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—but
Engineering Unity: A Family Covenant
Successful Everest expeditions have a leader working behind the scenes to build unity amongst team members. Given the headstrong personalities often attracted to mountain climbing, this is no easy task.
But through weeks of constant effort, he establishes an environment of trust and cohesion for the team. He teaches them to belay, or attach a fixed rope to another climber to protect each other against a fall. By the time the team approaches the extreme altitudes of Everest, they must be able to work together, depend on each other, and trust one another with their lives—knowing that there’s another person on the end of the 150-foot rope who is willing to risk life and limb for them. In Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer puts it like this, “Roping up in this fashion is a serious and very intimate act.” Climber Jochen Hemmleb adds, “When you know you have to rely on another person for your own safety, and he upon you, you learn a level of trust that simply doesn’t exist very often in the normal world.”