Closing a Chapter, Starting a New One

I think I’ll go home now. — Forrest Gump
We are not called to success but to faithfulness. — Oswald Chambers

Writing Christian books is sort of unorthodox type of calling. It’s a ministry; and much like being a pastor or missionary, it is an opportunity to communicate God’s truth to people, challenging and encouraging them in their walk with Christ (or helping them to begin that walk in the first place). However, unlike a pastor or missionary, financial support for this vocation is not tied to a church, missions organization, or supporters, but is based purely on the marketplace.

I took this step of faith into the uncertain world of Christian authoring just over 5 years ago. And I share in my book The Expeditionary Man all of the professional and family-related factors that led me to taking this “crazy” step of faith.

When times were tight financially a couple years ago, my utmost prayer was simply asking that we could buy enough time to continue writing until The Expeditionary Man was released. From its initial vision, that was always THE BOOK to me—the one with an original vision/message that I believed did have a chance of impact the world. So, we persevered and continued to invest our resources into this opportunity—working towards the goal of getting that particular book out there. In many ways, all of the uncertainty made it the hardest 5 years of our marriage—butit also made it the best!

However, while I continue to have a passion for authoring and do have a vision for many more books, we believe that God is closing this chapter of my life as a full-time author. I will definitely continue to pursue writing additional faith-oriented titles in the future. But, by necessity, it will be on-the-side rather than as part of my vocation. There are two main factors. First, unless one writes a best seller, the stark reality is that it is very, very difficult to make a living as an author. You’ll notice that for every Philip Yancey, there are 10 pastors or ministry leaders who author books over and above their day-to-day profession. Second, even as I first began writing in 2003, I always saw myself as a “guerrilla author” of sorts—establish myself in the field, publish all of the books that God laid on my heart, and then get out and do the next thing God opens up. The release of The Expeditionary Man seemed an appropriate conclusion to my “tour of duty”. And, in many ways, whythebike tour this summer proved to be an appropriate “swan’s song”.

I will be going back into the world of high tech once again, specifically taking on a role in web site/software design and development. I’ll have a chance to live out all of the core principles of manhood that I talk about in The Expeditionary Man in this new environment. Who knows? Perhaps there’s a follow-up book there called The Expeditionary Man @ Work or something like that.

In the end, I am so very grateful for the past 5 years and don’t regret a moment of it. And I hold steadfast to the belief that God is ultimately the one in full control over these types of things. The only thing we can do is to live by faith, work as hard as we can to succeed, but have a peace that God’s the one in charge of success or failure of what we do.

Finally, a blog-related note. Yes, I will continue to maintain this blog. In fact, I actually will probably have more time to be active on it once again since I am not writing all day!