The Monday Memo from John Stanko

663: Books

Last week I sent my corrections and edits off for two new book, which are really compilations of the devotionals from the last two years. One is called A String of Pearls and the other is A Daily Taste of Proverbs. Two weeks ago I published What Would Jesus Ask You Today? They are all on Amazon.com and will be available in Kindle version any day now. 

As I finish this writing and publishing binge, my mind goes to thoughts of creativity, so that may be my focus for the coming weeks (but then again, maybe not!). For now here are some thoughts on writing and publishing for your reading pleasure:

1. Many people don't write because they say they don't have time.  You have all the time in the world - 24 hours a day - so it's what you do with that time that determines whether or not you write and create.
2. Many times the "I don't have time" is just an excuse to cover fear and doubt.
3. Someone once said, "If you don't write when you don't have time, you won't write when you do have time."
4. It has been said that you don't produce a book, that a book produces you. I have found there is some truth to that.
5. Some don't write because they don't know who will purchase it.  f you don't write it, no one will purchase it.
6. Some don't write because they don't know who will publish it.  f you don't produce it, no one will publish it for sure.
7. Where creativity is concerned, Franklin Roosevelt was correct:  We have nothing to fear but fear itself!
8. The idea that you need six to ten weeks of uninterrupted time to write is probably not realistic. You cannot stop your life to write, unless you are prepared to write full-time. Otherwise, you have to learn to write with the time you have available every day.
9. If you write two pages a day, in four months you will have about 150 pages. 
10. Some don't write because they can't spell or don't trust their grammar. Hire an editor to correct that for you, but no one can write what's in your heart to say.
11. If you want to write interesting things, you must do interesting things.

There are some thoughts as I wrap up this project on books number 16, 17 and 18. I already know what I do for next year's book project (my current daily devotional The Leadership Walk), and I have already outlined my book after that one - Life is a Garden: Can You Dig It?

Do you have a creative project in you that has yet to be released?  Then join with me on this creative online review the next few weeks and let's see if we can't drill into your creative wells and discover what we can bring to the surface.  Have a great week!

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KENYA UPDATE: The container has been released and I am excited, but the saga continues as you can read in this update.

STILL HAVE AN URGENT LOCAL NEED: We are in need of new warehouse space in which to store our year-round Kenya collections. Space that is climate controlled and forklift accessible is preferred. If you have any leads or space, please let me know.

NEW BOOK: My latest books mentioned above can be ordered through Amazon.com.

BASEBALL GAME: The annual fundraising baseball game at PNC Park to benefit Kenya widows and orphans will take place this year on Tuesday, August 19. For the mere price of $1,000, you will be treated to great food, wonderful fellowship and a great baseball game (we hope) between the Pirates and the Braves. Contact me now to reserve your ticket(s) for the game.

662: Pharaoh's Help

If you are like some folks, you wonder how you will be able to pursue purpose and still pay your bills, assuming they are mutually exclusive. If you are among that group, your first thought isn't, "How can I express my purpose?" but rather, "Who will pay me to fulfill my purpose?"  In some sense you don't really believe that who you are and what you do is sufficient to support you but rather that you need to feed off someone else's purpose to make a living.

SLAVE MENTALITY

Now there is nothing wrong with working for a company; most people do. Yet this thinking can prevent you from founding a company that supports others and yourself. It is like I responded once in Kenya when asked by someone, "I am accountant. How can I get a job?"  My response: "Go start your own bank."  The person looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe I am. His thinking was, "I need a bank to hire me" not "Yeah, that's a great idea. With God, all things are possible."

At one time in their history, the Israelites worked for a Pharaoh. Initially, Pharaoh was benevolent, but eventually he turned cruel and oppressive. When Moses came to announce that Pharaoh was to let God's people go, Pharaoh basically responded, "No way!" Pharaoh needed them to build his monuments and do his dirty work, and he was not about to let the people go.

