Focus on Serving

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God is good. He is so very good. When I take things to Him, He responds. He answers me.

As you know, there’s this platform-building burden. At the end of every month, I write down all my numbers, followers, engagements, etc., and compare them to the month before. The rate of increase has slowly decreased over the past few months because I’ve been burned out on the whole process. If it weren’t for the fact that this book idea was God-inspired, I honestly would just walk away from all of it (The social media part, not my blog or FaceBook Group. This isn’t platform building, it’s another calling and I feel so blessed to have you here.)

One of the few blessings of this pandemic is that conferences are now available online. I can attend more of them and have access to their material for a longer period of time for less money. One conference expires next week, so I’ve been binge-watching all of the presenters. The common thread I gleaned, and what should be so obvious to anyone starting a ministry is “serve your followers’ needs.” There are questions to consider:

• who is my audience?
• what are their pain points (aka needs)?
• what season of life are they in?
• how can I serve them where they are (social media, website, blog, in-person, etc.)?

I Missed the Boat

I’ve been so focused on the task, I’ve totally missed the boat. Speaking of boats…remember last week when we talked about Luke 5:4-11 (Jesus filled two boats with fish and then Simon, Andrew, John, and James left it all and followed Jesus)? Well, yesterday’s sermon included John 21:6 where it was a similar scenario. The men were out fishing all night and caught nothing. Jesus told them where to cast their net and the net was filled. We were just talking about that! Anyway, it illustrates God’s provision. We can do nothing apart from Him.

Just as Jesus used this miracle to draw in these four men at the beginning, He repeated the miracle to remind them to be obedient, that He was there for them even when they couldn’t see Him, and to send them off with a hearty breakfast to continue the ministry (that last part was just my observation). Yes, Jesus, the Son of God, cooked breakfast for them! How would you respond to that? I can’t even imagine.

Jesus came to earth to serve. Another reiteration that I need to be focused on serving the needs of others. I want to do this. If you’ve followed along with me over the past several years, you may remember my aha moment when I realized serving is such a blessing (see Aquiring A Servant’s Heart on my old blog). Pride kept me away from that blessing for far too long. Then, lately, I’m afraid I’ve fallen away from it once again.

The Plan

So, what does all of this mean? For one thing, I want to seek out people who need these messages, bible verses, quotes. The only way I know how to do that is to pray about it, put it out there, and ask people to share if they know someone who needs that Bible verse, or that message. It sounds so silly– embarrassing, actually. My focus has been wrong for the past year. Getting the message out there of course is more important than drawing people in. This doesn’t necessarily change how I do that, but I believe by changing my focus from engagement to serving, I believe God will make sure that the right people see it.

That was One. Two is I’m going to get to know the needs of my followers and ask if I can pray for them and if I can send them the occasional Bible verse, quote, or even a meme now and then as it relates to their pain point. Hopefully, I can offer encouragement and inspiration that will make their journey a little easier. This of course includes all of you.

I’m going to make audio files of these daily ramblings so that people who don’t have time to read them can maybe listen in the car, or while they’re at work, or just whenever it’s convenient.
Lastly, I’m going to make those videos I keep talking about.

Excuses

• when I get over this illness
• when I’ve learned how to make quality videos…
  Well, I guess there are just two, lol. I can’t make quality videos until I get through the messiness of being a beginner. Fear of failure is not an option when God calls us to do something. My voice is froggy from this latest illness, but that’s okay. I still have my voice, so I need to use it.

Full transparency here, because I want to always be honest with you…a lot of these things may result in more blog visits, more email list followers, more engagement which will, in turn, help my chances of getting an agent, but that’s no longer my focus. This is what God has given me to do and it just works out that when we’re obedient and God-honoring, Jesus fills our nets with fish.

Pray for Me?

I don’t often do this, but I’d like to ask for prayers. Will you pray that my words and actions help people? Will you pray that God continues to clearly tell me what to do and how to do it in order to bring Him glory? Finally, will you pray that Peace In The Stillness grows into a ministry that draws people closer to our Heavenly Father?

Thank you!

Thank you all so much for always showing up. It means so much to me. I treasure all of you.

P.S.

Side note: God woke me up at 4:00 so I’d have time to write this. When I tried to ignore His urging to wake up, He made me feel hungry. I’m all about keeping the tummy happy, so I got up. Once the coffee was started, (the point of no return as far as going back to bed) I was no longer hungry. Hmmmm.