Tag: Faith

Redefining Who I Am || My Backstory

Part One – My Backstory

LynneCollier.com
Lynne Collier – Author & Kingdom Purpose Coach

 

Discovering My Kingdom Purpose

I now know about God’s purpose for my life, but in early adulthood, I attended a church which didn’t speak much about the Holy Spirit and His work in our lives. The congregation was taught the laws and rules of ‘being a good Christian’ and entrance into heaven, it seemed, was by doing more good deeds than bad ones so the scales ‘tipped in our favour’. The atmosphere was one of perfection and judgement. I often thought God must be very disappointed with me and I felt that I let Him down constantly. The overwhelming feeling of falling short of God’s grace led me to fall away from the church and it was several years before I felt strong enough to try another church. Maybe you’ve experienced this too.

So I sought the Lord and He heard me. I was invited to a church for a dedication of a newborn, a baby born to friends of the family, so I happily attended. The difference between my previous church and this one was like night and day and I was drawn to follow Christ again. This new church spoke about the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Trinity works together. They also had classes I could take during the week to study my faith more and find a deeper relationship with my Lord.

It was at one of these classes I learned about Spiritual Gifts and I was astonished to hear I had been given special Gifts by God and didn’t know it! I took every class I could to learn about God and spoke often with believers who had been involved with the church for many years. Through their guidance and mentorship, I gradually realized the unique way God has designed me for a specific purpose. I’m not just here to live then die and hope the in-between is good enough to get me into Heaven. I’m here for a reason! We all are. God has a royal assignment for me and every believer. Yes, royal; He is the King of Kings and we are His children, princes and princesses in the Kingdom of God on Earth. How cool!

I learned to realize my Kingdom Purpose by studying about my Spiritual Gifts and how God, my Heavenly Father, has also given me a heart passion for his work for me, a personality that works well with what I need to do, natural abilities which help me to carry out specific tasks, and life experiences to help me grow in my faith and calling. These are all in a book I studied at church, called S.H.A.P.E by Erik Rees. This book has played a major role in every aspect of my life, as you’ll come to know if you follow my blog. Another great book to study is The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren.

I tried to fit everything I could into one blog, but there are so many areas of my life I had to work on to find my Kingdom Purpose I’ve decided to blog about each aspect separately, so you don’t need to read a ten-page blog.  I hope you’ll join me as I share with you how God brought clarity and purpose to my life.

Stay tuned for part two — Redefining What I Do.

Till next time, I hope you are blessed.

Lynne

 

Resources:

Spiritual Gifts Test

S.H.A.P.E by Erik Rees

The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren

Switching Focus

My next blog was going to be about compiling a playlist to inspire you as you write your fantasy novel. Instead, I’m letting you, my fellow bloggers, know I’m switching my focus on this site. I’ll let you know how you can still read the playlist post later.

Switching Focus
New Path

#WritingFantasy  Will Carry On

I’ve completed the series of posts I wanted to share with you about Writing Fantasy and the steps I’ve taken on my own journey writing my first fantasy novel. I’m very excited to start the actual writing process this November for my second NaNoWriMo! If you’ve followed my posts over the past few months I hope you’ll join me in November as we fire out 50,000 words together.

My Outline, Setting, Characters, World Building and Premise are all going to be relocated to another blog I write on, White Rose Writers.

So What’s My New Focus? #AmWriting

As most of you know from reading my profile, as well as being a writing coach I’m also a Christian Life Coach and Certified Lay Pastoral Counselor with many years experience coaching and encouraging believers in their walk with God. This will be my main focus on this blog going forward.

I’ll be blogging about Your Sacred Path, Finding Your Life Purpose, Hearing God’s Voice, Choosing Careers and possibly sharing a few gardening tips along the way. I love to network so I’ll be giving you links whenever I can for you to explore further.

