Pray Earnestly to the Lord

I needed that reminder from the Lord today, "Pray earnestly to the Lord" (ESV). I was in my morning devotions, taking a detailed look at Matt 9:35-10:15. I don't often get to enjoy the extended time that I spent today – I had no particular agenda and my time was free to allow the Lord to take me wherever He wanted in the Scriptures. My wife usually sleeps in on Saturday mornings – it is 11:30am as I begin writing this and she is still sleeping – whereas I've been up for hours.

When I see a word in the Bible that raises a question, I will often look at the Koine Greek. I know some Greek, but it is not strong enough to recognize many of the various words or word endings. Therefore, I will go to various tools that I have: a very nice Interlinear NASB-NIV that someone graciously gave me; PC Study Bible which I've used for years and along with the NA27 Greek version that is an add-on to PC Study Bible; and some specialty software that I wrote which allows me to easily find words and word roots throughout the New Testaments based on the NA27 and NET Bible versions of the New Testament. By using these three resources, I can often dig fairly deep into the Scriptures to pull out a special nugget.

I started my devotions today looking at the verb ekballo (transliterated because the Greek font that I use may not be available on your computer), seeing that not only did Jesus cast out (ekballo) the demons, but he also gave the disciples authority to cast (ekballo) them out as well (v10:1). The root word for ekballo is ballo which means to "throw" or "send out." The first nugget that I saw was that Jesus did not just send out the workers, he applied ekballo to get them into the world (v9:38). That is to say, "Jesus thrust forth the workers." That I found to be very interesting, for they were not just sent or commissioned, but rather they would have solidly known that they were being pushed into doing it. With that, I wondered if I need that same ekballo at times to do what the Lord is asking me to do.

Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out the laborers into his harvest." And he called to him his twelve disciples ... (Matt 9:37 - 10:1 ESV).

I often look for chiasms as I read the Bible, and I am well aware that the book of Matthew is full of them. A chiasm, for those that are not familiar, is a literary structure that was used throughout the Bible as a way of giving emphasis to a certain part of the Scripture. (For more information on chiasms, see my article:
What is a Chiasm?.
Simply put, a chiasm is a structure of repeated words or themes that are in a form such as A – B – C – C' – B' – A', or A – B – C – D – C' – B' – A', and the verses that appear in the center are normally the point of emphasis.

I saw this pairing for Matthew 9:37-10:1 as I studied the Greek:
  A  – Disciples
    B  – Harvest
      C  – Laborers
        D – Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest
      C' – Laborers
    B' – Harvest
  A' – Disciples

(Some English translations present these verses as Disciples – Harvest – Laborers – Pray (or ask) the Lord of the harvest – Harvest – Laborers – Disciples. In so doing, the chiasm is made obscure which is one advantage of looking at Scriptures using the Greek as well as an English translation. I chose the ESV because it presents this structure correctly.)

As I stated above, the center point of a chiasm is the point of emphasis, which in this case is the portion that states, "Pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest."

There it was, speaking to me in terms that I can plainly understand: the emphasis to pray fervently to God for the situation that is being thrust upon me by the Lord. The Greek word for pray earnestly is dehthete which some translations state as, "Ask the Lord of the harvest." In my word search through other places in the Bible where that word is used, particularly in the books of Luke and Acts, the sense is much stronger than "ask" – it is fervent prayer.

Over the last several weeks, I have been sensing an increasingly strong coaxing to develop another book. To me, that is an ekballo experience. My three earlier books, Joshua's Spiritual Warfare: Understanding the Chiasms of Joshua, A Topical Treasury of Proverbs, and A Garden of Love, have had some success but they have not been best sellers. Should I follow this lead to develop another book, and if so, how do I approach the topic that is being presented to me?

The answer should have been obvious, but I had been using my problem-solving skills (that the Lord gave me) to figure it all out. Through the above chiasm, I came to understand the strong relationship between ekballo (the strong sending) and dehthete (earnestly praying which is the leading). If I am appointed by the Lord to do a work, I must know His direction in getting there lest I fade from the task. Therefore, I must reach out to my loving Lord and listen for His instructions. Time will reveal what the Lord will say, and then I will be obedient to that call. Stay tuned.

Tom

What I Learned at the International Christian Retail Show (ICRS)

With thousands of travelers stranded in the Detroit airport, I remember praying to the Lord, "If You want me there [St. Louis], Lord, You must get me there. If You don't want me there, I submit to that as well, Lord."

