Shae Bynes and I discuss many subjects in this podcast including how to handle increased popularity, web traffic, and e-mail when divine favor rests upon you. We also discuss my next book Traveling in the Spirit Made Simple, and the novel I'm working on. Shae discusses the controversy surrounding her book on marriage, Ménage à Trois, which leads to a discussion about dealing with opposition.
Resources
The Kingdom Driven Entrepreneur
Ménage à Trois
Supernatural Transportation
We're talking about life as a child of God and all things related to His Kingdom.
Thanks for joining us.
If you're a new listener to the show, you can find articles and books and other resources on my website www.prayingmedic.com.
You can also connect with me on Facebook and Twitter.
Just look for Praying Medic.
Now let's jump into this week's show.
Dave!
What's up?
Shay!
What is going on, Sister Shay?
I feel like I haven't seen you in forever, ever.
Has it been that long?
Probably like a couple months.
Yeah, it's been a while.
Yeah.
It's been a little while.
I've been busy.
I know, I know.
Kicking my day job to the curb.
I'm so excited.
I'm excited too.
To celebrate, I've been making breakfast every morning for Denise.
Making her coffee two or three times a day.
There you go.
Generally spoiling the heck out of her.
I love it.
I have a lot of stuff to catch up on.
My goodness, the last time we spoke, you had just come back from Sid Roth.
You shared with us the adventures that you had while you were over there.
That was an adventure.
Yes.
And we haven't talked, at least not on the podcast, we haven't talked since then, and so I would love for you to kind of just get us caught up on what in the world happened after you came back from Sid Roth, and it was broadcast on television, and I have to imagine that things have just kind of gone wild.
Yes, well, things did go a little crazy after Sid Roth.
Fortunately, I had a couple of really good prophetic words from some friends.
And I have some friends who have actually been through this process.
They were able to tell me what to expect.
My friend Todd Engwall said, look, you're going to have to really get organized before you go on the show.
Yes.
You need to get your act together and you need to get some things set up because the number, the website traffic you're going to get, the emails you're going to get is going to increase.
You're going to have to, you may have to hire an assistant, a personal assistant to help you deal with all that stuff.
Well, Todd was right.
So we put Lydia, my niece, who's also my editor, we hired her as an administrative assistant to start managing our email.
And we started practicing on our email inbox a couple of weeks before Sid Roth.
So we could develop a system where she could go through the emails, find the prayer requests, find the requests for speaking.
And then I put together a group, a prayer group on Facebook.
of 50 of my closest friends who volunteered to cover the prayer requests.
So what Lydia did was she was pulling out of the email all the prayer requests and putting them into the group and then some people would specifically want me to pray for them so she would send me those emails.
It was a good thing I did that because we ended up getting a couple of hundred extra emails a day.
Wow!
After the show went live.
How long did this last after the show had already gone on?
The deluge of emails lasted about two weeks at 100 to 200 extra emails a day.
Wow.
And were it not for Lydia covering my emails, I would have been inundated because I went right back to work.
I was working on the ambulance, working my job, and these emails were just flooding in.
So, I was looking at the stats on my website this morning.
Not because I knew you were going to ask, I was just curious to see what kind of increased traffic we had.
So, one of my buddies, he had a friend who went on Sid Roth and they gave the website address.
The increased traffic crashed his website.
People couldn't access it.
So, that's one thing I really didn't want to have happen.
We have a hosted account through Bluehost.
We ramped up our hosting.
And that was a really good thing.
Yeah.
Because... I don't know if I can show you a screenshot.
I'm gonna see this.
Well, it is a crazy spike.
Can you see that?
I see a big ol' spike!
Okay, this is the weekly number of hits on my website.
Yes.
We've been averaging five to six thousand hits a week.
Some weeks, 3,000 to 4,000.
Probably 4,000 is average a week on the website.
This one right here is 38,000 hits on the website.
That was the week the show aired.
Oh my gosh!
Look at the monthly number of hits on the website.
So monthly, we had been getting 18,000, 20,000, 22,000.
About 17,000, 18,000, 20,000 hits a month on the website.
This is the month the show aired.
about 17, 18,000 hits a month on the website.
This is the month the show aired, 77,000 hits. - So you just about quadrupled your traffic that month.
Quadrupled our traffic to the website by four months.
Wow.
Wow.
So when the guys said, you are going to have an insane amount of traffic, he was not kidding.
He was not kidding.
And I also noticed that even in the month's trailing after that, that they're all significantly higher.
It looked like about double what it was prior to the show.
Oh yes, they are.
So it was a good thing we ramped up our hosting.
Yes.
Lydia in there because It was a bit insane how much our traffic went up.
It was good.
I mean, book sales went through the roof.
Yes.
I love it.
We started selling lots and lots of books, which was just amazing.
What was your top seller from all the book sales that came?
I was guessing that it was going to be Hearing God's Voice Made Simple.
That was going to be my guess.
Or Divine Healing Made Simple.
Divine Healing was the best seller.
Okay, okay.
After the show aired, we sold lots and lots of copies of Divine Healing.
Love it.
Ever since the Sid Roth Show, the number of paperbacks and Kindle books has switched.
Ah.
We always used to sell more Kindle books than paperbacks.
3 to 1 or 4 to 1.
Oh wow, that's significant.
Oh yes, we'd sell way more Kindle books.
Wow.
Now, since Sid Roth, our paperback sales are equaling or more than our Kindle sales.
Wow.
Yeah, so this month we probably have about 700 paperbacks and probably about another 700 Kindle books.
The really cool thing, this, okay, so I quit my day job, right?
Yes, I hope, did you guys catch that?
He quit his day job.
When did you quit it?
Yesterday.
Yesterday, okay.
Let's time stamp it.
Today is June the 30th, so you quit your job on June 29, 2016.
