A Picture Worth 60,000 Words

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I’m not sure who “they” are, but this picture is worth 60,000 words…literally.

It’s a photograph of New York Times bestselling author Mark Batterson speaking to a room of aspiring writers on October 19, 2013 in Austin, Texas at an event called Re:Write Conference.

What you probably haven’t noticed about the picture is that I’m in the blurry background. You can find me just below the framed wall art on the right side in front of the two men with the video camera. Yeah, I’m the guy with his head down who appears to be sleeping. I can assure you that I wasn’t sleeping…but I was dreaming. Moments before keynote speaker Mark Batterson was introduced to speak during the closing session, Tyndale Momentum awarded a publishing contract to the winner (Cherie Lowe — Slaying the Debt Dragon) of the 2013 Re:Write Writing Contest.

So nope, I wasn’t sleeping. I was dreaming about what it would be like to win the same contest—all while pounding out notes furiously on my MacBook as Mark dropped awesome sauce for the soul. It was this following quote that rocked me to the core:

“If you feel called by God to write—but you aren’t writing—you are living in disobedience.”

Dang.

This was an epic moment in my publishing journey that pushed me from dreaming to doing.

Here is my actual tweet just days after the conference:

From that moment on I continued to pray, dream, and write. Fast-forward to February 27, 2015. I won the same contest that I was dreaming about in the above photograph…which resulted in a publishing contract with Tyndale Momentum. I submitted my 60,000 word manuscript in August 2015 and my book 41 Will Come released on August 1, 2016 with an endorsement from…yep, the guy in the picture—Mark Batterson.

Now 41 Will Come is in it’s third printing and I have received numerous encouraging emails and messages from people throughout the U.S., Canada and as far away as South Africa. I have been privileged to share the 41 Will Come message on the Canadian television show 100 Huntley Street, on the nationally syndicated radio show In the Market With Janet Parshall, and on numerous additional radio shows such as Live the Promise with Susie Larson and Pat Williams – The Power Hour (Senior Vice President of the NBA’s Orlando Magic).

In fact, I just received this tweet a couple days ago:

So check this out: Because Mark Batterson followed his dream to become an author (more than a decade and several books ago) he ended up on the stage at a writers conference (which was an idea/dream of my literary agent Esther Fedorkevich) that directly fueled my dream. The result of my dream-come-true landed me on a radio show that was the result of author/speaker Susie Larson’s dream. The result of that radio show interview between Susie and I pushed Leanne (in the tweet above) to move forward with her dream and the result of that dream is a book that will release next month! This entire scenario is what Mark Batterson would call (in his book Chase The Lion) a “dream within a dream.”

So…what is your dream?! Write it down.

What is God calling you to do? Let me know so I can pray for you!

I firmly believe that God is already moving behind the scenes to set up divine appointments on behalf of you and your dream.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life. ~Proverbs 13:12 (NLT)

Dream big.

Hustle hard.

Trust God.

Go!

Holding On & Standing Strong,
~Chuck