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Insider Update: Strength to Equal Your Days Book Launch · The Father's Business Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: The Father's Business was founded by Sylvia Gunter to encourage people to a deeper relationship with God.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I'm Elizabeth Gunter Powell.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: And I am Kimberly Roddy.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Father's Business Podcast.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: We are so glad that you've joined us.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Well, hi everyone, welcome to today's podcast.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: We are super glad that you've joined us today, if you've been following along with us.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: We have just wrapped up our series Free to Be you, which talks about the spiritual gifts, so we hope that you enjoyed that series.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: If not, you can go back and listen to it.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Check it out.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: It was a great time of interviewing a lot of our leadership team and the various gifts that they have, and we've gotten some good feedback on people learning and growing through that series.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: So, as we enter into this fall season here at the Father's Business, we have some exciting things coming up over the next couple of weeks and months, and one of those things is that we have a new book coming out by Sylvia and Elizabeth.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: So tell us a little bit more about that, elizabeth, because this is an exciting time.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I am super excited about this project because it is a celebration of 30 years of things that mom has been writing and teaching and investing in my life and yours and the lives of so many other people.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: It's called Strength to Equal your Days a year of prayer and blessings, and it's a daily devotional that just kind of gives you just a snippet every day of the year to help remind you of who God is and who you are in Him.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: And you know life is hard, sometimes Kimberly.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I kind of laugh when I say that because I'm like you know what Life is hard most of the time.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: All of us are up against struggles, all of us are going through difficult things or situations we don't understand, and all of us just need someone sometimes to come alongside us and go.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: It's okay, you still know who you are, you still know who God is and you're going to get through this too, and so I think that's a lot of the heartbeat behind Strength to Equal your Days.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: I had a great time helping to compile this because I got to dig back deep into prayer portions living in His presence, prayer of Jabez saving the Father's heart, all Ruach journey, all of the materials that we've created over the last 30 years and kind of re-remind myself.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: My dad used to say God's kids don't stay told, and I think that is so true that we can hear truth and we can really believe it.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: But then somewhere in the middle of all that doubt kind of creeps in and we begin to forget what it is that we know, and so I think this resource is going to be a great way to have a daily reminder of what our position is in Him, and that we will have what it takes to make it through the next day.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Tell me a little bit more about how you guys came up with the title and what it really means to you guys.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: You know where it comes from is a verse in Deuteronomy, 33, 25, which is part of a promise which says your strength will equal your days.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: But the real heartbeat of it is you know, mom now is 83.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: She may hurt me for saying that on a podcast, but she is 83 years old and she's been faithfully walking with God through her entire adult life and have been active in ministry since about her 30s, so over 50 years of investing in other people.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: And the verse in Deuteronomy just kind of is the heartbeat of what we've been through, especially for those of you that follow along the podcast.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: You know there's been different seasons of life that have been hard, but I really think the last 10 years of mom's life and mine have probably been the hardest from our family perspective, as we were caring for my dad who had Alzheimer's, and there were so many days when we just didn't know if we could do it and how are we going to make it and how are we going to climb this mountain that's in front of us, and so we were able to really lean into who God is for us and who we are in him in the midst of that, and so I think that has kind of brought a richness to this idea that your strength will equal your days.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: That doesn't mean all your days are going to be easy, but it means that God is going to be with you.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: And really the other verse that mom kind of clung to as we were starting to think about this idea is out of Psalm 71, 17, 18.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: And it says oh God, from my youth you have taught me, and I still proclaim, your wondrous deeds, so even to old age and gray hairs.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: And it says, and that really has been her heartbeat and Kimberly, you and I also share the same passion, as we've worked in youth ministry for so many years.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: There's just this deep passion to pass on the truth that we have learned to the next generation.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Elizabeth, you're right, legacy is important to us as well and I often think of the verse Psalm 145, 4 says one generation shall commend your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: And it's that idea of passing on that faith right.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: And like you said, it's not easy.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Faith is not like being an adult is hard, being a human is hard, fever is hard, having faith is hard, and when we see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, we have to cling to that and we have to pass that on and share that, because we easily share and hear about some of the difficult things but sometimes it's hard to really pass on.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Let me tell you the mighty acts that God has done.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: I was spending a little bit of time with my mom last night and I shared with her.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: I said, mom, I just want to share.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: I don't often share some of the celebratory things with her in the day to day and so I paused and I said, mom, I want to share with you something that I really feel like God was in in the last few days and I shared this with her and she was kind of shifted the perspective a little bit of some things.