My newsletter will be about the books and courses I’ll be writing, plus I’ll let you know when I’m launching something new, and I’ll have giveaways and social media events exclusively for my blog readers. If you choose to continue following me here that would be lovely, if however, you’re interested in continuing to follow my posts on writing, head over to White Rose Writers and follow my posts there, along with branding and marketing tips from my social media partner, Kirstie Shanks.

Thank you for taking time out from your busy life to read and comment.

Till next time here, or at White Rose Writers, I hope you are blessed.

Lynne

Why I Do What I Do – My Manifesto

“The point of a manifesto is that it makes you draw a line in the sand, which forces you to clarify your message. But before you do that, you have to know what you’re about.” – Jeff Goins

I was challenged this week to write a manifesto as part of a writing exercise created by Jeff Goins, a writer and best-selling author.  In the exercise we’re called to write a few hundred words about our worldview; the problem, the solution, and what we see as our part in that solution. So here you go…

The problem as I see it is that, like many others, I didn’t know how to do what I felt ‘called’ to do. Just how do you help others? There are so many needs in the world. We can’t possibly remedy all of them as one individual. That realization brought me to find just one way I could make a difference in just one life. I had felt like a tiny boat being tossed around, lost in a sea of helplessness, without a compass to give me a sense of direction in life. I no longer felt that way. I could start there. How did I rise above the relentless waves?  How could what I had been through serve as encouragement to someone else?

The solution for me came while visiting a Christian counselling centre. I had rededicated my life and I was talking with a life coach there. She told me to write down all my attributes, educational and life experiences and see if God had already put a pattern on my life. Yes, He had! I decided to study the way God creates us all with a specific purpose in mind and see if I could realize what His assignment was for me.

The next step was to accept that assignment and put it into practice helping others to do the same. People need to know they have worth and purpose. The solution for me was to help others find their own answer to the question, “What on Earth Am I Doing Here?”

If you’re asking yourself – or God – this question, there is an answer waiting for you.  You just need to pick up your oars and start paddling in the right direction.

 

Lynne

LynneCollier.com

What On Earth Are You Doing Here?

Kingdom Purpose – What On Earth Are You Doing Here?

We’re not content to merely exist – we want to matter in this world. So how do we figure out what our own life means? If we’re not a famous evangelist or humanitarian, what’s our purpose for being here?

“It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.” – (Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, 1:11-12 MSG).

We are all unique individuals, with our own unique qualities and our own unique assignment from God.  He gave us all the attributes we’d need to do His work here and feel His pleasure in our completed assignment. Take a look at a picture of space.

star-clusters-74052_640

The God who created the earth and all those amazing nebulas and supernova, dark matter and pulsars, created you and me unique and in His image to be family in His name!

“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago”. – (Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, 2:10 NIV).

Whatever God has laid on your heart He has given you the ability to do. What has your heavenly Father asked you to undertake on His behalf in this kingdom on earth?

You can find my 22-page mini-course, Your Write Voice For His Kingdom, on the sidebar of the Homepage.

My Review of ‘Rescued’ by Donna Dawson

Donna Dawson now publishes under the name of Donna Fawcett, but some of her earlier work was published under Donna Dawson. It’s under this name I discovered a book titled, Rescued. I was captivated by the story from the start with the characters and how their lives initially were so different but eventually came together in an astounding decision to rescue a baby’s life. This story fascinates and compels at the same time. I was challenged to think, “What if…?”

What If…?

“What if there was a solution to abortion? What if pro-life and pro-choice could join forces to see the war over the issue end? Is it possible?”

Here’s the synopsis:

“Daphne Barrie is pregnant. Unless she aborts, she will die.

Charlene McTaggart can’t conceive and badly wants a child. Dr. Jason Steadman goes against those who would do all they can to stop a unique procedure from being performed. A procedure that will save an embryo, prevent a death and give an infertile woman a chance at motherhood”.

This book will leave you asking the same question, “What if…?”

You can read the first few pages, Donna’s author bio and a list of other books written by her by clicking the book link to Amazon.

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Lynne

(note: I’m an Amazon affiliate and receive a small fee for using their images when I promote someone’s work.)