Pam Padgett ... Member of Body of Christ / Spiritual gift of helps
In January, 2017, I was trying to publish with Amazon, Vol. 10 of Exhortations For The
Church.
After uploading the file for the eBook version, I checked
the previewer which shows what the book will look like. I noticed
that the Table of Contents could not be pulled out from the side
of a reader as it should. This would make it hard for a person to
move around in the book. After checking my file and not finding a
problem I called the support department for Amazon's eBook
publishing (called KDP).
The man I spoke with seemed to want to help. But although I
tried to explain to him that we've published many books without
this problem and that other people on their forum have reported
the same problem, he was convinced that the problem was with my
file and he didn't look into any other possible reasons for the
problem. Instead, he kept suggesting that I try various things
to "fix" my file. I tried what he suggested, but nothing worked.
I became aware that I was getting frustrated and that my flesh
was rising up. I prayed for God to help me.
As I prayed I "knew" that I needed to back off and terminate this
conversation, even though the problem was not resolved.
So I thanked the man for trying to help and ended the call.
After the call I continued praying, asking God to help me get my
flesh under control and also to help with the book problem. It
didn't take long before I was calmed.
Then I had an idea to try something else which, interestingly,
landed up confirming that the problem was with KDP, not with my
file.
I called KDP support again to give this additional information.
As I called there was no strife, such as trying to prove anyone to
be wrong, but there was peace and even a joy (I didn't think about
it at the time but, of course, these are fruits of the Spirit).
God certainly answered my prayer of getting my flesh under
control.
Another KDP support man took this second call. After I explained
the problem he put me on hold for several minutes. When he came
back on the phone I was surprised at all he told me he had done to
look into the problem. He confirmed that the problem was with KDP
and said he had taken screen prints and was writing up details of
the problem to send to their engineers.
Today when reading in 1Thess. 5 verse 6 stood out to me ... Therefore
let us not sleep, as do others; but let us
watch and be sober. I thought
again of what happened yesterday and how our flesh is always
ready to rise up and try to lead us in a way that exalts the
flesh and is opposite to ways of God. (works of flesh: strife & debate, quarreling and arguing... Gal. 5)
But we are exhorted to continually watch, to be alert.
And I looked up the word "sober". One of the definitions in the dictionary stood out to me ... serious, implies a concern for what really matters
It can seem very important to get a problem resolved. But what
really matters is handling whatever we're dealing with as God
wants us to, being led by the Holy Spirit, not letting the flesh
rule in the matter.
And I'm so grateful that we can turn to God when our flesh is rising up and HE helps us.