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: I think sometimes we really have to think about that, because my mom has spent a good portion of her life a lot like your mom pouring into other people, pouring into me, and we have to move on and do that too, and we also have to pour it back into our parents.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: As they age, they can forget the things that they've celebrated throughout the years at times, and we can forget.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: We are a forgetful people, and so I do think that it's incredibly important that we commend the work of the Lord to another, tell them of his mighty acts, declare all the things that have happened and share those, so that we can pass on that legacy.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Even passing that on strengthens our faith, right.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: And so when you talk about legacy, I think about, like there's so many things that your mom has written about.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Like you said, diving into the wealth of resources to put a lot of this together has been just a probably just a glimpse of a reminder of the impact and the work that she's done.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: So this book coming out is something to celebrate.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: It is something to be excited about.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: To celebrate.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Not only is it partly a compilation of a lot of things that she's written, but it's a fresh take on it with a new resource.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: That's a daily emotional right.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: It's something that we can utilize each and every day.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: And that is something that I think back to some of our first podcasts where we were interviewing your mom and we were talking about these worksheets that she would just give to women that would come and ask to meet with her right, and she's like handing out these worksheets and we get to look now and we look back and we go look at what those worksheets built, right, and that's that piece of legacy and, kimberly, I think that's some of what's so powerful and why so many of the resources have been impactful through the years.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Because it's not.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: She never wrote anything for theological study Not that there's anything wrong with theological study but it was Everything that she has written and taught started with.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, I've got this young mom sitting in front of me.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: This is the crisis she finds herself in.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: How can I help her know how to pray about it?
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: How can I help her know who God is and how can I help her know who she is in the midst of this crisis that she finds herself in?
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: And so there's always been such a realness to everything that my mom has written and you know I could pick up prayer portions or living in his presence or any of her books, quite honestly, and I could read through it and I could almost tell you the situation that was going on when she wrote it.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: And I think it's just that life on life impact that has been so important to me, and also the fact that she's just real.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: And I also love watching my mom through the years.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: She's never been one who's tried to act like she's got her spiritual act together and everything is great and fine and you know God is good all the time.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: All the time God is good kind of thing, right, which we all need to have that perspective.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: But it hasn't been this artificial happiness kind of thing, and I'd just like to read two of the paragraphs from the introduction that I think just really underline kind of the heartbeat of where she's coming from on this.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: My mom says, reflecting on my life, I have concluded that writing about prayer and faith is far easier than living it For every moment of pure bliss in God's presence.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: There are many times when I must set my face like flint and press on, motivated by the joy set before me.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: My life has seen extraordinary displays of His mighty power, but has also faced devastating challenges where I have cried out God, is this your best idea, really?
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Yet through all those experiences I have found God to be a faithful, loving Father.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: I have learned that my circumstances do not define who God is.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Often they can distort the perception of His love and faithfulness.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: This is why I need daily reminders of God's true character and my identity in Him.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: My passion has always been to know God deeply and make Him known.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: My greatest joy comes from walking alongside others, whether for a moment or a season, helping them know Him more and love Him better.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: And that truly is the heartbeat of this new book, that maybe through her written word, she can walk alongside each of us.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: And as we were praying through this book, even how to put it together, like what prayer, what blessing, what encouragement goes on what day.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: We just kind of had to release that to God and go God.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I have no idea what anyone's going to be going through on, say, march 23rd, but you do, is going to be going through on, say, march 23rd, but you do, and so we're just trusting that there's going to be days where what the person that's holding this book needs to hear most is what God's going to allow to speak to them on the page.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: And that's just super exciting to see that legacy continue.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: And I know there are probably in the younger generations, as mom's audience continues to get a little more mature, as we all do.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: There's younger generations that may not pick up a prayer portions or living in his presence or for the family, but what if through this book, these little snippets of wisdom, they could be mentored and discipled through the Word of God and prayer?
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: And that's just super exciting to me.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: So, elizabeth, what do we know?
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: When is the book coming out?
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Is it at press now?
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: What do we have?
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Where are we?
