Or maybe you’ve had one potential prince after another turn out to be a big fat frog. With warts. Lots of big bumpy warts.

We are joking here, but we do know, this is an issue that a lot of people struggle with. It’s one that makes us wonder what is God doing? Or maybe more appropriately, why isn’t He doing what we long for Him to do?

In many ways, as women, this is what we long for, to be cherished. And God put that in us, so why isn’t He fixing it? I wish we had some profound answer to offer those folks who are single and who want to be in a relationship, and those who feel they’re ready to love, and receive love, but it’s just not happening. I know you’ve all heard the nice and tidy responses we could give you, but these are platitudes.

Here’s the truth. There is no easy answer for being in the waiting room of God’s will. Regardless of what you are waiting for, whether it’s a relationship, whether it’s a contract, whether it’s anything like that, your focus should be on God. And your focus should be on what He has for you in the midst of the waiting. And in the midst of the here and now, focusing on what He’s doing in you right now.

 

That’s one kind of unrealized dream, but there are a lot of others that have to do with love. What about the dream proposal, or the dream wedding? When it really happens, no matter how much you plan for something, things are going to go wrong. And if we are fixed on what our dream is, we feel like they’re slipping away, like we are losing those dreams, one little piece at a time.

There’s another dream too. What about the dream of the love life and the marriage that has 2.5 children, and you stay married until you are hitting your 60th anniversary? These are all dreams that may or may not come true.

 

So what’s the fix for unrealized dreams?

We’ve been talking about this and praying about it, and one of the answers we discovered is that you need to have a paradigm s...

13 – Creating with God

How do you create in the deep places? When it feels as though your creativity is just…gone? In this engaging interview with Allen Arnold, one-time senior VP at Thomas Nelson and creativity expert, we explore that very question. And the answers just may surprise you!

Show Notes

How do you create with God without losing your mind?

It starts in the creative process, the step that most Christian writers skip. It is the whole interaction with God. When that step is skipped, it then becomes all about what we can do in our own strength, in our own creativity, by ourselves. That sets us up for being over whelmed, burned out, empty, and puts our validation in the wrong place. When we miss that foundational step, it really sets us up to lose our sanity and peace because we are trying to do something alone that we were never meant to do alone.

God doesn’t want us primarily to do things for Him, and He doesn’t primarily want us doing things about Him. What He most wants is us to do things with Him. And when we miss the with, we really start to lose the whole reason He gave us the gift to begin with.

Just like Moses said in the desert, “God, I don’t want to do this trip without you. If You are not going to be there, let’s call the whole thing off right now. I’m either with You or not at all.” As writers, that’s the posture our heart needs to have.

Scars:

The deep places are the places that God has taken you in your life that is unique to you, that is unique to your story.  If you know your story, and learn the scars of your own story, that is the DNA of really whats there for you, and you alone, to pursue as a creative force.

Wisdom from John Eldridge: “Our enemy, the devil, will often attack us in our area of the greatest strength because he knows what we could become and he fears it.”

Our lives tell stories just like stories that an author would create. That’s why I love to invite listeners to examine their life, know the themes, know the scars and then talk with God, and listen to Him. Ask how is this converging together for my unique voice and my unique ability to tell a story. Not only will it bring healing to their personal story, but they will have breakthroughs to the story they are writing.

An Orphan Spirit

Everyone starts with an orphan spirit. Meaning we all, in a fallen world, somehow, deep down, have this belief that it’s all up to us, and that comes out in different ways. With an orphan spirit, either failure or success can breed a deeper orphan spirit. The only way to break that spirit is through understanding our identity as a son or daughter of God. A lot of believers believe God is great and powerful and almighty, but they’ve yet to discover what it’s like to have God as a Father and then as a son or daughter. When you are an orphan, you will always write alone, and when you are a son or daughter of God, you will never write alone.

Last Bit of Counsel:

Consecrate their writing and their creativity everyday with God. By consecrate, I mean everyday afresh give to God their gift, their writing, their storytelling ability. Give it as an offering.

Allen’s new book about the creative process with God is now available!

The Story of With: A Better way to Live, Love, and Create by Allen Arnold

 

We’d love to hear from you!

