Say Yes

In church today, our Missions Pastor and his wife, Matthew and Lisa Watson, stood on stage and told our church, Living Hope that they were going to be leaving Memphis and moving to DC to plant churches. They are being faithful to a calling to advance the gospel in a place that clearly needs it. It has been laid on their hearts by God, and as much as they love our church and Memphis, they will be obedient. Matthew told us when they first married they made a promise to always say yes to Jesus.

It made me look at my own life and ask myself a question. Do I always say yes to Jesus? The answer for me is clearly no. For years now I have felt God was leading me down a path to write children’s books. Two books have already been written in a series aimed at bringing children and their parents to know our sovereign God. My goal is two things - to glorify God and advance the gospel. After countless hours spent online searching between finding a literary agent, self-publishing verses submitting manuscripts, and so on, I was exhausted and gave up. The next thing I know two years have gone by.  However, this series has always been there in the back of my mind and popping into my thoughts on a daily basis.

My husband and I sell copy machines for a living. It just so happens about a year ago a man who started a Christian based publishing house called in to inquire about equipment to print books. After many emails and a sit down meeting with the founder, my best hope was to self-publish with the hope to co-publish if the books did well.

His suggestion was that I start blogging and gain followers. I wanted to die when I heard that for three very "important" reasons.

1. Unqualified - I am on the grammar police's most wanted list... Seriously. I was a Finance Major in college, and I love my numbers. English, grammar, and punctuation- that is like speaking French to me. (Anyone else finding it ironic I want to be an author?)

2. Priorities - I have a full time job from eight to five that I love and that I am really good at. My husband and I have two beautiful boys, Cooper, age four and Paxton, age one. So, technically, I have two full time jobs! Davis and I are lucky if we get an hour together at night to relax. You want me to give that up to blog!! Seriously?

3. Resources - It is not cheap to self-publish a book. We are looking at pretty close to $5,000! My husband and I are trying to be good stewards of our money. That is a huge investment for one story, let alone the two that I have written. Is this the best use of our money? My husband was on board if I started to blog, but remember, I have no time and I am grammatically challenged (that may not even be a word!).

It became very clear as of late that these extremely valid reasons were no more than poorly thought out excuses. Today, I stand a year later with these responses from God to my protests.

You're Unqualified?

Jennifer, read the bible. Name one person in the Bible that I used for my purposes that was qualified? I drew a total blank and knew there was not one single person that I would be able to name. The people in the Bible that God choose were willing. That is all. He made them able. If God calls you to do something, He will enable you to do it, no matter how unqualified you may be.

Where are your priorities?

Mark 12:30 “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and will all your soul and with all your mind, and all your strength.” I have recently been convicted of the backseat in my life that I have put God in. He isn’t even in the first back seat, or the second in the minivan. He is in the way, way back. Forgive me, Lord. How can I love Him the way I am called to when He is not first in my life?

Exodus 20:3 “You shall have no other gods before me.” My husband, my children, my time, my job, my relaxation, my comfort, my home… My, my, my, my…  Over the weekend, Paul David Tripp came to Living Hope and put on a marriage conference. He was awesome, and so was his teaching. He spoke about how we are “me centered” instead of “God centered”. I want to live a life that is focused on the kingdom of God, not the kingdom of Jennifer. So if that means I don’t get to watch 24 reruns and lose an hour or two of sleep, so be it. How quickly the blessings and gifts God so generously bestows upon can become idols in our hearts above Him. We praise the gifts instead of the Giver.  How tragic is that?

Resources, Really?

A family member read my books, loves them, and has offered to invest in getting them published….. Go God, He totally slammed that excuse.

I am a sinner who has been saved by the abundant grace and mercy of a perfect, loving, sovereign God. Our Pastor, Greg Gibson at Living Hope says it like this, “Jesus lived the life that we were supposed to live and died the death that we deserved to die so that God could treat us as if we had lived his.”

I am going to trust in Him, I am going to say yes, and I am going to do the work needed to get these books published. I would love for you to go on this journey with me.

P.S. A sneak peak on the books… It is about a family of frogs named The Leapers

In Christ,

Jennifer