Considering My Ways
Where I hope to go from here
I posted this in a private community I’m part of this morning (check out my friend’s newsletter, Certainty4UncertainTimes, if you want to learn more about said community), but I thought I’d also share it here in case it speaks to someone, and also because it’s relevant to what follows after:
I felt led to read Haggai this morning after realizing that we're in the Hebrew month of Elul, which is the month of preparation for the fall feasts, and recalling that Haggai starts out on the first of Elul. In the first chapter, God admonishes Israel for not knowing what time/season they're in, and having their priorities out of order as a result. It's time for them to be building the house of God, but they're focused on building their own houses instead.
In this section, verses 5 & 6 particularly stood out to me, in a convicting kind of way:
Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. 6 You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”
Planting much but harvesting little is the story of my life, particularly where my career and professional life is concerned. I'm convicted because the prophet goes on to tell them that they're in this state because they're prioritizing their own houses over God's, and I realize I'm guilty of same. I keep saying I want to make my ministry the priority, but when the rubber meets the road I keep neglecting my ministry writing and focusing on writing and marketing for my fiction books and publishing business.
I'm "giving careful thought to [my] ways" this morning and asking myself the hard questions: Do I know what time we're in? Do I truly believe that we're in the last hour before the rapture? If so, then why am I working so hard to build my business and trying to take care of the future instead of giving my all to the Kingdom? Do I not believe that if I seek first the Kingdom, the Lord will take care of me? Why am I spending so much time and effort trying to build a house for myself (literally) instead of building up the body of Christ?
Hard questions, indeed.
I’ve had a tentative, somewhat opaque vision for Spirit, Sword & Truth for a good long while now, and I’ve been full of excuses for keeping it on the back burner while other projects and creative endeavors take precedence. Last week, that vision coalesced and became crystal clear, and still I’ve been putting off taking any action to bring it about.
It’s been on my heart for a long time to turn this into a podcast. I’ve shied away from the idea because I’m not a skilled speaker. Not to compare myself to Moses, but that excuse didn’t work out so well for him, did it? But I’m all out of excuses and feeling strongly that now is the time, and continuing to put it off is just plain disobedience.
This podcast will focus on the sort of things I wrote about here in the beginning: eschatology, dispensationalism, critical thinking and discernment, church history and gnosticism. There’s going to be a big focus on gnosticism and it’s many heads and tentacles, because this is the oldest counter-religion in the world, and it’s the religion of the Antichrist.
I don’t know yet how frequent the episodes will be. I don’t know how this is going to fit into my schedule. I don’t even know if it will be any good. But I’m going to do it out of obedience and give it to the Lord and see where He takes it.
What I do know is that I’ll post each episode here and let Substack push it out to YouTube and Spotify and all the places, so if you’re subscribed to this publication, you’ll get it in your inbox and you won’t need to do anything.
So that’s fold number one of a two-fold approach to the vision I’ve been given for this ministry. The other is something else I’ve had on my heart for a long time, which is to do a series of articles (which may eventually become a book) about taking up the sword of the spirit. In other words, why we should study the Bible, how we got our canon and why our bibles are trustworthy, and how to study scripture.
I would also like to send out at least one newsletterish type post a month with updates and a roundup of things I’ve been reading, thinking about and listening to that I want to share.
All of this will be free to all subscribers. There is a paid subscription option available for anyone who would like to financially sow into this ministry (or you could donate via my Kofi account — which I actually prefer, since Substack uses Stripe and they’re really persnikitty), but none of my content is behind a paywall.
I have, however, locked down comments and the chat feature behind the paywall because when it was free it was mostly used by drive-by trolls to pick fights with me and call me names. I don’t have the time or the energy for that. I want the comments and chat to be there for YOU to converse with each other and also so y’all can hold me accountable for what I’m putting out there. But while I feel I should be held accountable by people who are invested in this ministry, whether through financial support or through encouragement and prayer, I don’t feel I need to be held accountable by complete strangers who are on a completely different page than me theologically.
At any rate, if you can’t afford or simply don’t feel led to upgrade your subscription and you would like to have access to the community features, all you have to do is reply to this email and ask for an upgrade and I’ll happily comp you a paid subscription.
So—this is where we go from here. I’m feeling heavily convicted to stop treating this publication like a hobby and something I squeeze into my limited spare time when I feel like it, and start treating it like my job, trusting that God will meet my financial needs as I step out in obedience and faith. I would really appreciate your prayers as I try to figure out all the logistics of how and when and where I’m going to record, and that I don’t chicken out or get sidetracked. And I would also appreciate prayers against the spiritual opposition that’s sure to come my way as I move forward.
Anyway, exciting things are coming, so stay tuned!
PS - here’s a video I did recently regarding starting a vlog, which thoughts also apply to this podcast:
