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37 – Knowing God’s Heart
So often, we get it into our heads that when we accept Christ and set about following God, life will be not just better—which it is—but easier—which it often is not. In fact, when we seek God’s heart and determine to embrace it in our thoughts, actions, and writing, we may end up in the deepest places we’ve ever known. But don’t be afraid! Our wonderful guest, best-selling author and mother of TEN, Tricia Goyer, will help you see how it’s in those places that we find God’s true power and the message He has for us to share with a broken and weary world.
Show Notes
About Tricia Goyer:
Tricia Goyer is a busy mom of ten—eight living at home—grandmother of three, and wife to John. Somewhere around the hustle and bustle of family life, she manages to find the time to write fictional tales delighting and entertaining readers and non-fiction titles offering encouragement and hope. A bestselling author, Tricia has published more than fifty books to date and has written more than 500 articles. She is a two-time Carol Award winner, as well as a Christy and ECPA Award nominee. In 2010, she was selected as one of the Top 20 Moms to Follow on Twitter by SheKnows.com. Tricia is also on the blogging team at TheBetterMom.com and other homeschooling and Christian sites. In addition to her roles as mom, wife, and author, Tricia volunteers around her community and mentors teen moms. She is the founder of Hope Pregnancy Ministries in Northwestern Montana, and she currently leads a Teen MOPS Group in Little Rock, AR. Learn more about Tricia at www.triciagoyer.com.
Tricia Goyer is a busy mom and writer in the trenches. Today she talks with us about knowing God’s heart…
Key Quotes:
Tricia’s thoughts of the deep…
“I love that you brought God’s word into it. I think in my story it has been getting to know God’s word, really spending time with Him, but then actually doing what it says. So when God says care for the widows, care for the orphans, tell the gospel to those in need, it’s actually doing what He says. When I do that, that’s where the deep trouble comes… but then having Him show up again and again and again.”
Deep struggles in our lives…
“The deep for me was all those places I tried to hide, all the pain that had been there. God not only wanted to heal those places but He wanted to use me to reach other people. Somehow all the pain that I went through…it even comes out in my writing…in a lot of the issues my characters have. So not only face-to-face, but even in my writing God has wanted to use those things that I wanted to hide to help other people.”
Struggles while we’re being obedient…
“The most recent struggle has been adopting our kids. John and I have three biological kids and then we’ve adopted seven more kids in the last five years…and my 87-year-old grandma also lives with us, so add that to the mix…We started with adopting one because we felt we’ve got to care for these orphans… and we got a newborn baby and we thought, okay we’ve done what God’s word says… But then John and I were confronted with the thought that there are a lot more kids that need homes, that are in foster care, that are aging out of foster care… Most teenagers that age out of foster care, the girls are pregnant within six months…Statistics are that 90% of the boys are incarcerated after they age out of foster care because they have no family. They have nowhere to turn. They end up going to the streets… We were just confronted…so then we got these kids that were so broken…that had emotional issues. They’ve been abused, they’ve been sexually assaulted, all these things. And then we’re trying to fit them into our lives and I remember that first week, and I’m like, ‘God what is going on?’ Sooo hard…We ended up finding therapy, but it was still a struggle. It was so hard.”
Leaving comfort zones behind…
“We finally found a lot of healing, and we got to a place where we were settled and comfortable, and my husband approached me one day and said, ‘I don’t think were supposed to live life being comfortable. I don’t want to get to heaven and say that I gave it my all for the first 40 years and I coasted the rest of my life in my comfort zone.’ It was clear we were supposed to adopt more, and specifically teenage girls. And I was bawling my eyes out because I knew this was not going to be an easy thing…Honestly that was probably the hardest season of my life, just dealing with all the kids. We had seven kids from broken places, and I was just crying, ‘God we really need you.’ That really is a deep place. God meets me there and says, ‘I love you. I’ll give you the peace. I’ll give you the patience.’ And just feeling Him work through me in places where I could not do it in my own strength.”
Writing in the midst of ministering to broken people in the house…
“I’ve always had children in the home while I’ve been trying to write…I’ve learned how to carve out time…. But really, we have therapy appointments, we have all these things, and I tell people writing is the easiest thing I do right now because its me, it’s my computer, It’s my own thoughts, it’s quiet… I mean it’s still a challenge…but writing, sitting down at my computer is not folding 10 loads of laundry…I’ve discovered I can meet God there. I quiet myself before Him, and I can push out all those other things and really connect with Him during those times… The last book I wrote, I wrote between 3 AM and 6 AM… that was the time slot I had. So it was getting up, spending some time in Bible study and prayer and then writing before the rest of the kids got up. So it’s not easy. But I can see the difference in the books I’m writing because I’m so dependent on God.”
Jesus as the suffering servant…
“Connecting with Jesus as the suffering servant, that’s coming out more in my writing. I was someone who these girls weren’t going to trust, Who they were going to lash out at…I think I connected so much more with the suffering that Christ felt. And the pain of rejection and the pain of people who you’re just pouring love into…it just hits me so much more now… I think anything we face in our life comes out in writing. My books coming out in upcoming years will be different because of what I’m going through with these kids.”
Hope…
“When we believe who we are—we are God’s child, He loves us, He’s never going to leave us, He’s never going to forsake us, it’s done—and we can truly walk in it, it changes everything…If God called us to this, God is going to use it for a good purpose, and He’s going to bring something good out of this. And the hope is really in Him…He’ll get the glory, somehow, and He called us to this for a reason.”
Serving…
“John always says, ‘It’s not going to church service where we go and sit, it’s being part of church service, where we are part of the body of Christ, and we’re serving others.’ That’s been part of our family structure.”
Final words of encouragement…
“There was a prayer that I prayed years ago. ‘God, show me your heart. Where is your heart? Where are you hurting? What makes you cry. Who do you want to reach? God, show me your heart.’ When you have God’s heart, it’s like, ‘I have to do something, even though it’s going to be really hard.’ Even in your writing ask, ‘God show me your heart. What is your message for the people today?’ Once you have God’s heart, the words will come because His message will be in your heart.”
We want to hear from you!
Have you ever asked God to show you His heart? What answer did you receive?
