Don't Give Up - Introduction

Hello, everyone! It is great to be back with you once again after many weeks of being involved in so many things. I've had a couple websites I've been building and a couple books we've been formatting and all kinds of different things trying to generate some income for the family and just trying to do some work with ministry.

I've got some good news. I am doing some pulpit supply this upcoming Sunday at a local church here and we'll see how that goes. The Lord will be sovereign. The Lord will be carrying out His purposes. If I'm just doing a fill-in or if I'm going to be doing something more semi or fully permanent, we'll see.

But we are rejoicing in that opportunity and certainly excited about it. So today I want to start a series here with you. I'm going to post one of these a week probably on Thursday or Friday or maybe today.

I don't know. Who knows? It'll be out when it's out. We always have this thing about family when we're waiting on something in the mail. They're like, was it coming today? What does the thing say? We'll say, it'll be here when it gets here.

Introducing Don't Give Up

So we're going to do a small series on my book, Don't Give Up. Our Joy and Hope are in Christ, Not Circumstances. And this was one of the proof copies I had gotten. I had a full-fledged copy and then I ended up sending it off to someone.

So this is just as good as the one you can purchase. So it's for purchase online. And I believe I've got it at $10 .99 paperback and probably like $4 .99 Kindle. And it's always been a goal of mine and sort of a wish list, dream, something that I felt led to do, but also something I really wanted to do is hold a book in my hands that I wrote.

Well, here you go. That day has come. And I'm very excited. I'm very grateful. Very pleased with how everything came out. I do need to get a picture on the back, though, that is updated. Because this is Clean Shaven Andy.

And as you can tell, Clean Shaven Andy, he's in the past. So I do need to get an updated picture. We'll work on that. But Don't Give Up is the book. And this is probably something I will have another volume or have another edition at some point with some added material.

Shaping the Book Around Personal Experience and Scripture

It just depends. There's a lot of things in a lot of the areas that I was able to touch on and give some level of detail. But as we know in life, not everybody deserves to know everything about you. And you can only share what you're comfortable sharing.

And I did mention some things about one of the churches I was in. I obviously didn't give their names, just some situations I went through. But there's a lot more things going back into the past that have sort of shaped me and brought me to certain markers along the way that I sort of left out.

Because I wanted to keep the thrust and the point of the book on the text that's being exposited, which was Psalm 119, 81 through 88. And I also wanted to make sure I touched on mental health and different situations.

And also I wanted to make it very clear as I wrote this book that while I share my struggles or something that may have been a challenge to me in terms of not giving up, everybody's situation looks different.

Yours may look completely different from mine. And that's okay. Yours may be harder than mine in some aspects or maybe easier in some. But the point, circumstantial stuff matters. It does because it's your life.

Finding Hope in Christ Rather Than Circumstances

It matters to you. But the ultimate is all of us understanding that our joy and hope are not in those circumstances. They're in Christ. And that was sort of what I wanted to kind of convey. This isn't just about, you know, like a sports thing where, well, we lost five in a row, but don't give up.

Oh, we lost 10 in a row. Don't give up. Oh, we've lost every game we played. Don't give up. No, there's some truth to that. But it's more about the positive aspects of what we should be looking towards and not so much that.

Chapter One: Understanding Suffering Without Minimizing It

But take a brief overview here of chapter one in this particular episode. I start out by saying don't give up. Don't give up. No matter what, don't give up. Our joy and hope are in Christ, not our circumstances.

Our joy and hope are based on the bedrock foundation of the perfect Savior, Jesus Christ. If you're like me, you've lived a portion of your life basing your joy on circumstances, whether you had enough money, the right job, right ministry, friends, et cetera, et cetera.

You found that you only had moments of happiness and joy. But down deep, there was this deep-seated uneasiness combined with a lack of joy. And so the first chapter is just meant to kind of get you into that, get you to understand the premise.

Why Comparing Someone's Suffering Can Cause Harm

I talk about how we don't want to do the comparative analysis. So, for example, on page two, I say one of the worst things you can do is compare someone's life to someone else when they are reaching out to you for help.

There is nothing worse than trying to explain to someone what you're going through or how it's affecting you. And then they say, well, you know, you shouldn't really feel that way because after all, so-and-so down the street, they've got it far worse.

