Happy 12-12-12! I’m so super pumped about today’s guest: author James L. Rubart. Those of us who are writers all have author heroes we look up to–Jim Rubart is one of mine. I love his stories, I love his writing and I love all the stuff I’ve learned through his marketing classes at a couple different writing conferences.
Jim’s latest book, Soul’s Gate, in a word, rocks. Must-read, people! Which is why I’m so glad he’s offered to give away a copy! To enter, just leave a comment below. You’ve got until next Tuesday to enter.
Speaking of drawings, congrats to Magdalene Landegent, winner of last week’s giveaway. Maggie, your copy of Clay Morgan’s Undead will hit your mailbox soon.
Do You Live With Freedom?
That was the first line on my Web site for years. (It will be again, but a new site is under construction and I only have a splash page up now. Yes, of course you can take a look: http://jameslrubart.com )
I use that line for two reasons. First, it grabs people’s attention. “Do you live with freedom?” is a universal question we’re compelled to consider. I believe all of us either want to live with freedom or want to live with more freedom than we have at the moment. So it draws people into my site and makes them read further.
Second, I believe it’s my destiny to try to help people enter into more freedom. I believe it’s what God has given me to do while wrapped in this mortal coil.
If someone shakes me awake in the middle of the night and I’m groggy with sleep and have no time to think and they ask, “What is your purpose, Jim?” I would probably answer, “Help people live free.”
That’s the end goal of the novels I write, the talks I give, and the time I spend with friends and family. I want every encounter someone has with Jim Rubart to be one where I help people step further into the freedom that’s in Jesus.
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I want them to experience healing.
I want them to step into their divinely designed destiny which brings such freedom to people.
I want them to taste the riches in this life that are but a foreshadow of the riches in the age to come.
Your Turn
What about you? What’s the question at the core of your life? The one you are compelled to continually ask yourself and the people around you even if only in your mind? The question that motivates you to take action, to risk, to press deeper into Jesus?
Whether you’re a writer, painter, sculptor, musician, mom, dad, teacher, construction worker, waiter … what do you want people to come away with after being with you?
Years ago a friend of mind said, “Every pastor has one basic sermon, and he keeps preaching it over and over again in different ways.”
I agree. There is a theme that runs through all my novels: Freedom. There is a theme that runs through my wife’s life: Fighting for the unnoticed.
What is the theme of your life? I encourage you to start digging into that question if you don’t know the answer. It will take time. It will be a journey. But once you answer it, it will set you free.
James L. Rubart is the best-selling, award winning author of four novels. Publishers Weekly says this about his latest release, SOUL’S GATE: “Readers with high blood pressure or heart conditions be warned: this is a seriously heart-thumping and satisfying read that goes to the edge, jumps off, and “builds wings on the way down.”
During the day he runs Barefoot Marketing which helps businesses and authors make more coin of the realm. He lives with his amazing wife and two sons in the Pacific Northwest and loves to dirt bike, hike, golf, takes photos, and still thinks he’s young enough to water ski like a madman. More at www.jameslrubart.com
Be sure to leave a comment–telling us the theme of your life–to be entered into a giveaway for Jim’s latest book, Soul’s Gate!
I’ll announce the winner next Wednesday. But if you don’t win, don’t worry–you can go here to pick out and order it from your favorite online outlet. Another giveaway coming at ya next week!
Comments 36
I love being introduced to authors I’m not familiar with – thanks, Melissa. I’d say my theme closely mirrors Jim’s. People are so bound by so many things, but the word that always runs through my mind is identity/name…finding WHO people are in Christ–to lead them to the freedom found in that:)
Susan, I think my theme might be similar. I come back to it all the time on this blog…identity…who I am…what Christ has called me. I spoke on those verses in Romans 4 at ACFW…about God first naming Abraham and then bringing that name to life…and I love that. And I love what you said, there’s seriously such freedom in knowing who and whose we are.
I’ve loved Jim’s first two books and as a (former) Pacific Northwester am thrilled as he weaves smasterful themes in that beautiful setting. I’m also watching and applauding his meteoric rise. Congrats!
Applauding with you, Dee. I love his books!