Has the enemy targeted your greatest strength? How did you defend against it?

Do you have an orphan spirit, or do you see yourself as a son or daughter?

What do you think about the idea of creating with God?

12 – Recovering from Failure

The New Year is a time for reflection and review, but too often we find ourselves falling into a trap of feeling like a failure. How can we set new goals when we haven’t achieved our old ones? In this episode, we give you simple steps to avoid the snare of failure and move forward with confidence.

Show Notes

How often do we look on New Year’s Day as a time to set goals? To determine what we will and won’t do this time around? And how often do we find ourselves taking stock…looking back at the year that just ended, at the goals we made a year ago, and focusing on…

Our failures.

At some point in our lives we’re all going to fail at something, so we need to understand how to handle that with grace and move forward.

Too many of us allow failure, especially if there’s repeated failure, to chip away at our spirit and undermine what God really wants to accomplish in us. We focus on the failure and end up entrenched in garbage.

Steps to moving forward:

Realize God is rooting for us.

He’s thrown away the garbage and He doesn’t want us to keep digging it out.

“As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:12

Ask ourselves:

* What should I learn from this?

* What changes should I make as a result?

Get the right perspective to move forward.

* Living in our failures can be comfortable.

It’s easier to maintain the picture we already have of ourselves then to re-create our image. We need to realize that it will take effort to move passed a failure that may be defining us and be willing to do that work.

2. Sometimes we believe God forgives us, but we can’t forgive ourselves.

Who are we to not forgive where God has granted grace and forgiveness already? When we do that, we’re saying our verdict counts more than God’s, and we’re perverting God’s justice.

“Always think carefully before pronouncing judgment…..Fear the LORD and judge with integrity, for the LORD our God does not tolerate perverted justice.” 2 Chronicles 19:6-7

3. Sometimes we have lingering consequences from our failures, and that makes it hard for us to forget them and move past them.

All we can do is deal with these consequences with a sense of grace and peace. God’s grace is there to sustain us through them. His power is made perfect in our weaknesses.

Moses is a great example of coping with lingering consequences. After all his faithfulness and all the things that he put up with in dealing with the Israelites and leading them out of Egypt and through the wilderness, he had one failure when he did not honor God as holy and follow His directions accurately. Because of that, Moses was not allowed to enter the Promised Land. If anyone had a right to be upset by consequences, it was Moses. And yet his life wasn’t defined by that. Instead, Moses is listed in Hebrews as one of the great examples of faith. Moses moved forward from the failure. His life wasn’t consumed by the consequences.

“…But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13-14

Final Thoughts:

In this new year, as you look back at the year that’s just ended, it’s okay to consider what you wanted to accomplish, what you did accomplish, even what you didn’t accomplish. But as you do so, fix your focus not on the garbage on the counter. Instead, look with God’s eyes. Look at what the successes and failures have taught you. What they’ve developed inside of you. If the overall message is one of discouragement, surrender that to God.

11 – Emotional Battlegrounds

Emotions are an amazing gift from God, but they can also take us on a wild ride when we least expect—or want—it. Come listen in while we identify three key emotional battlegrounds—and the practical ways you can not just endure but win the fight.

Show Notes

At no other time of the year do we experience such highs and lows. So how do we avoid those holiday blues? How do we maintain an even keel in the face of emotional ups and downs? In this episode, we’ll learn how to build a foundation of truth to rest on when we’re weary and down and prone to believe the enemy’s lies.

Three battlegrounds that Especially come to life during this time of year:

1. A sense of disappointment in who and what you are.

This battleground is brutal. And it’s often so deep-seated we don’t even realize that’s what we’re struggling with. We think it’s all these external things going on, when in reality it has to do with what’s going on inside of us.

Our tools to overcome this:

* God knows us deeply and intimately.

Psalm 139:1-5; 13-16  “O Lord, You have searched me and You know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue You know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in behind and before, You have laid Your hand upon me…For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.”

* God loves us.

Ephesians 3:18-19  “And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”

* We have value.

Romans 5:6  “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.”

2. A sense that nothing has changed or improved with your writing.

Our tools to overcome this:

* Nothing that is happening to you is a surprise to God. He is sovereign, and He’s got you where He wants you.

