My novel Anything takes place on a quirky college campus reminiscent of my own time at LeTourneau University. I was drawn there for the same reason as my protagonist and found myself in a hilariously unique environment. Nicknames, pranks, and traditions for days.
My floormates (people who lived in my dorm) and I being pushed in a truck around campus by our "brother floor." Quirky college traditions at their finest. Note the matching red shirts and flag flying.
LeTourneau campus was like a bobblehead with so many nods to its founder. A museum-like exhibit describing his life story sat on an upper floor of the student center. A giant statue of him on campus was surrounded by his tractor inventions. Plenty was said about the fascinating RG LeTourneau. A man with God's calling on his life. He was a man devoted to Jesus as well as an earthmoving inventor, entrepreneur, businessman, and eventually a missionary and preacher too. Still, the hoopla didn't have a profound effect on me during my time there. Too much new and different to take in. College Kristina was preoccupied.
My mom read RG Letourneau’s—Bob’s—autobiography and strongly recommended it. Repeatedly. I wish I’d listened sooner than I had, because attending his school would have been far more an honor while I was there. It took me 15 years to heed my mom's recommendation, but I finally read it last March. An autobiography full of detailed tractor descriptions is hardly my usual cup of tea, but I was nothing less than gobsmacked by Bob’s life.
Though an uneducated blue-collar worker, God used Bob to blow earthmoving engineering out of the water. When Bob fully committed to living his life in God’s service, he thought he must need to go into ministry. But, after devoted prayer, his pastor guided him, “You know God needs businessmen too.” From that point on, Bob called himself “God’s Business Partner.” Treating God as the senior partner of LeTourneau Technologies, Bob made all of his business decisions and company policies in prayer. The result was incredible.
There were some major disasters in Bob’s life, one of which left him $100,000 in debt—something like $1.8 million in today's dollars—going into the Great Depression. What a time in history to start so far in the red. Bob was persuaded in prayer to continue making his donations to the missions organization he had pledged to. He also disallowed work for any of his employees on Sundays, a horror to those who knew his financial situation. Shouldn’t he be doing everything he could to scrape some pennies together? But God blessed Bob’s business profoundly. With God as his partner, Bob went from devastating debt to profits of over a million dollars—something like $20 million today—per year near the end of the Great Depression, an astonishing miracle. Bob began living on 10% of his income to donate 90% to God’s purposes, reversing the traditional tithing paradigm. “It's not how much of my money I give to God,” he said, "but how much of God's money I keep for myself.” Relatedly, he said, “I shovel out the money, and God shovels it back—but God has a bigger shovel.”
No decision is too mundane or too secular to submit it back to God. In constant prayer, requesting his wisdom, and surrendering to his plan, Bob showed us that we can experience God's guidance in absolutely anything.
After I was spit out of the whirlwind of writing my first novel, I prayed and prayed. What was the purpose of all of that? My own development? Preparation for something in my future? Or should I actually go do something with my written product? I kept asking that if He wanted something to come of it, that He would be the one to make it happen. Maybe that was in faith, or maybe it was in fear. Probably some of both.
I didn’t tell a single friend about my writing for months, expecting it would fizzle as a short-lived side-project. Like “Oh, I wrote a novel once” with a hand wave. My husband donned a metaphoric (thankfully) cheerleader’s outfit and started pushing and prodding me. In addition to my new full-time job of writing, I also hired myself as a part-time Expectation Lowerer. “This isn’t a big deal," I'd say. "I have no expectation of this going anywhere. Maybe the book is just for me to learn from.” He continually replied, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what are your next steps?”
In October, I finally mustered the courage to ask God to do something with my book. I felt so sheepish, like I should use my prayers on something more important. Who am I to pray for something so unlikely, so absurd, so selfish? The dream of being an author reminded me of Walker Hayes' songs about trying to make it as a musician. And Andy Grammer’s. And so many others. A career as an author is as one-in-a-million, financially infeasible, and impractical as the music industry. But I felt this nudging. Just ask. What if I got to be God's Writing Partner? What if he wanted to use me? What an adventure it would be!
I have no idea what the end of this story will be, or even the middle. Maybe he wants twenty people to read my book, or maybe a thousand. Maybe this will be the only book published or maybe I'll write for twenty years. Whatever he has planned, I can see that God has guided me already. Inspired by Bob, I talked to God as I wrote this first book, asked even the tiniest questions. What should happen in this part? What am I missing? I've asked Him a thousand times, Make this into whatever you want it to be. Now I pray a braver prayer. Make this into something you want to use. And something like, Whoever you want to impact with this story, make it just right for them. And then I wrote a second book. And a third. I've now written most of four books in the series. I rarely hear complete sentences in response to my prayers, but I experience his nudges, his guidance, his inspiration. I can see the results are different when I continue to submit and to ask versus when I forget and flail about on my own. Often his response is not to write at all but to slow my roll, to surrender it again, to go play with my kids instead.
The opportunity to work with my accomplished editor was an obvious form of God's provision. I prayed and prayed about who to submit my manuscript to, who to hire. He led me towards a certain editor, and I went for it. It turned out to be the most beneficial decision for my writing possible. (A book she edited even won a Carol Award while I was working with her. Woah.) In addition to her edit, she offered the opportunity of several hours of one-on-one coaching. Her encouragement and training grew my writing by leaps and bounds.
We all have the opportunity to join in God’s endeavors. We can be God’s school partner, God's athletics partner, God’s parenting partner, God’s nursing partner, God’s volunteering partner. His partnership doesn’t always come with LeTourneau’s piles of money, but with a richness, a purposefulness, an eternal impact from our work. If we earnestly submit every decision to him, he’ll guide us. God says he hands out wisdom like candy on Halloween—the big house with the king size bars—if we’ll just ask. (James 1:5) Let’s try it. With God as our senior partner, we don’t have the pressure of keeping ourselves afloat, of making our life count. We need only to submit each decision, every detail to him and to stand back and see what he wants to do with it. Imagine working alongside a senior partner who only ever has grand, good ideas. What an adventure.
____ Up for more? Here are thoughts on prayer as a strategy (spoiler: it's not a cop-out), seeing God's answers to prayer, and what to do when you don't know what the future holds. I love getting messages about how this is showing up in your life. And here's that book I talked about writing.
Waiting, oh so impatiently!