In the introduction to “The Man in the Window”, I ended it with a quote from one of my favorite stories.  “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.  You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

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This week was the one-year anniversary of me publishing my first book “The Man in the Window”.   It’s oddly interesting one year later, as I spent the last couple of weeks reflecting on what this book has done, and what do I feel like the Lord is speaking to me today.   Questions to whether or not it was actually significant, the internal struggles of whether people will actually take the time to read it or not. There was something very raw about hitting the submit button on the book, with the final draft and knowing that you were putting thoughts, testimonies, revelations & relationships out there for the world to see.  In the four years that I spent carrying this thought with me, as long as the book was trapped in my laptop, I didn’t have to worry about other peoples thoughts or interpretations of the revelations that I felt like the Lord had given me.  

 

Let me just say how encouraged I have been by all the emails, messages, and encouragement that I have received over the last year. I can remember the month of July, it became a regular habit to check the Publisher’s site each day to track and see if there were any book sales.  Then one day, I felt like the Lord spoke to me and said don’t look at that. SO in my angst, I quit logging into the publishing website to track my sales each day, which gave me a sense of peace.  The Lord didn’t tell me to sell a thousand copies, or ten thousand, or a million, he simply told me to write this book. 

 

I thought when we released the book, that the feedback would be from Pastors, saying things like this is exactly the strategy we should be taking.  I thought that when I shared my revelation that there would be people saying things like, “this is great revelation for this passage”.    Although we have had feedback from pastors, evangelism teams, etc.  It’s been the short notes from individuals telling me how personal the story and revelation was to them, because they can remember being the Man in the Window, or the emails from people telling me that they had been out of the church for some time, and didn’t realize it, but the book was speaking to them personally.  Multiple individuals that I don’t even know that emailed to tell me they had a loved one that battled alcoholism and how much my testimony resonated with them. That’s where I have found my joy in the past year.

 

I was challenged by my good friend and Worship Pastor Robb McCormick one day.  Robb asked “David, do you not think that everyone in the world should read your book?” He then asked, “why would you write a book or me release an album, if we didn’t think it was worthy for everyone in the world to hear or read?”.       Granted there is success in selling thousands of books, the perspective of the World would be that if “The Man in the Window” sold a million copies it would be a success.   The Peace that I have, is that I was never called to be a successful author (in the eyes of the world), I was called to be obedient to what I felt like the Father called me to do.   

 

In the end, we have to ask ourselves are we more concerned with the world's perspective of us, or God's?

 

To all my friends that took the time to read this short book on evangelism and my heart for the revelation that God gave to me.  Thank You.   Thank you for all the encouragement.  Thank you for little notes and emails, the feedback.   Your words have done more than you could ever know in this last 12 months of perspective.  

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