Psalm 139:16 “…all the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.”

* Patience keeps our focus on God, rather than everything else. We rest in God. We trust in God. We focus on the task at hand.

Habakkuk 2:3 TLB “But these things I plan won’t happen right away. Slowly, steadily, surely, the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled. If it seems slow, do not despair, for these things will surely come to pass. Just be patient! They will not be overdue a single day!”

3) A sense of not being able to deal with another year of the struggle.

Our tools to overcome this:

* God knows our needs on this battleground and supplies us with the strength we need. We don’t rely on our own strength, but on His.

Ephesians 6:10  “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.”

* We need God’s strength to trust and persevere. The enemy knows that by wearing us down he can take us out of the fight. But God knows that persevering builds us up.

James 1:3-4  “Your faith will be tested.

10 – Christmas in the Deep

What does the manger scene mean to you? Is it just a pretty picture on a Christmas card? Or do you see it as a wondrous place of rest for those who’ve endured the journey? There’s a danger for writers in thinking that the pretty scene is the destination. Instead, we need to remember what lead up to the beauty, and what comes after it. Because what we learn in the deep places prepares us to truly savor the times of rest and wonder.

Show Notes

Christmas—a time when we should be celebrating Christ’s birth—can be such a busy, stressful, even depressing time of year. Today we want to stop, take a breath, and talk about one of the most amazing, beautiful scenes in history…and how it can prepare us for the deep.

Key Quotes:

“When we focus only on the pretty scene, we sometimes forget that the holy stuff means there will be darkness and deepness…The destination is the deep places. Because it’s in those places that we find the truth of God’s provision…”

“There are moments of beauty, moments when you know you’ve done everything according to His call, and peace abounds in our journey as a writer…And then there are road to Gethsemane moments. And betrayal moments. And nails in the hands and feet, and mockery, and being spit on moments. And dying moments. And glorious, new-life, risen Christ moments.”

“And all of these, the deep places, the glorious places, the wondrous places, stem out of obedience and faithfulness…When we do what’s right, yes, it leads ultimately into the place of God being able to tell us well done, good and faithful servant…but there’s so much in between that takes us into dark, hard places that test us.”

“The pretty places, the manger scenes, the stars and the angels are gifts to us on the journey. Gifts to remind us that He is there. He is at work. He is showering down His peace and strength and His truth to us, and He’s planting those seeds in us that will germinate in the dark and bloom in eternity.”

Verses:

“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:2

“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10

“Yea, though He slay me, still will I hope in Him…” Job 13:15

We’d Like to Hear from You!

What kind of scene are you in right now?

Got a topic you want us to talk about? Let us know!

Tweetable:

Where do you find the truth of God’s provision? (Click to tweet)

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09 – The Lifeline in the Deep

Literary Agent Steve Laube talks frankly with Karen Ball and Erin Taylor Young about a writer’s most valuable resource in the deep: God’s Word. It’s as alive, powerful, and applicable in today’s world as it was when first written. But for many believers, the words and truths in Scripture have become…routine. Join us as Steve’s insights from his years-long study of Scripture refresh us and help us discover the wonder, the healing, and the counsel that await when we meet God in the deep.

Show Notes

We’ve been exploring the deep places of struggles, and today we have Steve Laube, one of the most respected literary agents in the Christian publishing industry, here with us to talk about the deep place of being immersed in God.

Most writers know about Steve’s terrific work in publishing, first as an editor with Bethany House Publishers and then as the founder of the prestigious Steve Laube Agency. But what many people don’t know about Steve is that he’s been leading a chronological Bible study at his church for 9 years now. Every week they’re digging in, going deep with God, and discovering things they’ve never seen.

Wisdom from the Bible study

“As the years began going by, and as we were working through the harmony of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, and inserting the prophets into their appropriate places, we actually started seeing a bigger picture of how God moved in His people.”

“There was this constant dynamic that I think is missed by most of us…[we could] see the hand of God in history.”

“Despite humanities efforts to derail God’s plans, Gods hands are still there in everything we do. His purposes are accomplished.”