Well, the 28th was my last day.
The 29th, I told my boss, yeah, I'm not coming back to work.
I actually told them three or four weeks ago, I said, look, you need to find a replacement for me because my days here are numbered.
Oh, man.
Congratulations.
Awesome.
Yes, I'm excited.
Denise was quite nervous because she's the chief financial officer.
Yes, yes.
So she's always looking at the money going, oh, we need to have, you know, sales are up and down.
Some months are great, some months are not so great.
Yes.
Working, you know, for a company where you get a regular paycheck.
That's right.
It's always the same, more or less.
We just add this to your wild and crazy and amazing adventures with God, which is leaving your full-time gig, you know, to do what he's called you to.
I mean, that's just going to be another part of the amazing adventures.
That is what he's called me to do.
That's right.
That's the deal.
That's it.
He has called me to be a writer, and it's unfortunate that it took me 50 years to figure that out.
Especially odd when I look back at people who've known me my whole life.
Yes.
And they say, well, we always knew you were a writer.
Like, we could have told you that, man.
Time you figured it out.
I love it.
Well, what has been the biggest surprise for you since, you know, since everything, since everything went all wild after the broadcast of Sid Roth's It's Supernatural, what has been the most significant surprise for you in that process from then to now?
Well, there's been a number of things that have really kind of blown me away, and this is what I was going to tell you a minute ago.
The night before I worked my last shift on the ambulance, we had a really nice little confirmation that this was the time to quit my job and to become a full-time author.
Alright, so for listeners who aren't familiar with what all this stuff is all about, I publish my books right now exclusively with Amazon.
So the e-books are available through Amazon Kindle, and the print books are available through Amazon CreateSpace.
Yes.
So CreateSpace does digital print on demand.
They keep your book files on hand.
When somebody orders a book, they print a copy and they ship it out.
And they make it very easy for self-published authors.
It's really a very seamless thing.
One of the options with CreateSpace is make your books available to other bookstores.
Yes.
Brick-and-mortar stores like Barnes & Noble.
All right.
About a month ago, maybe five weeks ago, somebody put in a bulk order for 300 paperback books of ours.
They purchased something like 159 copies of Divine Healing, about 100 copies of Seeing the Spirit, and about another 75 copies of Hearing God's Voice Made Simple.
So, a large order of all three books.
Right.
When that happens, and we haven't had a big order like that.
We've had orders around the holidays, around Christmas and Thanksgiving, where someone purchased like 30 copies of a couple of the books.
I'm guessing to stock store shelves.
You don't really know because they don't tell you who it is that purchased your books.
Right.
It's just a secondary market.
It's a reseller who's going to take the books and then put them on their bookshelves.
So we got this big order about four or five weeks ago, and I was I was so happy when I saw that.
I thought, okay, somebody is reselling our books.
That's right.
Somebody has made a large purchase and they're putting them on their bookshelves, which has not really happened consistently since we started writing books.
Yes.
Well, my last shift was the 28th.
On the 27th, we got another bulk order.
Oh, wow.
150 books, paperbacks that somebody had ordered through CreateSpace.
When I saw that, I said, Denise, get over here and check this out!
Somebody made another bulk purchase of our books.
It was very, very confirming for me that there is now a market and there's now some demand for my books.
People actually want to read them and bookstores want to stock them on the shelves.
So if you're going to quit your day job, it's not a bad thing to have some demand for whatever it is that you're producing.
That helps!
That was a nice shot in the arm for me and Denise.
Absolutely.
To know that this was the time for us, for me to quit my job.
And for her to quit her design job.
Yeah.
She's not doing freelance design anymore.
She told all of her clients, I'm not doing design anymore.
I'm going to be a painter.
She's doing her painting and she's got her website almost online.
And it's kind of cool because she went to art school, York Academy of Art, and she's been out of that school 35 years.
And this year, she finally decided to go back to painting.
Wow.
Which is what she really loves doing.
35 years after I got into medicine, I got out of it and now I'm going to be a full-time writer.
I don't know, it's almost like a year of jubilee for both of us.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Oh, I love it.
I love it.
That's really good.
So, any other surprises from the broadcast of Sid Roth to now?
Any other big surprises?
Or even anything that was a stretch for you, like a discomfort.
Every time you have a new level, it requires a new you.
I really did not like the idea of becoming more public, of my name being out there.
When I went in the morning to tape this show, I was looking at Sid's notes.
You know, he has it all written out.
We're going to introduce Dave Hayes, the praying medic.
And I was thinking, wait a minute, I didn't even know he's going to tell them my real name.
And I had kind of my heart started to flutter a little bit.
I was like, oh man, do you have to do that?
But then I thought, okay, I'm just going to roll with it.
I'm not going to tell him he can't use my real name.
Well, I'll just roll with it and deal with the consequences later.
Coming out from my hiding place, showing my face in public.
I mean, nobody knows me when I go to restaurants or grocery stores.
I'm still just another guy.
Nobody recognizes me, which is cool.
I hope to keep it that way.
I don't know.
I always want to be able to go to the grocery store and have nobody think that I'm anybody.
That whole thing with my name coming out has been a little bit of an adjustment for me, but I don't know.
Gosh, I'm just in awe of what God has done.
I'm in awe of how he has increased favor for us, how he has increased the demand for our books.
You know, there is one thing that has... I knew it was coming.
I'm still doing a lot of correspondence through Facebook, through private messages.
And in addition to The 100 to 150 emails a day I was getting.
I was getting another 100 private messages on Facebook on my page, mostly prayer requests.
It takes an enormous amount of time.
Lydia would do some of them.
Initially, I told her, look, go through my Facebook page and anything that's in there that's a prayer request, put it in the group.
So that helped a lot.
But still, I'm very used to maintaining my own social media.