No. Just stop. Don't minimize someone's suffering like that. Now, is there a percentage of people through various means and reasons will amplify, exaggerate, use hyperbolic language, if you will, to make their suffering appear worse than what it is because they're looking for unjust or undue sympathy, yada, yada, be the center of the whatever?

Yes. But it's a logical fallacy then to say, well, because they exist, there can't be anyone that has legitimate suffering. No, there are people that are legitimately suffering and they have legitimate issues and need help and can just minimizing it by saying, well, you know, because it ain't as bad as far as I subjectively advise, it's not as bad as this person, you shouldn't be complaining at all.

Like, stop it. That's not helpful. It's not. I, you know, I don't want to be harsh, but I don't even care if you think you mean well. You're harming more than you're helping in that scenario. So what's better and what this first chapter lays the groundwork for is that it's better when it's someone that has gone through what you've gone through.

So they can say things like, I know what that feels like. I've been through that. Do you want me to tell you some of the things that helped me get through it? How I look to Christ, how he helped me. Don't minimize the circumstances.

It doesn't help. It just adds to the pain. And then I go on from there and talk about just some brief summary things and introduce some of the work that we're going to be talking about through the book.

Finding Revival Through Psalm 119

We get to the exposition a couple chapters in and we see in Psalm 119, 81 through 88, how we deal with hard people, hard circumstances, and ultimately the last verse, how are we revived? How do we maintain a life and a joy despite what we may face?

Growing Through Difficult Circumstances

And look, it's not easy. I still don't do it perfectly. I wrote a book about it and I still have trouble with it because it's very easy in our flesh to just, woe is me, pity party of one. I've thrown so many pity parties of one where I was the only person invited.

I was the only person that showed up. I can't even count them. So I'm right there in the boat with you. I'm not some kind of special guy saying, ha ha ha, look at me. I'm so great. You need to read my book because then you'll know I do what I do.

This is more about, hey, I don't get it. I don't have it all together. I mess up a lot and I need Christ. But what I can say is that I am getting better. If you look at, and one of the things I look at is sort of five year periods and then ultimately a decade with the two five year periods.

If you look at the last decade I've had, tremendous growth. Oh, mercy. Especially the first five year period of this past decade was very tough. This past five years have had its own set of challenges, but I've handled them so much better.

Encouragement for Mental Health Struggles

And I'm going through some circumstances now. It's tough. I mean, our income is a little wacky because I haven't really had anything consistent. Thank the good Lord my wife has a good job, but I've got the book going.

I've done some different jobs with websites and book formatting, things like that. So shameless plug, if you need somebody to build a website for your ministry, format your book for self-publishing, do a custom cover, help you with your podcasting, all that good stuff, I'm available to help.

We can talk about it. I can price it out for you and tell you what it would look like. And if it's too much of a cost or you decide to go elsewhere, that's fine. It won't hurt my feelings. We're good.

I mean, we can still be friends. You've got to make the best decision for you. You don't need to use me just because, oh, I feel bad for him. No, I'll either be a good fit for you or I won't. And that's okay.

So don't give up. Buy yours truly. Our joy and hope are in Christ, not circumstances. Pick up your copy today. I'll put a link in the description. And you can go there and purchase a paperback or a Kindle.

I encourage you to read it. I hope more than anything that this will be something that will encourage you specifically and in particularly if you have mental health struggles, if you have major depressive disorder or something similar that you deal with, like I do, as I do.

And I talk about that in here. We'll get to that eventually. I pray this will be encouraging for you. I pray that it will be a source of comfort and strength for you and point you in the right direction.

And I'm not going to promise you anything. There's no one, two, three, repeat after me. Oh, look, my wife is perfect now. No, it's continual, consistent, daily, repetitious behavior, working and growing and all sorts of things.

But I can promise you if you put forth the effort, you will see progress and you will be able to look back and say, okay, here's where I was at. Man, look at where I'm at now. Oh, and if I could continue to work, think about where I could be.

I warn you, the healthier you get, the more you see unhealthiness in others and those things around you. And that is sort of a source for annoyance at times. But keep in mind, we need to be looking for the unhealthiness and sinfulness in ourselves first before we start looking at someone else.

And that's part of the journey. Amen? Well, remember, don't give up. Our joy and hope are in Christ, not in circumstances. Thank you for joining me on this edition of God's Center Theology where we're talking about our book here.

And I pray that God will bless you.