The Secret of Being Content
A New Book and Podcast from Lindsay
Welcome to my first actual email. Many of you have subscribed over the years. Thank you for your support. Moving forward, you can plan to hear from me about twice a month. If you aren’t familiar with Substack, it is a free platform where I can share devotional thoughts, poetry, and news with you. Speaking of news…
I am self-publishing my first book, with a podcast to listen along!
My latest adventure began when preparing for a woman’s retreat in Fremont that focused on the verse:
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:12-12
As I poured over the meaning and spiritual depth of each word, I kept hearing the invitation to go off my SSRI medication called Zoloft. I had been taking that, or another brand, for 22 years to help me cope with my anxiety. At that point, I had gone through a process of inner healing and knew that I was as ready as I’d ever been. I had been gradually weaning, already getting down from 100mg to 25mg. So I took the final step and went off.
One small step of faith would take me on another journey with God.
The content that I created for our retreat gripped my attention as I learned to do more than simply talk about “do not be anxious” and “pray in everything,” but I was challenged to live it out. I want to talk to you more about this journey in future posts, but now I want to share some exciting new developments with you!
As I wrestled with Paul’s challenge to bring all of my anxieties to God in prayer, I also began sinking more deeply into Paul’s entire letter of Philippians as I processed the invitation and challenge it brings. Paul had joy, contentment, and peace in impossible circumstances because of Jesus. He shares that he has “learned the secret of being content.” The word “learn” here grabs my attention because it suggests it is a process that perhaps you and I can learn. That is when a book idea was birthed: The Secret of Being Content. This book is a journey through the book of Philippians, where we uncover the secret that Paul discovered in his own life of impossible circumstances through the strength and relationship he found with Jesus.
I am so grateful for my pastor who wrestled weekly with me over the letter of Philippians and helped me to push past easy answers to the depth of what Paul was trying to communicate. I’m excited that our church is using this material for our Fall Life Group Campaign. At the end of this month, over 25 life groups will begin reading and considering how we can choose the contentment Jesus offers in our right now realities, while our pastors will be preaching and expanding on the ideas in the book in weekly sermons. To allow our church to have easier access to the material, I recorded the daily readings on a podcast platform, and for a limited time, you can have access!
You can access this book in a few different ways.
You can listen to it for free for a limited time HERE. Start with the welcome and then the introduction. After that, five daily readings will be released one week at a time, beginning Sunday, September 29th.
You can order it on Amazon on its release day— September 30!
For churches, we are developing a sermon series to accompany the book that we will make available as a PDF in January 2025.
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