I don't like the idea of having somebody else do my stuff for me.
That whole deal of now having so much more private messages, so many more emails, so much more correspondence, it's a double-edged sword.
It's nice to be a blessing to other people, but it takes an enormous amount of time.
That was one of the things that made Denise realize, we have to make some changes because I have so much more demand on my time to do this kind of stuff.
And if I'm working full time, that makes it a little bit hard.
That's right.
That's right.
To continue to keep up with.
Lydia has been taking requests and messages from the website that are specifically for me, requests for speaking or, you know, personal questions or whatever.
She puts them in a Word document and sends them to me once a week.
Yeah.
I have not done last week's list yet and she just sent me another one.
So I will be spending this afternoon going through those emails.
and answering questions people have.
Some of the questions are very difficult to answer.
I don't like the fact that some people almost treat me as if I'm some kind of a prophet.
I know everything that God knows.
I have all this great knowledge.
I get some very difficult questions and sometimes I don't know how to answer them.
My stock answer to questions like that is Well, you know, the Holy Spirit knows the answer to that, and I think you should ask Him.
There you go!
I was going to ask you what your response was to that, so that's perfect, right?
Yeah, many times when someone wants direction in life, or they want greater understanding or greater wisdom, and they want to take a shortcut.
They don't want to have to go seek God for themselves.
They just talk to the man of God, who's to give them the answer in a paragraph or two.
I'm very reluctant to do that.
Understandably so.
My big thing is, I want to teach you to hear God's voice.
That's right.
I want to teach you the supernatural.
I want to teach you how to do these things.
Not so that you can come to me and say, oh, tell me this.
Explain that.
My thing is, no.
I want to train and teach you how to do it yourself.
That's it.
Because I'm not going to be here the rest of your life to answer all your questions for you.
That's it.
That's it.
We have to have our own relationships, you know?
Let me ask you this, so are you, speaking of teaching, are you teaching, I remember we chatted up some time ago around some courses, are you still teaching courses or creating courses?
I am trying my best to avoid that.
You got in the studio and you were like, I don't want to do this!
Well, this is my studio.
Yeah.
Actually, see that painting back there?
It's a beautiful painting.
Denise did that painting just for the courses.
I love it.
She wanted me to have some nice background.
Well, you do have a very nice background.
The thing with courses is this.
I started doing the first one, which was the healing class.
Right.
Got the two intro videos done, set up all the software on the website, which was an astronomical, oh gosh, Sure.
It took me a month to figure out the software and to integrate the payment gateway and get all the software to play together.
I was going to put it on my main website and then I realized there's so many conflicts between the theme I'm using, the Divi theme that I'm using for my website, and Optimized Press, which I was going to use for the classes.
They kept clashing and having all these problems and it was breaking the website.
So for anybody who went to my website in the last two months and couldn't access it, it's probably because I was in the middle of a software crisis.
So I decided to create a separate website.
It's a subdomain of prayingmedic.com for the classes.
I have that subdomain all set up.
I have the landing page set up.
I have the first set of classes.
I have the web pages and the modules set up, but I don't have the video recorded because I really enjoy writing.
Yes.
That's the bottom line.
I so much enjoy recording myself talking into a video camera and then editing it.
Yes.
I will eventually get around to doing that, but right now what I wanted to, I got, oh gosh, so this book on traveling in the spirit.
So that's what you're working on now.
Yes.
Let's talk about it.
It's been on my plate since 2010.
It's been in the works for six years.
That's when the Lord first started giving me dreams and first started having these strange experiences that I couldn't quite explain.
I've had a lot of public discussions on Facebook about it and got a bunch of really cool testimonies.
I wrote a few of my own experiences and put them up on the website.
Of course, some heresy hunters came around and started throwing rocks, but most of the people who read the blog posts on Traveling in the Spirit were really encouraged and have You know, talked about having their own experiences that they couldn't quite figure out what was going on.
Right.
That's the big thing people want to know is they have these strange experiences where they'll, like, be talking to somebody and then they, for a moment, it seems as if they actually get moved to somebody else's house or apartment somewhere and they're in a strange place and they don't know where they are or they're with their friend and then, bam, they're back in their room and they're wondering, like, what the heck was that about?
These things happen to a lot of people, but we're most of the time scratching our head going, what does it mean?
What is the purpose of it?
It doesn't seem to have some obvious significance.
Well, my theory is this.
God actually has a purpose for traveling in the Spirit.
There are several purposes, but in order for us to be able to fulfill those purposes, we have to first get a grid of understanding in our mind of what What is possible?
What can be done?
Right.
And he sometimes does that through these strange little experiences that we don't understand when they first happen.
So you go to somebody else's house or you're in a dream and you have a very, very real awareness that you are somewhere else and you're doing something.
And then boom, you literally fall into your bed when the experience is over and you're wide awake.
And you're looking around wondering, where was I?
What was happening?
Those experiences, a lot of people don't understand what they mean, what the significance of them is.
I think those are practice experiences.
I think that the Lord is giving us these experiences just to let us know this is possible.
It's something you can do.
It's something I want you to do.
And I want you to get a little taste of it.
Because I want to do bigger, greater things.
But first, you need to be aware that this is possible.
That's good.
I was having a chat with a friend recently, and she had shared an experience where she was praying, and while she was praying, she said she was all of a sudden, and she knew she was in Indonesia.
Like, she just knew she was in Indonesia.
And she said the Lord said, she saw a little boy, and she said she heard the Lord say to tell that boy to run.
And so she just said, run, run!
And the little boy went running.
And then she was like back in her room praying.
Yep.
Yeah, I have a friend who sent me a testimony of being in a building somewhere in the Middle East.
She didn't know where.
And there were a bunch of reporters in this building.
And she had a great sense of urgency to get them out of the building.