I think mine is a borrowed theme, but that’s okay, because it’s a big enough theme that lots of people can use it. It comes from a (well, probably ALL of them) John Piper book. “God is most glorified in us when we’re most satisfied in him.” I think the theme of my life and of my writing has always been finding satisfaction in Jesus (that He is enough) when things are great and when things are really hard. That’s what I want people to see in me when we talk, and that’s what I hope they experience in my books. That it’s all for His glory and our good.
Yeah, awesome quote, Erynn, and awesome life/story theme. Love it!
the theme of my life is to live one day at a time…and enjoy it.
thanks for the giveaway, melissa 🙂
karenk
kmkuka at yahoo dot com
One day at a time. I frequently repeat that to myself. Thanks for stopping by, Karen!
Fabulous Post, Jim and Melissa! I appreciated learning from Jim at the ACFW Conference this past year.
How does faith thrive in the presence of pain? That is the tip of my life question. It is also the focus of my writing. Sparking hope in the face of fear. Finding the Presence of God enough to sustain us and help us thrive in difficult times.
Thanks for sharing yours, Jim!
Sparking hope in the face of fear. That’s awesome, Michelle. Also fits nicely with your book title. 🙂
I loved Jim’s Live Free, Write Free workshop at the ACFW conference this year. My theme…I’ll have to pray and think on that one.
I heard soooo many good things about that class. Kicking myself for missing it!!
The theme of my life is that I can do anything I want to, even bungee jump (if I wanted to) and I like to encourage others to believe in themselves and their dreams…one of my favorite verses is “I can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens me.”
Pat, I now really want you to want to bungee jump. 🙂 I love that picture in my head!
I don’t love that picture in your head. lol. I completed a trust course once called Tree Tops where you and a buddy walked these ropes up in the trees, and half way across you had to swap places. Then at the end, you sat on a platform and it dropped out from under you and you went swinging through the trees to the ground. That was enough for me. lol
Oh, I had to do a ropes course once, too, as part of a mission trip team building thing. Not. a. fan. I’m not scared of heights if I’m on something stable, but up on that catwalk I kind of wanted to cry. But oh man, imagining that last part you described–the platform dropping out from under you?! That would completely freak me out. Swinging to the ground would probably be fun, it’d be the waiting for it to drop that’d kill me. 🙂
This is seriously a good post. It has me thinking. Can the theme be something I struggle with myself? Because I think one of my biggest struggles has always been in my identity, which I often base on what I achieve. This year, I’ve been refocusing, trying to remember that I am ENOUGH because I am HIS. And that’s what I would want readers–and anyone I come in contact with–to know, especially women, who struggle so much with comparison, etc.
But I also have a major part of me that struggles with trusting God. I’m sure it’s related. So a lot of me wants to say the theme of my life is that God is trustworthy even if I can’t understand why He’s doing something a certain way.
I’ll have to think more about how the two coorelate.
Thanks for making me think, Jim. I look forward to attending more classes of yours in the future (the talk you gave this year at the MBT pitching seminar at ACFW was great).
And Mel, I don’t need to be entered. I already won a copy of Soul’s Gate from another blog! 😉 Can’t wait to dive in.
Um, I think maybe our themes often if not always grow out of things we struggle with ourselves…or have struggled with in the past, perhaps. And you know me well enough to know that the whole identity thing is something I sooooo connect with…I really feel like our generation is trained to think of our identity all wrong…from grade school up, we’re taught we are what we do. I’m thankful for family who always reminded me otherwise, but it’s still something I grapple with…as you know…and hear about often. Haha!
Wonderful post! My theme seems to be truth. Discovering the truth, telling the truth, preaching the truth to myself. I need daily reminders of what is truth, and I need to know the One who is The Truth more.
I’m still pondering in my heart all the truth I received in the Live Free, Write Free session. And I thank you, Jim, for that.
Truth. Sweet theme, Erica! Oh man, I’ve gotta get the mp3s for that Live Free, Write Free workshop!
Ya gotta read a blog post that highlights a photo of a man waterskiing!
😉
What’s my theme?
Honesty … wrapped up in humor, I think.