The real problem was that the Israelites began to see Pharaoh as their provider. They felt they needed Pharaoh or they could not make it in life. The truth was that the Israelites were an oppressed people with a slave mentality whenever they worked for Pharaoh, even when Pharaoh treated them kindly.

When the Israelites finally did launch out on their own to the Promised Land, they got discouraged because the way was hard. They forgot how oppressive it was to work for Pharaoh, and this is what happened:

The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!" (Numbers 11:4-6).

They actually thought that they when they ate in Egypt, they ate for free, when the price was slavery and oppression. Their food wasn't free, but their memory was distorted and skewed because they had a slave mentality. They wanted Pharaoh and not the Lord to provide for their needs.

PHARAOH'S HELP

I hope the lesson for you is clear:  You don't need Pharaoh's help to do God's will. In fact, Pharaoh's help may cause you to lose perspective and give the best years of your life to a cause or purpose far below what God has for you. If God has called you to work for someone, that's fine. If God calls you to work for yourself, God doesn't need Pharaoh to pay your bills and provide your benefits. He can do that all by Himself.

As you seek purpose, who is your help?  Is it Pharaoh or the Lord?  In whom and where have you put your hope and trust?  Don't sell yourself for the leeks and garlic of Egypt, when God can set a banquet before you that smells and tastes better. I urge you to look past Pharaoh to the One who can provide for your purpose and then allow Him to prove to you that He is both able and willing to do so.

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KENYA UPDATE: The container has been released and I am excited. You can read about it and our most recent Kenya breakfast on my blog site.

STILL HAVE AN URGENT LOCAL NEED: We are in need of new warehouse space in which to store our year-round Kenya collections. Space that is climate controlled and forklift accessible is preferred. If you have any leads or space, please let me know.

NEW BOOK: My latest daily devotional, What Would Jesus Ask You Today? is now available to order online in either a paper or ebook format. I hope you enjoy this latest publishing endeavor.

BASEBALL GAME: The annual fundraising baseball game at PNC Park to benefit Kenya widows and orphans will take place this year on Tuesday, August 19. For the mere price of $1,000, you will be treated to great food, wonderful fellowship and a great baseball game (we hope) between the Pirates and the Braves. Contact me now to reserve your ticket(s) for the game.

661: Seth Godin

I read something from Seth Godin almost every day and I have also read all his books. I have never met Seth (I hope to one day), but I feel like I know him. He was the one in 2001 who influenced me to start writing this Memo after I read his book Permission Marketing. I try to pattern my writing on his. I admire the influence he has had and his relentless effort to produce relevant material and touch lives. This morning I received his daily blog and I include the content here for your reading enjoyment:

Just ten years ago, what difference could you possibly be expected to make?

How could you make music without getting picked by a record label, or help the local community garden more than showing up on Saturday to pull weeds? How could anyone expect you to change a conversation, or raise enough cash or move the needle more than a little?

Today, armed with Mailchimp and Indiegogo and Vimeo and Meetup and a dozen other nearly free tools, you can make quite a ruckus.

You can organize a hundred or a thousand people and get them in sync with a weekly newsletter. You can tailor goods or services or a cause to a small group of people that really want to hear about it and really want to spread the word. You can self publish to your thousand true fans, you can host an event or a dozen events, you can enable your work to become famous to the crowd that matters.

Pick yourself.

If you care enough.

In other words, Seth is telling you and me, "No more excuses!" There is no reason why you are not publishing, recording or writing, except that you are afraid. You are taking the best of your creativity and weaving elaborate excuses in your mind that justify your inactivity. No more. And don't try to touch everyone. In Seth's words, just find the 'crowd that matters' to you.

I write and publish every day, sometimes twice a day - every day of the year. I determined in 2001 that there would be no more excuses and I have stayed true to my vow. I have produced 661 Monday Memos. I finished a verse-by-verse commentary on all 8,000 New Testament verses. I have written 18 books. I have four weekly radio shows (soon to be six) and one televsion show. That's what I have done. Now what can you do?