So she's yelling at them to get out of the building.
And as they leave the building, the entire building explodes.
They go to another building and there are other people there.
They're on computers and they're communicating and she said it looked like they were also reporters.
Yes.
And she was telling them, you all need to get out of this building.
This is the next one that's going to be blown up.
Yes.
Everybody took her seriously.
There was this one person who was furiously typing on her computer to try to get off one more message before they left the building.
Very real experience.
Kind of typical of the ones that people have where they're trying to help somebody get out of danger.
Those kind of experiences, they're kind of common, I think.
I've been working on this book for six years, and actually before I went on the Sid Roth Show, they asked me if I would consider finishing this book, Traveling in the Spirit, and have that be the book we talked about on the show.
And I said, sure, I'll do that.
Well, that was a mistake.
I worked and I worked and I tried to get the revelation to finish that book and I could not finish it no matter what I did.
No matter how much I prayed, I was not getting any revelation.
Finally, after about four weeks, I called back the producer and I said, OK, here's the deal.
I cannot finish this book right now.
I don't have the revelation to finish the book.
I don't.
It's just not flowing and So I'm not going to be able to do this book for the first show.
I'll have to put it on the back shelf, and can we just go with divine healing and seeing the spirit?
And they were very gracious.
They said, oh yeah, no problem.
We can do that.
We understand.
But you're going to come back on the show and do the Traveling the Spirit book, right?
Yeah, so that'll be part two.
That's going to be part two.
They invited me back on the show.
So after Sid Roth's show is done, and the website traffic is going back down More to a normal level and email is tapering down.
I'm getting a little more back in my normal lifestyle.
Michael Van Vlijmen, my buddy, published his most recent book, Supernatural Transportation.
Okay, okay.
So the day before he published it, he sent me the manuscript in a Word document and let me read it.
And I was reading it and I got through about three or four chapters and the penny finally dropped.
In that book, Michael talks about one of the big questions that I had that I had not been able to answer yet, which is the question of, can you travel in the spirit out of body at will?
And if so, how?
Oh, wow.
And he explains how you do it.
At will.
At will, when you want to.
You can travel out of body and go around places in the spiritual world at will.
Wow.
I read that and he explained the process and I thought, okay, that answers one of the two big questions I had not been able to answer.
So I talked to Michael and I said, dude, this part of the process is absolutely critical.
Thank you so much for being obedient and going through the process and understanding how this works.
So he is going to let me put that part of the process in my book because I'm trying to The other big question that I had that I had not been able to answer was, is astral projection the same thing Christians do when they travel in the Spirit?
If it is, or if it is not, how can I objectively prove that?
That was the other big question that I had to answer, and I was not coming up with an answer for it.
I had some theories and I had some ideas like everybody does, but I had no real good objective way to evaluate it until I just decided I had to read some books on astral projection and look at how they describe the process and then look at what we're doing and look at how we describe the process and then put the two of them side by side.
Here are the things that both processes have in common.
Here are the things that they have that are different.
So that's what I did.
I read a couple of books on astral projection and you don't have to read a whole lot of testimonies before you start to understand there are some significant differences.
There are some similarities, but there are some significant differences where you can look and go, no, this is not the same.
Yes.
Very similar, but it's not the same thing.
So once I had read the books on astral projection and understood the process they use, And had two or three dozen testimonies from Christians about how we travel in the Spirit.
I was able to put this into a discussion where I can, I think, very soundly and objectively say these are not the same thing.
That's good stuff.
Let me ask you a question.
This topic, I have to just ask as a writer, you know, when you're writing books, you know, about the kingdom, And there's a lot of things that are very... I guess I would say they're uncommon to the majority.
I would go so far as to say the majority of Christians, okay?
Right.
You're writing on fringe topics.
Yes.
Do you ever just personally experience any types of angst or fear, anxiety, or anything like that related to releasing books on topics like this?
Knowing the potential of types of feedback that you're going to receive.
Do you ever deal with you struggle with that personally at all?
The Lord has shown me.
He's been very gracious and has shown me the trajectory of my writing years in advance.
And I knew that as I started to get into subjects that are a bit more taboo.
Yes.
And less accepted that there would be more resistance.
Yes.
And more criticism.
Yeah.
More skepticism.
I'm aware of that.
Yeah.
I've been aware of it for a few years.
The Lord gave me a dream a few years ago that illustrated that point.
In this dream, my website traffic was increasing.
There was more and more interest and attention being given to my website and the things I was posting.
There was also a lot more criticism and a lot more people objecting to what I was teaching and writing about.
I'm sure some with much hostility.
But in the dream, I knew that I had to continue writing for the benefit of the people who were blessed and encouraged and trained by the stuff I was writing.
And I knew in the dream I had to just ignore the critics and not pay them any attention.
You know, I actually ask that, even from a personal perspective, because I actually dealt with this myself.
Um, with the book that my husband and I wrote for couples, you know, like sex all by itself is like a taboo topic, you know, in Christianity.
And then you have a book called Ménage à Trois.
You, your spouse, are the lover of your souls.
And it's like you're, you're, it's like you're begging for the people to come and crucify you.
Oh yeah, you're, you're looking for the stone chuckers.
Right.
It's just like, it's just like you're asking for that.
And then to make matters worse, you've got an image on your front cover of three sets of feet.
Under sheets, and then the ones in the middle have holes in it.
It's just like, really?
And the thing was, it was all the Lord.
Like, I couldn't have even come up with that stuff on, you know, on my own, just the way it all came together.
But I will tell you that I dealt with that concern.
Not so much what people said, because I, you know, I still to this day and always have stood firm that, you know, I'm just doing this out of obedience.
And, you know, the feedback positive has always outweighed the negative.
But I'll tell you what, it actually sent me, when I had a string of negative experiences and negative feedback and just nastiness, I shrunk back for several months.