The Demoniac

“The demoniac became the first missionary to the Gentiles…Jesus had never been [to the region of the Gerasenes] before. He was there for less than 24 hours. And He was there for one reason, and that was to heal one man. One man…And I look at that and I say, writers, if you think God has abandoned you, if you think you’re a demoniac and that everything is terrible and horrible and all that…God has you in his sights…”

On Success

“I keep going back to that if you’re faithful in the calling to write, to work within the confines that you were granted, then you define success differently.”

“It’s frustrating when [people] define success monetarily…Those of us who are truly grounded in the word of God, and truly understand what God’s purpose is, our success cannot be defined monetarily.”

“Writing is not a profession for those who wish to be wealthy. It just doesn’t work that way. That’s not the point.”

Our Lifeline

“If any writer who is in a deep place is not searching the scripture, they’re not going to find their lifeline. They will be lost at sea…”

Final Words of Wisdom

“Look in Lamentations 3, where you have the phrase, ‘Great is Thy faithfulness.’ Realize the context in which that was written—while Jerusalem was burning. And Jeremiah says, ‘Great is Thy faithfulness.’ As writers who are in deep places, and dark places, and struggling, and it feels like everything is coming apart…If you can stand with Jeremiah, and look at your dreams on fire, and you can say, ‘Great is Your faithfulness,’ you can survive anything.”

Verses

“But as for me, I will watch expectantly for the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me.” Micah 7:7

“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” Psalm 27:14

We’d Love to Hear from you!

Have you ever watched your dreams go up in flames?

How did you cope?

Got a topic you’d like us to cover? Let us know!

Tweetable:

08 – Why Rejection is Good

Angela Hunt is well known for being a prolific, gifted, and best-selling writer. So what helped her accomplish all that? Recognizing that rejection isn’t something to fight or be ashamed of—it’s actually one of a writer’s best tools! Come join us as Angela shares how rejection has taught her valuable lessons in this adventure we call writing.

Show Notes

With over 130 books written, both fiction and nonfiction for children and adults, and 4 million copies of her books sold, Angela Hunt knows a thing or two about writing. And the deep.

Quote Pick:

“Rejection is our greatest teacher. It’s our greatest coach. It keeps us moving forward.”

What the deep means to Angela:

“When I’m writing about the things I can’t even talk about without crying. A lot of times it’s something very personal…even though I can’t talk about it, I can write about it… sometimes with tears streaming down my cheeks…”

Wisdom from Angela:

There is power in our vulnerability…in admitting that there are no easy answers.

One of my favorite movies is Tootsie…in it the actor says, “I just have to feel this way until I don’t feel this way anymore.”

I’ve quoted that a thousand times. Because when we’re grieving or angry, or whatever your emotional condition is, you can’t just say a prayer or wave it away. You have to somehow work it through your psyche.

God understands…Jesus went away for times to pray. There are times when we have to nurse our spirits and our hearts.

Book Links:

The Novelist by Angela Hunt

A Test of Faith by Karen Ball

Talk to us:

Have you been rejected?

How did you cope?

We’d love to hear how we can pray for you!

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07 How to Find Your Catalyst in the Deep, Part 3: How to Use Your Catalyst

Why do we write the things we do? And why, if we’re serving God, do we find ourselves in deep places of struggle? In this podcast, the 3rd and final in our discussion of catalyst, we’ll build on the foundation of the last two podcasts about what a catalyst is, why it’s important, and how to find it. So join us and discover how to use your catalyst to benefit you—and your readers.

Show Notes

Use your book catalyst to:

* Help you identify the distinctives of your book so you can focus your pitch.

* Help you identify your primary, secondary, and possibly even a tertiary audience.

Then:

* Use that information to focus your marketing efforts. Think of ways outside the box to reach your audience.

* Put these ideas in your proposal, and also use them to as you plan your own marketing strategy.

Remember, knowing your core catalyst and book catalyst will help you understand and relate to the needs of your audience. Marketing isn’t about selling something. It’s about sharing truth that helped you.

Marketing Idea Example:  Surviving Henry YouTube channel

Tell us what you think!

Do you have a question about this podcast? Or possibly a different topic? We want to hear from you!