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: We are at press right now.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: I was able to see the first prototype of the book and hold it in my hands just a day or so ago, and that is super exciting.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: So we are prayerfully at press for an end of October release.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: We're continuing to raise the funds for the first print run of this book.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Plus, I mean, there are so many people that are involved in the layout, the formatting.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of costs that go into getting a book ready for press, and so we are in the middle of a Double your Impact campaign where anyone who donates money right now we have a donor that's willing to match that up to a certain amount, and so we are raising the funds and going to press by faith that we are going to have the funds in place to cover the first print run.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Obviously, after that, as we sell the book, it will cover the cost of reprinting the book, and so we're looking forward to having a release of this book in later in October.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: And as we get closer to knowing an exact date on that my guess is it's the last week of October we will be releasing more information on our website and through emails and other places.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: To me this is very exciting.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Like I've been able to see you hold.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Like you've sent me some videos of you holding up the the book and I haven't actually seen it yet either in person but I've seen you holding up the book, elizabeth, and the excitement behind getting it ready and the anticipation behind getting it ready and all the work that's gone into it.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Like you guys have put a ton of work into this and it is a true labor of love.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: If you follow us and you receive emails from us, then we are sending emails out this week and if you've gotten those or you're listening to this podcast this week, it's the week of September 23rd.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: There's information going out this week.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: You're the first to hear about all the details of what's coming and what's going on with this book and it's exciting.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: And so if you're not a part of our emails and you want to get on our email list, you can go to our website, thefathersbusinesscom, and click there.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: There's a button where you can get on our email list.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: The other thing that's super exciting, as I think about all that's going on, is that we're connecting the release of this book with an event that we're going to be doing in October.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: We're just talking about legacy and we really want to do a couple of things at this event.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: One of those things is we want to launch the book.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: We want to have our first copies there ready for people to purchase and see and put their hands on, and that's going to be a celebration time together.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: One of the other things that we want to do is we want to celebrate this legacy.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: We want to celebrate the legacy of Sylvia's ministry and of her passing the baton to Elizabeth and me joining in on that, yeah we would love for you to join us October 18th in Birmingham Alabama.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: There is information about it and a place to register for it on our website under our events.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: It is a free event.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: We want to offer you a free lunch so that you can come and join us for that time, but we do need a headcount on how many people are going to be there to make sure we have enough food for everybody.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: So October 18th we're going to be meeting at Crossbridge Church.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: They have been so warm and welcoming and allowing us to use their space and we're going to be meeting at Crossbridge Church.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: They have been so warm and welcoming and allowing us to use their space, and it's going to be a great time of.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: As Kimberly said, we are going to have a limited number of pre-launch books available for purchase there.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Then the full release of the book will probably come a week to two weeks after that.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: So if you want to be the first one to have a copy of a book, you can come join us in Birmingham, alabama, on October 18th, and all the information about that event is available on our website.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: So be sure and RSVP as soon as possible, register, sign up for the event, because we do want to make sure that we have enough food there for everyone.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: The other thing, like Elizabeth said, this is a free event.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: We want you guys to come, we want you to see the book, we want you to see Elizabeth and myself and Sylvia will all be there and our leadership team will be there.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: We want to gather with you in person to celebrate this.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: The other thing that we will be doing is taking up a love offering.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: So much of what we do as you hear at the end of our podcast, if you hang around and listen to the ending and beginnings of podcasts is that so much of what we do is made possible by your generous donations and we have had so many people that have generously donated over the years, and we want to celebrate you by you showing up.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: This is something to honor you this having an event where you can come and be with us and get the first look at this book, get a first opportunity to buy the book, and if you would like to write a note to Sylvia, please do that.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: You can bring cards and notes to her during that day.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: We are hoping that we can overwhelm her in a positive way.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: We don't want to overwhelm her and exhaust her, but we do want to overwhelm her with love that day and for her to be able to see the impact that her words and prayers and blessings have had on people.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: So we're looking forward to it.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: We hope to see you there and over the next couple of weeks on our podcast.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Elizabeth and I hope to be talking a little bit more on this idea of how do we find strength to equal our days.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: In Deuteronomy we're told that our strength will equal our days and yet we have to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: So there's you know, how do we do?
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: How do we have that strength without striving in genuine faith when life is also really good and really hard, and there's a lot of complicated conversation around that and a lot of encouragement, and a lot of complicated conversation around that and a lot of encouragement and a lot of hurt and frustration and all of that.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: So over the next couple of weeks, elizabeth and I will talk through some of that and we hope that you'll join us and just sit with us as we talk about those things and hopefully you can be encouraged through those conversations.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: So we look forward to seeing you in October.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Go to the website at thefathersbusinesscom to register and we look forward to being with you next time on our podcast.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: I want to thank you for listening to the Father's Business Podcast.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: This podcast is made possible through donations by people like you.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: To donate, go to wwwthefathersbusinesscom.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Be sure to follow us at the Father's Biz on Instagram and Facebook.