I shrunk back for several months.
It's like I didn't want to share it because I'm like, gosh, if this is just with a few thousand people seeing it and a few hundred books sold, what in the world is this going to look like when it's You know, 10 times this much, right?
Because, you know, I already knew that the Lord said this was going to go much further than I had imagined.
And so I actually shrunk back for several months and it's just actually recently that the Lord started putting this back on my heart, like, you need to go and do this.
And so I just decided after months of looking at what he had me doing, you had the dream, right?
So you saw that coming from your dream.
What he did with me, is he'd have me on Facebook looking at the social media profiles of a few people who tend to ruffle feathers.
And, you know, people like, for example, Adam Bethel Church or, you know, a few people in the marketplace who say some stuff that, you know, can really get Christians riled up.
And even celebrities like someone like Candace Cameron Bure, who all she wears is a T-shirt and people lose their minds, you know, Like, you know, are you really a Christian?
Yet that V is showing a little bit too much skin, you know?
So anyway, so he'd have me looking at all of these folks and watching how people were just so nasty, you know, on their social media profiles.
And I'm like, Lord, this is not helping.
Why are you showing me this?
Because it was just, it was just, it was such, it was horrible to look at.
And what he showed me, he had me looking at that stuff for months and eventually said, now how are they dealing with it?
And I looked And I realized they weren't.
And I'm like, they're not dealing with it.
Like they're not saying anything.
And then he said, and I looked again and I realized that not only were they not doing anything, but the people who understood, the people who get it, they were on top of the people who were causing all the ruckus.
You know, they would go and say like, you know, you're nuts.
You know, you don't get it or whatever.
And the Lord said to me, I fight your battles.
And in fact, others fight them for you too.
Exactly.
And with that, I just was like, I just have to, I just have to go forward and do it.
So that's, that's actually, that's why I asked the question.
I just wonder whether I was alone and having those types of concerns.
I mean, I'm moving forward anyway, but I did take a step back.
You were not alone.
Yeah.
And by the way, I set up on Buffer a Facebook status and a tweet, a quote that just posted a little while ago.
I set it up yesterday.
It's quite prophetic, and it actually pertains to the question you just asked.
What does it say?
Society honors its living conformists and its dead troublemakers.
That is so good!
Wait, say it again.
Say it again.
Society honors its living conformists and its dead troublemakers.
Wow.
And it's true, isn't it?
Yeah.
Because, you know, people who Stir things up and cause trouble and want to think outside the box.
They're always dealt with while they're alive as a troublemaker, as someone who just can't behave.
But after they die, the next generation realizes the wisdom and the brilliance of what they were doing, and then they get celebrated.
They don't celebrate you while you're alive.
They'll wait until you're dead, and then they'll celebrate you.
That's the thing though, and you've seen my Facebook threads.
Yes.
And you know how my tribe rolls.
Yes.
I mean, you have a unique, but I'm telling you, watching yours, it's like, you don't get the crazy stuff.
I have gotten rid of those people.
I see.
So at some point, you're not going to be able to like... My threads are open.
My Facebook threads are open to anyone.
Yes.
It's not just my friends.
Anyone who wants to can leave a comment.
But, over the years, I have trained my circle of friends, and we stick up for each other.
I have a couple of friends who are very, very loyal, and if you come after me, you're going to have to deal with them.
You don't have to do a thing, because they've got it under control.
They will take the whoop and stick to you, and you will I don't regret ever getting on my page and saying anything.
And it's not like I've actually asked those people to do things, but I have defended them when they were under attack.
That's right.
That's generally how it works.
And they get it.
They get it.
There's a lot of loyalty in my circle of friends.
Yes.
We have a lot of divergent views.
We have a lot of different ideas, different theologies and stuff.
We all rally around Jesus.
Yes.
But how that is expressed is different among the people.
But everybody in my tribe tends to be very, very loyal to the tribe.
Yes.
That's your tribe, right?
So that's the tribe.
And as you continue to get further exposure, as you grow even more and more and more... The tribe grows.
Yeah, the tribe grows.
And as well as all the people who aren't a part of the tribe, A lot more of them see what you're doing as well, but then your tribe takes care of those people for you.
Yes.
I had a very controversial thread a few years ago and some smarty pants got on there and just started ripping on me.
Yes.
My idea was so stupid, so heretical, so ridiculous.
And the guy was, after he was astounded at what I said, he was then even more astounded At the fact that 25 people in a row left comments supporting what I said, and he could not believe I had that many people who were on board with what I was saying.
Wow.
And he stuck around for a couple more conversations over the next couple of days, and then he left and I never saw him again.
Wow.
Because he realized he had jumped into the wrong kettle of fish.
And I always tell people, look, you need to find your tribe.
Yes.
You need to find your crew, your group of people, where you, you're sort of, you have this chemistry, You respect each other, you love each other, you pray for each other, you have each other's backs, and you're involved in and interested in the same discussions.
And people who come into my circle of influence, they don't last very long because they just don't fit.
They don't mesh.
Going into a group of a bunch of girls' soccer teams and being an NBA footbasketball player, you very quickly realize, this is not where I'm supposed to be.
I need to go find another circle of people to hang out with.
Yeah, because people who stick out like a sore thumb in my circle, they don't last very long.
They just get sick of trying to argue with everyone.
I, you know, this, the book on Traveling the Spirit is a really good example.
It's going to be a highly controversial book.
It's going to be very, very controversial, Dave.
Sorry.
Yeah, whatever.
It's all good.
But the thing is, I have to write it for the benefit of all those crazy people out there that are having these experiences.
They're being translocated, they're being moved around, and they don't know what to make of it.
They don't know heads or tails.
I have to write this book.
It is going to piss a lot of people off, but they can get over it.
