(Photo credit: Liam Campbell)
"Before there were blogs, I wrote. Before there were social media platforms, I photographed every precious moment. Before there were vlogs, I recorded.
It’s how I was made. If no one but myself saw anything I documented or wrote, I would never stop. For every one photo that I share publicly, hundreds of others have been taken. For every piece of writing that I have shared, dozens were not. For years, I have kept most of it to myself. I don’t like the spotlight.
But, God. He is persistent.
What would our world be like if C.S. Lewis kept every revelation from God, every imaginative story, or every profound thought to himself? What would our world be like if Paul didn’t share all of the miracles he saw, trials he experienced, and places he traveled to for the sake of the gospel? No one would choose to do those things without the Holy Spirit moving them. His drive to share Jesus was unshakeable.
What would our world look like if musicians like Zach Williams who was a former rock singer wrapped up in drinking and drugs, walked away from all of it, and turned back to Jesus, decided to hide in his shame and not do music again? How many people that lived similar lives as he had would have ever come to know Jesus if he hadn’t written down those first Christian lyrics that were swirling around in his head?
What do you do when you have been gifted with things that you know God gave you to use for this present age? Even if it meant you had to step way out of your comfort zone and ignore the fear of losing approval from those you love most and care about?
Would you ignore the constant groaning of the Holy Spirit inside of you that says, “share what you’re doing with the world?” Or would you risk it, take one little step at a time, push aside every fear, and fix your eyes only on your Creator?
'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.' Jeremiah 29:11"
I posted the above writing on March 1, 2020 on my photography website/blog just before our world was flipped upside down. I had completely forgotten that I even did. Yesterday, I just felt led to go back into my older writings on my computer and it was the first one I read. I checked to see if I had done anything with it and in fact I had.
When I read that forgotten writing, I was absolutely struck by it. It was as if I had written it last week and not over three years ago. How encouraging to see that my God given conviction had remained the same! I struggled for six years trying to act on that conviction until recently when Ralph came home.
I am in awe of how God has orchestrated our lives to get us to this point. Ralph's focus is on Tradeway which takes up much of his time, but we are working on making more time for Flipped Lifestyle. Learning what Flipped Lifestyle teaches and then applying it has been a challenge for us both, but we believe that it is a great tool to help my creative mind narrow down an idea in order to generate an income.
When we started Simply Campbell, we had no idea Life Surge existed and that nine months later Ralph would be home. I was simply being obedient in creating a website that was designed to do what I believed God had been calling me to do for the past six years. As I wrote in our about page, it was created for whatever God saw fit to use it for. We can see now that God was preparing us.
Courtney is the mastermind behind Simply Campbell. She is the creative one. I do not usually think to write, take photos, or videos on my own. I just trust Courtney. Like her, I believe that our story has the ability to help others that are going through similar circumstances. Since launching Simply Campbell, I have been surprised by the amount of people that have had an interest in hearing what we have had to say and that there are people that have wanted to come along with us on our faith journey.
This website has allowed me to do many of the things I love: write, sing, photograph, video, podcast (future), encourage, and share Jesus (if only I could add baking...). The cherry on top is that it's all with my favorite person. They say in Flipped Lifestyle that if you love what you do so much that you would do it for free, that's a good indicator that you're choosing a source of income well.
We have heavily discussed starting a marriage community called "Simply Marry" that would be accessed through Simply Campbell. I also have been encouraged by many people for years now to publish a book. We have audio equipment to start a podcast. So many ideas...
What we know is that God is up to something with Simply Campbell. For those that believe in the power of prayer as much as we do, please pray for us as we seek the Lord on the future of it. As we have shared in many of our other posts, we want God to lead this and be glorified through it. And so our faith journey continues...
(photo credit: Liam Campbell)
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