Thanks, Seth, for your relentless, ongoing encouragement. It may not have touched everybody, but it certainly touched me. I hope I can be counted among the crowd that matters to you.

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STILL HAVE AN URGENT LOCAL NEED: We are in need of new warehouse space in which to store our year-round Kenya collections. Space that is climate controlled and forklift accessible is preferred. If you have any leads or space, please let me know.

KENYA UPDATE: Read my latest post that includes a report from Pastor Peter and his work at WAPIS where our first library is located.

NEW BOOK: My latest daily devotional, What Would Jesus Ask You Today? is now available to order online in either a paper or ebook format. I hope you enjoy this latest publishing endeavor.

BASEBALL GAME: The annual fundraising baseball game at PNC Park to benefit Kenya widows and orphans will take place this year on Tuesday, August 19. For the mere price of $1,000, you will be treated to great food, wonderful fellowship and a great baseball game (we hope) between the Pirates and the Braves. Contact me now to reserve your ticket(s) for the game.

660: Conclusions

I was reflecting this week on the men Moses dispatched to spy out the land before Israel went into the Promised Land. There were 12 men who all saw the same thing, but their interpretation of what they saw differed greatly. Two of the men, Joshua and Caleb, recommended to Moses that they move immediately to take possession of the land. The other 10 gave this report as recorded in Numbers 13:31-33:

But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

Those ten men saw what Joshua and Caleb saw, but came to a different conclusion because they focused on the wrong thing. The first two focused on the power and promise of God. The ten focused on the circumstances, their thinking processed what they saw and they advised caution and fear. This wasn't just a serious mistake but a colossal blunder for when they caused the people to be afraid who heard their negative report, the Lord was displeased and decreed in Numbers 14:23-24:

"Not one of them [the tem] will ever see the land I promised on oath to their ancestors. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it. But because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it."

WHAT DO YOU SEE?

You and I face the same challenge those spies faced: how do we factor in current reality while not losing focus on God's promises? We cannot ignore where we are or the facts of our surroundings, but then again, we know that God can raise the dead and do anything! This is important because if you think like the 10 spies, you may conclude: "Yes, I have a purpose, but I also have bills to pay, a mortgage and school fees for my kids. I can't act on my purpose now or for years to come" or "I know I can write, but it's a bad time to publish and no one will read it anyway" or "There is danger in the world, so I had better hole up in my comfort zone and wait for things to get better."

When you reach conclusions like I described above, they sound similar to those that displeased the Lord in Numbers 14. Your rational, negative conclusions can not only paralyze you and keep you from taking action, but can also affect others, discouraging them from attempting what's in their heart as they process and conclude as you do.

What's most important is not what you see but what you do with what you see. God never told us to ignore reality, He simply told us not to be make it our total basis for action. Thehe reality of what you see should not be ignored; it just should not be supreme.

Spend some time this week reflecting on these 12 spies and see what category you belong: to the two or the ten. You may fall into one category where one issue in your life is concerned and the other for another situation. Your goal should be to align your thinking and conclusions with Joshua and Caleb as often as possible in as many situations as possible. When you do, you will please the Lord and have incentive to move forward to be a person of purpose and productivity. Have a great week!

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URGENT LOCAL NEED: We are in need of new warehouse space in which to store our year-round Kenya collections. Space that is climate controlled and forklift accessible is preferred. If you have any leads or space, please let me know.

KENYA UPDATE: Read my latest post that includes a receipt from Pastor Francis for food he bought with our last donation, along with the latest on the container and other Kenya news.

NEW BOOK: My latest daily devotional, What Would Jesus Ask You Today? is now available to order online in either a paper or ebook format. I hope you enjoy this latest publishing endeavor.

BASEBALL GAME: The annual fundraising baseball game at PNC Park to benefit Kenya widows and orphans will take place this year on Tuesday, August 19. For the mere price of $1,000, you will be treated to great food, wonderful fellowship and a great baseball game (we hope) between the Pirates and the Braves. Contact me now to reserve your ticket(s) for the game.