Hhhhmm, mulling over this post. And, who knows? I may change my answer by the end of the day …
Honesty wrapped up in humor. I love that, Beth! I love humor, obviously, but honesty is even huger…in both stories of yours I’ve read, I definitely recognize a running theme of truth…characters facing the truth about themselves, about God, about life…there’s such depth in your stories!
Melissa, thanks for hosting Jim!
Jim, your question, “Do you live with freedom?” is thought-provoking. It leaps barriers of religion to the core of Christianity and living in general. Mine? “How do you hydrate your soul?” Simply put, the well we drink from makes all the difference. I can’t wait to read Souls Gate. Well done and congratulations!
Ooh, cool theme, Donna! I love it!
Jim & Melissa,
Loved the blog today very thought provoking. I also thoroughly enjoyed attending Jim’s seminars..always a class act!
My theme? To show women not to get stuck in the past. Cry, rant, rave, pray and move on. God has so much MORE planned for us to get stuck in the mire and muck of the past.
Blessings!
I love that theme, Alena. And I CAN’T WAIT til I get to read one of your books. 🙂
I don’t know what my theme in life is- something with helping people and wanting to make a difference. Melissa, I liked your comment (from Jim) about asking people 3 questions before talking about yourself. I’m not very good at that- unless I’m at work and asking about something like their bowel habits or vomiting. Thanks for making me think today!
You definitely help people. Ha, the kind of questions you must ask people that non-ER-docs would never get away with, hilarious!
Great question. Very difficult question. There is a theme that you try to attain and there is a theme that happens naturally. The theme that happens naturally is that I am a sinner that continues to mess up daily and my grace-filled God continues to show me grace through Jesus Christ. The theme I want to become apart of my life story is: There is no me, only Jesus shining through.
Nice distinction, Mel. 🙂
Melissa and Jim,
I had to think about this for awhile because I hadn’t boiled it down to one phrase but I want to give people hope. Oh, I’m also a big believer in grace. We all need it and need to extend it to others. (Like another poster, I may refine or change my answer.)
Thanks for a thought-provoking post!
Roxanne, thanks for stopping by! ACFW feels like too long ago…and Florida too far away. 🙂 Hope and grace. Good ones. 🙂
Great post, Jim! And a great question, too.
My gift is exhortation, and I am an encourager. I’m also totally in love with all the extravagant, lavish beauty displayed around us.
About a decade ago, after reading Laurie Beth Jones, “Jesus, CEO: Using Ancient Wisdom for Visionary Leadership”, followed by her book “The Path,” this was the mission statement I wrote for my life:
To communicate,
empower, and illuminate the value of all God’s creation,
so clearly expressing the beauty I envision
and completely affirming
the innate dreams of others,
that they will turn to
the One who loves them most.
And, yes, it fully applies to all I do, whether as an encourager, proofreader and/or editor, photographer, or jewelry designer. It’s all about love: capturing His love for us and reflecting/refracting it for others to see, so they turn to the only true Source of all that’s good and beautiful.
All of Heaven’s best to you, James, as well as to Melanie.
Oh, and thanks to you too, Melissa for being the wonderful child of God you are and for hosting many other wonderful peeps (including Jim).
Thanks so much for stopping by, Margret. What a mission statement…and beautifully expressed. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Melissa, I’m going to have a go at writing my comment a second time. For some reason my first one went AWOL into the internet maze.
I’m still waiting for Soul’s Gate to wing its way down under. I’m thinking it must be coming via carrier pigeon, it now being a month since I ordered it. But the wait has only served to increase my sense of anticipation.
I love Jim’s writing & his position on the one “life-theme”.
Over the past few years I’ve been amazed at how the Lord pursues us so relentlessly as He so desires intimacy with us. I now feel I’m in a position where I’m pursuing Him as He has birthed such a strong desire in my heart for His presence, love & heart. I’ve dubbed it “Reaching for Jesus” and I try to share that with people as I go about my days.
Thanks for this post Melissa and for your excellent blog. I too have been working my way through “Jesus Calling” this year and am continually blown away by how often the posts speak so directly to me.
Take care and have a wonderful Christmas.
Ian Acheson