Yeah, they'll be okay.
I can't wait to read it.
They will be okay.
I'm already in line, just waiting.
If you put the pre-order page up, I would already have the pre-order.
I tried the pre-order with the book on Hearing God's Voice.
It turned into a mess.
It did?
Yeah.
Why is that?
Well, the way that Amazon does it, you have to have a date that the book is going to be available.
And it has to be available on that date.
I see.
You cannot go over.
Okay.
And the thing with Denise and I, since we're self-publishing, we don't have an actual date available.
Right, right.
People say, when's a book going to be available?
When it's done.
When Lydia gets done editing.
Right.
When Denise gets done formatting the text in the print file.
Yeah.
When I get around to actually recording the audio, because there is going to be an audio book for this one.
Yeah, I love it.
When we get everything squared away, when we have all of our We're not going to do a pre-order on the book.
It's too much of a headache.
It'll be available when it's available, probably sometime in August.
I'm aware that, and you know, I mean, there are just people out there who, they want to be judgmental and they want to disagree and they want to throw rocks at everybody who does things, butters their bread differently.
Thinking that they're protecting their brothers and sisters in Christ.
Right.
You gotta do what Ryan Lestrange said on one of his recent Periscopes.
He said, I bless that brother and I block him.
Just bless and block.
I bless you and block you in Jesus' name.
In Jesus' name.
But you're not in our conversations anymore.
I'm so going to use that.
I bless you and block you in Jesus' name.
I love that.
That could be used on all types of social media.
It is, unfortunately.
I don't like blocking people.
There are just some people where it's just better if we're not... It's just better if we're not connected.
You know, there's a reason why a court will issue a no contact order.
Some people should just not be in contact with each other.
Exactly, exactly.
I love it.
I love it.
So, okay, so what's next?
What's next in Praying Medic's world?
I mean, you just left your job.
I know you're writing this book.
Kind of generally speaking, kind of outside of getting this book out, what's going on in Praying Medic's world?
What I'm looking at right now, a lot of things.
I will have a lot more time to write, obviously, and I will be doing the classes.
The initial vision for the classes was do a class on healing, a video-based class on healing, hearing God's voice, One on seeing in the spirit.
Yes.
One on traveling in the spirit.
Mm-hmm.
And probably one on emotional healing.
Okay.
Now, how long it's going to take me to do all that and whether I'll have the time and the capacity and the headspace and all that to pull it all off because with each of those I want to do webinars.
Ah, okay.
I want to offer the video classes and some webinars so the students can jump on a webinar, ask questions, get some answers, and stuff like that.
Very clear.
That's going to take you through that.
That sounds like at least through the end of this year.
Right.
Well, I also plan to write a bunch more books.
Yeah.
I have so many ideas for books that I wonder if I'll have enough time in this lifetime to write them all.
Wow.
Do you write multiple books at the same time?
Oh, yes.
Absolutely.
I've been working on a number of books.
On my computer desktop, I have a little folder.
Yes.
My books.
Inside of that folder are a lot of subfolders, and each subfolder has a concept for another book.
Ah, okay.
So I have a bunch of them.
Right now I am working on a book called Power and Authority Made Simple, which will be in the Made Simple series.
Yes.
That's going to be the next book.
Okay, I love it!
Well, it's a book that a lot of people do not understand how much they don't understand about power I did not know how much my understanding of power and authority was way off base until I listened to John Paul Jackson teach on it.
And John Paul Jackson just destroyed most of what I thought about power and authority and maybe rewired my brain.
So the Lord has been teaching me about that.
So that'll be the next book in the Made Simple series is Power and Authority Made Simple.
And you said you were working on a novel, too.
First, fiction.
At least two books in the series, possibly a trilogy.
Oh!
So, I've been writing this novel since 2011, called Bogren.
It started out as a series of short vignettes that I posted on Facebook.
I think I posted, I don't know, 13 or 14 of them.
People loved this story that I was writing.
Yes.
It is loosely based on C.S.
Lewis's book, The Screwtape Letters.
Ah!
I haven't read that one yet.
So, oh, well, you won't have to.
Read Bogren, you'll get the idea.
Okay, good deal.
The idea with Screwtape Letters is, so C.S.
Lewis wanted to portray, he wanted to pull back the curtain on the demonic world.
Yes.
And let readers see how demons strategize to mess up the lives of people like us.
Oh, wait, wait, wait.
No, no, no.
I did read that.
That's where the letters come from.
Screwtape, Wormwood.
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's been years.
It's been years, but I did read that.
It's been years.
Right, so Wormwood and Screwtape are corresponding back and forth.
Yes, yes, yes.
I did read that.
The novel, Bogren, is loosely based on that book.
It's going to be written in that style.
Nice.
You will see behind the scenes how demons interact.
Bogren is a junior demon.
His mentor is a fellow named Jumar, who is very, very clever and very bold.
And he's teaching Bogren strategies and tactics for harassing and tormenting humans.
Wow.
And I'm going to include in this story angels.
So you're going to see how angels partner with humans and strategize.
And how the whole thing, it's the whole...
Which makes you a trilogy.
Yes.
So the first book is going to be a transformational story about a young lady who has multiple personality disorder.
But she gets transformed into a very strong woman by the end of the book.
The story of transformation It's something I'm really looking forward to finishing.
I'm about halfway through with the novel.
Yes.
A lot of it takes place in heaven.
Are you writing this under Praying Medic, by the way?
Yes.
Okay.
That's the only name I'll probably... That's the only name you're going to write under.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's my brand.
Yes, it is.
This book isn't entering into another... The reason why I even asked was because I was thinking that a book like this could have people who aren't Necessarily thinking I'm looking for a kingdom related book stuff could run into a book like this That's why I ask that question.