659: Fear Fear

I had the privilege of speaking in my local church yesterday; the title of my message was "Fear Fear" and my text was Nehemiah 4:14: "After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your families, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.”

I wrote a Monday Memo on the same topic a few years ago and I thought I would re-present an edited version for your reading enjoyment today. If you would like to watch or listen to my message from this past weekend, you can access that on the church website.

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In 1941, American President Franklin Roosevelt uttered the now-famous line, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." That was true when America entered World War II, and it's still true today. There is a good chance fear is your greatest adversary in your faith walk, but it may be caused by a deeper spiritual problem. To understand what that root problem may be, you must read on.

ROW, ROW, ROW YOUR BOAT.

In part nine of my online Bible study of Mark's gospel, I commented on the story of Jesus walking on the water, coming to the disciples late at night:

When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on land. He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, because they all saw him and were terrified. Immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid"  (Mark 6:47-50). 

The disciples had been rowing for a long time, battling the wind and waves. They were worn out, and they weren't making much progress. They were probably wondering why Jesus had sent them on ahead of Him in such conditions. You may be in the same life situation, facing some difficult things, and wondering where God is. You are rowing hard, but your boat is making progress.

I'm not sure how I would have reacted when I saw Jesus coming to me on the water. I don't think I would have concluded that He was a ghost, but you never know. There is a good chance, however, that I would have been afraid. Yet somehow I don't think that response would have been so unusual. After all, seeing someone walk on the water isn't something that happens every day.

Yet they were terrified not because this sight was so unusual. They were terrified because of their spiritual condition.

HARD HEARTS

 Mark reported the reason why Jesus came to them the way He did:

Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed,for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened (Mark 6:51-52).

These men had already seen Jesus do amazing miracles, and so have you. These disciples had witnessed God's ability to provide when Jesus took five loaves and two fish and fed five thousand. You have also seen God's faithful provision, and so have I. Yet I still have to battle fear, sometimes because my heart is hard. These men already had a history of seeing Jesus do remarkable things, yet when He did this remarkable thing (walk on water), they freaked out.  I can't judge them too harshly, for I am often in the same boat (pardon the pun) as they were.

When we all gather at our local churches, we do so in part to celebrate the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead.  If God can raise the dead, He can do anything! Yet many will go home from church having paid tribute to Jesus' resurrection, and not have the resurrection impact their daily lives. Are you among them?

Do you go home from church the same way you came, fearful for the future, or confident? Will you go home and do something that relies on God's power, or will you be afraid of doing the wrong thing and do nothing?  President Roosevelt was correct; we must learn to fear fear, for fear paralyzes us and skews our spiritual perspective.  Yet fear can be rooted in a hard heart and that is what we must address if we are ever going to take bold action.

 As you confront your fears this week, I urge you to go a little deeper and examine the heart condition that allows those fears to fester. Then do something to soften up your heart, like taking action on some long abandoned faith project. There is no greater testimony you can give to the fact that Jesus is alive than to act every day like He is and like that same resurrection power is available to you as you do God's will.  Have a great week!

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ANOTHER SEMINAR IN PITTSBURGH: I am hosting another purpose seminar this coming Saturday, June 7 at Allegheny Center Alliance Church in Pittsburgh from noon to 4:30 PM. As usual, the seminar is free but you need to register by writing to let me know you are coming.

NEW BOOK: My latest daily devotional, What Would Jesus Ask You Today? is now available to order online in either a paper or ebook format. I hope you enjoy this latest publishing endeavor.

BASEBALL GAME: The annual fundraising baseball game at PNC Park to benefit Kenya widows and orphans will take place this year on Tuesday, August 19. For the mere price of $1,000, you will be treated to great food, wonderful fellowship and a great baseball game (we hope) between the Pirates and the Braves. Contact me now to reserve your ticket(s) for the game.