On June 28th and 29th, I had the privilege of attending the International Christian Retail Show (ICRS) in St. Louis. Yes, I got to the ICRS show on-time (see below), had wonderful contacts and conversations with Christian leaders, bookstore owners and vendors from throughout the US, and was wonderfully at-ease throughout the entire time.

Sunday's message from my pastor was such a great encouragement to me. His message on "Showing Love to One Another" spoke volumes to me: how I must present myself at this show. Even though the real message of "A Garden of Love" is about loving our Lord and one another, I sensed that a number of intercessors helped to reinforce my role at the meeting.

The travel difficulties from Sunday afternoon were very unsettling. Had I missed God's timing? Did He really want me there? Five tornadoes had touched down near the Detroit airport leaving possibly 5,000 travelers in a total tizzy. My first flight was cancelled because of the weather, and the only other flight was cancelled because there were no available crew members. The hotel rooms for miles around were sold out. The carpet was littered with several thousand people waiting for a flight on Monday morning. My prayer, and possibly the prayer of some of the intercessors, was, "If You want me there Lord, You must get me there. If You don't want me there, I submit to that as well Lord." Monday morning I was on a flight at 6:15am that took me first through Atlanta. My books were waiting for me at the St. Louis airport, thank You Lord. I missed the first train out of the St. Louis airport by just a minute, but by this time I was confident that the Lord was behind me the entire way. I am certain that the intercession of many took care of so many possible difficulties.

With my suitcase in tow, clothes pressed by the Detroit carpet, unshaven, sweaty, and smelly, I arrived at the St. Louis convention center. The appointment was at 1:00pm where I would sign books until 2:00pm, and then someone else would take the chair. I arrived not at 12:59pm, or at 1:01pm, but exactly at 1:00pm. The manager of the book signing suddenly looked up from the previous author's signing, started to say "Where's Tom Cl..." and then turned to me. Her instructions were simple: "Put your suitcase here, I'll open the first box, and you start signing." She had not received my eMail that I might be late. And I wasn't. The Lord provided.

There were long lines waiting for me to sign their free copy of the book. The lines were longer for authors such as Joyce Meyer, David Jeremiah, and Kenneth Hagin, but by comparison to the other "unknown" authors, I was so tremendously encouraged to see what our Lord did. There were never less than 10 people in line, and often there were 20 or more. "A Garden of Love" had been on display at the booth all Sunday and Monday morning, so people knew to come for this signing. Where many "unknown" authors handed out far fewer books or had much shorter lines, I gave 60 books away on Monday and could have easily tripled that amount. No promotion was necessary.

Today I am convinced more than ever that God wants this message of love to spread to His people. To some, the emphasis of Matt 22:37-40 is often on loving our Lord; to others, the emphasis is often on doing good works as a representation of love to one another. I believe that God wants to turn both camps into deep and profound lovers of our Lord and of one another. To many people at this book signing, when presented with that truth, they seemed to understand.

I thank all that prayed me through but really this effort is not done. Those that have received the book need to be convicted that they must open the manuscript to savor the love that is presented. The message of this book is not about book sales; it is about changed lives, using flowers from our Gethsemane Prayer Garden to help get them there. Please pray for the conviction of their spirits.


POSTSCRIPT dated November 14, 2011:
In retrospect, I could be very pessimistic about this experience. Of the contacts that I established, not one developed and most did not acknowledge my efforts to contact them. I gave away, at no cost to the recipient, over 60 books – I believe that a few ended up on Amazon as used books which compete with my new books; there was no increase in sales that came from this effort.

The biggest benefit that I gained was an increased knowledge of the publishing and book sales industry. I learned that to be successful with most bookstores, you really should have the backing of a large publishing house using offset printing. It is rare for a self-published author or a vanity press such as Xulon or Winepress to make the grade in national bookstores.

I found that the Christian bookstore industry is very much of a closed, inward focused collection that showed considerable disdain for self-published authors and in particular for print-on-demand books. They want books that are produced by an offset printing press so that their costs can be greatly reduced. I learned that their margins are typically around 55% which means it is exceptionally hard for a low-volume publisher such as myself to enter their world. I can't blame them for their competition from the internet is drastically cutting into their sales.

As a result of this ICRS event, I came away with the deep realization that I had over-simplified my marketing approach and it was time to get out a clean sheet of paper. My market must be through personal contacts, the internet, and other outlets that can deal with a low-volume press. Although my manuscript was clearly God ordained, the competition was far more formidable than I had anticipated.


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For other articles about self-publishing in this series, see:
Index of Self-Publishing Articles by Thomas B. Clarke