This book is going to appeal to people who are not necessarily I mean, it's you know, if you're like reading young adult.
Yeah things of that nature or if you like reading Supernatural thrillers.
Yeah, this book will appeal to you and if you get a hold of this book You're gonna start learning all about the kingdom.
Yes super short kingdom of heaven, right?
Because these two, the two main characters, Charity and Shiloh.
Shiloh is the wounded woman.
Charity is her best friend and roommate and mentor.
And she operates at a very high level of supernatural wisdom and authority and power.
And she just is on fire for this stuff.
She's just been through a lot of stuff and she has learned a lot.
She also has a very, very solid relationship with the father.
Yes.
So, in the story, she and the father are talking all the time.
Okay.
The novel is the practical application of all the books on healing, the lips, seeing in the spirit, and traveling in the spirit.
Oh, that's going to be great.
Read those books and want to see what it looks like, somebody actually walking it out.
I love it.
Read Bogorin and you see people actually doing this stuff.
Yeah, it's a broad illustration of all the books in the Made Simple series in a novel.
And do you anticipate this as a 2017 release?
Maybe 2016.
Wow!
Did I tell you that I'm going to have a lot more time to write the book?
You did say that, but you also write a ton of books at the same time.
It may be done by Christmas time.
Wow, that's amazing.
I could probably write the rest of the book this week.
Wow.
So, the thing with Bogren is it'll be my first novel.
Denise is really excited because she wants to see how a novel is going to do compared to all the non-fiction books.
Yeah, I can't wait to see that.
She thinks it's going to sell better and reach more people.
I don't know.
I can see the potential for that, for sure.
Well, I know that I have a lot of very good friends who haven't read any of my books yet.
Yes.
I think some of them will get introduced to my writing style through the novel, because they just don't read nonfiction.
They like novels, but they don't like reading nonfiction.
So some of them will get introduced to my actual writing in the novel, and then maybe they'll go and check out some other ones.
I also think it's going to be one of those books that would be an easy share with someone.
It's like, hey, you know, that's what I saw with this book.
This would be a really easy one to say, oh my gosh, what a great story.
You should check this book out.
It'll be really good for sharing with people who are not Christians, or nominal Christians, or people who are kind of struggling with their life and don't really understand their purpose and their destiny, or don't really understand the nature of who God is.
Because in this book, Jesus and the Father play key central figures, and you see them in a way that is not typically presented that way in the church.
They're very loving, Very approachable.
Yes.
Very warm people.
Right.
That you would want to have a relationship with.
I love it.
Oh, I can't wait!
Look forward to your new releases, man.
I always look forward to them.
I'm looking forward to stretching my writing muscles.
Yes.
And developing some really strong characters and doing something.
It is a lot of fun writing fiction.
Yeah.
Not having to do, you know, weeks of Bible research and looking up verses.
Yes.
And putting things, doing, you know, theological gymnastics.
It's very nice writing fiction because I don't have to necessarily back everything up with scripture.
That's right.
That's right.
It's a story.
It's a novel.
Yep.
Right.
I love it.
That's really good.
I have that on my list.
On my list is to write a fiction book.
And I guess based off of the experience of writing a fiction book, we'll see if I have a Well, you know, when I got into writing fiction, I realized that I really like it.
And after I got halfway through this book, I started to think, you know, I could easily write another novel and make Charity the main character.
In this novel, Shiloh is the main character.
Charity plays a really big part, but Shiloh is the protagonist.
In the second book, I could make her friend the protagonist.
I'm thinking of doing a prequel where we learn about Shiloh and how she got to where she is today.
And the antagonist would then be Drumar, who is sort of a sidekick in this novel.
Bogren is the main bad guy.
Drumar would be the main bad guy in the other novel.
And I actually have an idea for a third novel.
I mean, I just keep thinking, I'm like, considering how much I love to tell stories, but I don't know if my love for telling stories, which I, you know, I like to write stories in short doses and speaking stories, I don't know if it translates to writing fiction or not.
It does.
It absolutely does.
I did not know about my love for writing or I didn't know I had the capacity to be a writer years ago, but when my kids were young, I would go to visit my brothers and their kids.
All the kids would gather around at night, before bedtime, and I would tell them a story.
And I told them what I called the never-ending story, which was this ongoing adventure with different characters, going places, doing adventures and stuff.
Every time we'd get together, and this happened a couple of times a month for years, I would get the kids together for bedtime and I'd tell them this really long fantasy story.
I know it at the time, but I'm a born storyteller.
And if you're a storyteller, if you like to share stories, if you have an active imagination and you can create characters and scenes in your mind, it very easily translates into writing fiction.
Interesting!
Well, it's going to be interesting to explore it.
My storytellings are usually storytelling of real stories, almost like testimony sharing, but having to give the whole long version.
But even that, I can see taking real life experiences to use them as the basis for sharing a story, a fictional story.
Right, you just change the names.
Yes.
Simple as that, right?
You change the names, you change the location.
When a novelist starts to write a novel, They have to create characters, but much of what they come up with as far as the development of the character is from people that they know.
Oh, I did.
I did not realize that.
I don't know if you've read Jesse Berkey's novel, Finding Home.
No, I haven't read that one yet.
It's it's a good novel.
The main character in the story.
I did not know this and I've known Jesse for a while.
The main character goes through a very dark time.
After some tragic events and he turns to drinking and alcohol and women and just he was a very committed man of God and then he walked away from God completely.
Yeah.
And immersed his pain in alcohol and women.
That character is actually based on Jesse.
Oh, wow.
I did not know that.
When we talked about the novel, I said, man, this character.
Where did you get the inspiration for this character?
He said, well, that's me.
You're talking to the inspiration.
In the book, Bogren, that I'm writing, Charity is actually based on my personality.
Ah, okay.
Okay.
Shiloh, well, I don't have an actual model for Shiloh, but Shiloh is a composite of a lot of people I've known over my life.
Yes.
Charity, She is, essentially, she is loosely taken from a couple of my friends who have worked as baristas and have operated supernaturally in the workplace.
Her personality type is my personality type and her ministry approach is the ministry approach of my friend Steve Harman.
Okay, okay.
I actually created this story when Steve Harman was on Facebook teaching spiritual principles About how he does deliverance and how he does emotional healing.
And he was blowing people's brains out.
They were not understanding what he was talking about.
So I thought, you know, somebody needs to write some fictional stories to illustrate what Steve is teaching.
So I started writing these stories to illustrate Steve's teaching styles.
And I made Charity the character.
I based her on Steve and his approach to ministry.
You know, when you're writing fiction, I think you largely draw from people that you know, people you've met, interesting things.
I have been, in the last year especially, latching on to interactions I've had with interesting patients.
Yes.
Weird, interesting things that they've said, and I put those into my books.
I love it!
This is helpful to me, because with that frame of reference, that helps me kind of think through Things that I've already been thinking about that I can be writing down, you know, for the future.
For the future.
Right.
Right.
Jay?
Yes?
The awesome thing about fiction is you don't have to have chapter and verse to support your arguments.
Right.
It's a novel.
Yes.
All right.
And that's one of the things because Steve does some very interesting things with demons.
I won't spoil the plot, but he does some very interesting things with demons when he's doing deliverance.
Things that 99% of Christians would say, where is that in the Bible?
I don't see anything from Jesus to demons!
He can go back and say, it's a novel!
Right.
When you are writing spiritual principles, That the Holy Spirit has given you.
You don't have to have chapter and verse to support everything.
And you don't have to know the Greek.
You don't have to know all this stuff.
You just write what you want to write.
Make the points you make.
And people either think it's trash or they think it's brilliant.
Well, I have one other question for you about this stuff.
Do you envision writing for the screen at some point?
Yes.
I was talking with Denise and I said, you know how I used to write you poetry?
Yeah.
Before we were married, we didn't really date because we were on opposite sides of the country.
She was in Pennsylvania, I was in Washington.
I used to write her poetry, and I like writing poetry.
A lot of people don't know this, but C.S.
Lewis actually wrote two books of poetry under a pen name.
Didn't want his buddies at Oxford or Cambridge to know that he wrote poetry.
So he wrote them under a pen name.
Imagine that I will be writing a lot of different things.
I have toyed with the idea of writing a screenplay.
I can so see it!
Yes.
Yeah.
I've looked at some screenplays and I will probably, in the next year or two, learn more about how to write screenplays.
I do want to write poetry.
I am in love with writing fiction right now.
Yes.
I'm looking forward to finishing up the Made Simple series so that I can turn More of my time to writing fiction.
Actually, the Lord has given me complete entire stories, fiction stories, and dreams that I need to get cracking on and actually write those out.
Well, now that you have full-time writing ability, you're going to be cranking them out.
I can't wait.
I'm ready with my credit card for your three or four that you'll release before the rest of this year.
I'll be ready.
You know, now I'm just about caught up.
I think I have, I think there's one I still haven't finished, but after I'm done with that one, I will be all caught up on praying medic books, and so I'll be prepared and ready.
I mean, first of all, when's traveling?
I will be, seriously, as soon as you post that Traveling in the Spirit is up, like, I will be like the first, I'll be like the first buy.
Do you want an advanced copy?
Oh, I totally do.
I totally do.
I'll send you the manuscript.
Oh my gosh, thank you.
After Denise has her edits done?
Yes.
And I'll send you the same manuscript I sent to Lydia for editing.
Ah!
You just made my day!
And if you want, you can give me feedback.
I always appreciate feedback.
I would love to.
I'd be honored to do it.
I love it.
Good stuff!
That'd be cool.
Then you don't have to wait.
Yes.
I'm telling you, you just made my day.
I need to have a couple of beta readers.
I don't have any right now.
I've got a couple of people I sent Michael Van Vlijmen the manuscript, the original draft, and I've changed it a bit.
I've taken out some stuff and added a few more things.
So he doesn't have the version.
Beta reader right here.
Okay.
I love it.
Hey, can you tell everybody the best way to connect with you as we close out the podcast?
You can find all my stuff on PrayingMedic.com.
I am on Twitter as PrayingMedic.
I am on Facebook.
My page is Praying Medic.
My Facebook profile is David Joseph because Facebook won't let you have a profile that doesn't have a real sounding name.
That's right.
I am on Instagram, Praying Medic.
I am on YouTube as Praying Medic.
You can find me on Pinterest.
You can find me on iTunes.
I'm all over the dang place.
We might have to do a future podcast about how you're managing to be all over, how you're working the branding piece for Praying Medic.
That might be another interesting conversation for us to have.
We could have that conversation sometime.
Yeah, we'll do that.
Good to catch up with you, man.
Shay, it has been awesome talking to you.
I love talking to you.
I love talking to you, too.
And when I'm not talking to you, I'm thinking about you and I'm praying for you, so just know that.
Well, we are praying for you and yours all the time, so just know that.
Thank you.
Appreciate it so much.
So we'll catch up again.
I'm thinking we'll catch up again probably after you've finished Traveling Made Simple.
Maybe we'll do another podcast in September.
Perfect.
I love it.
Cool.
Cool.
Thanks, man.
Good to see you.
Give Denise a hug from me, okay?
All right.
Will do.
Thanks.
All right.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
Well, folks, that is our show for today.
I hope you enjoyed it.
Thanks for dropping by.
If you're new to the podcast and you haven't been to my website, you might drop by and check out the articles I have there.
If you have any questions or comments about the show, you can contact me at admin at prayingmedic.com.
