You Don’t Always Know Which Moment Is the Pivot

Yesterday I preached from Genesis 37, and one small detail in the story has stayed with me — not the famous coat, not the pit, not even the brothers. It’s a man with no name who shows up for about two verses and then disappears from Scripture entirely.

But without him, the whole story changes.

A long trip with nothing to show for it

Jacob sends his teenage son Joseph on what should have been a straightforward errand: “go check on your brothers, they’re grazing the flocks near Shechem”. Joseph sets off from Hebron — a journey of roughly 50 miles on foot. He arrives at Shechem. His brothers aren’t there.

At that point he has a perfectly reasonable exit. Mission attempted. Not his fault. He could have turned around and gone home.

If you have kids, you know exactly how that conversation would have gone. “I went, Dad. They just weren’t there. So much for that.”

Instead, an unnamed man finds him wandering in a field and says: “I heard them say they were going to Dothan.”

That’s it. That’s his whole role in this story.

We don’t know who he was. We know nothing about him. Some commentators think he may have been an angel given how providentially timed his appearance was. Genesis doesn’t say. What Genesis does tell us is that Joseph listened, turned north, and walked another ten or so miles to Dothan.

What happened next

His brothers saw him coming from a distance — probably that colorful coat giving him away on the horizon — and by the time he arrived, the plan to kill him was already forming.

They threw him in a pit. They sold him to slave traders passing through the equivalent of a laborer’s wages for 20 months. How they split the money, we don’t know. He was hauled off to Egypt as a slave, property of a man named Potiphar. Then Potiphar’s wife falsely accused him of assault and he was thrown in prison. Years passed.

From the outside, nothing about Joseph’s story looks like a success. Every decision point seems to lead somewhere worse.

Then Pharaoh has a dream no one could interpret. A former cellmate of Joseph’s remembers that Joseph had a gift for this sort of thing, so he is brought out of prison, interprets the dream, and within a day goes from prisoner to second-in-command of the most powerful nation on earth.

The dream predicted seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Joseph spent the years of plenty storing grain. When the famine hit, people came from surrounding nations to buy food from Egypt — including, eventually, the very brothers who sold him.

Joseph reveals himself to them. They’re terrified. And he says something that has echoed through the centuries:

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good — to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:20)

Imagine if he’d turned back at Shechem

No Egypt. No Potiphar’s house, which is where he developed administrative skill. No prison, which is where he met the men connected to Pharaoh’s court. No interpretation, no promotion, no grain storage, no salvation for a nation — or for his own family.

All of it traces back to one moment: a tired young man in a field with every excuse to go home, who listened to a stranger and kept walking.

What this means for you

Maybe you’re in a season where you’ve done the reasonable thing and it hasn’t worked out. You showed up where you were supposed to be and the opportunity wasn’t there. The deal fell through. The ministry didn’t launch. The business didn’t get traction. The door didn’t open.

And you’re standing in your own Shechem wondering whether to keep going or call it.

Joseph’s story doesn’t promise that obedience leads to comfort. His obedience at Shechem led to a pit. But it also led, eventually, to exactly where he needed to be to fulfill a purpose bigger than he could have imagined when he left home.

Sometimes the pivot point doesn’t look like a pivot point. Sometimes it looks like another ten miles in the wrong direction. Sometimes the long-term outcome doesn’t look like a good decision for years.

Here’s the other side of it: sometimes you’re not Joseph in this story. Sometimes you’re the unnamed man. You say something encouraging to someone — a word, a lead, a piece of direction you’ll forget by next week — and you have no idea you just sent them toward their destiny.

You don’t get to know which moments are load-bearing. You just get to choose whether to show up in them.

What’s a moment in your life where you almost turned back — and didn’t? Leave a comment below.

The short version: I used AI to help me write my memoir. The longer version is more interesting, and it’s the one I actually want to tell.

The rough material for this book has existed since around 2017. Blog posts, journal entries, stories from the mission field — two and a half years in the Netherlands, going on seventeen in Peru — stitched together into something that looked vaguely like a manuscript if you squinted.

I didn’t know what to do with it. It was clay. Not nothing, but also not a sculpture. So I set it down, and the years went by, and occasionally I would open the file and stare at it and then go do something else.

Earlier this year I picked it back up and decided to actually finish it. I fed what I had into Claude — Anthropic’s AI — and asked a simple question: what could I do with this?

Not “write it for me.”

Not “make it sound better.”

Just: here is this pile of material. What do you see?

What came back was an outline, a set of questions I hadn’t thought to ask myself, and a series of observations about where the gaps were — what was missing, what was repeated three times without me noticing, what threads were there but hadn’t been pulled. It was like having a very patient editorial assistant read your entire draft at two in the morning and actually pay attention.

From there, the process got interesting.

I have twenty plus years’ worth of emails. Newsletters to supporters, personal correspondence with mission leaders, messages I wrote to friends when things went sideways on the field — all of it unfiltered, all of it written when the events were fresh rather than reconstructed from memory two decades later once I decided I wanted to write about it.

I used Claude to search through that archive, to find the threads that corresponded to specific events I was writing about. What that gave me wasn’t AI writing my story. It was my own words, from the time, handed back to me. The difference between “I think I felt this way” and “I wrote about this to this person three days after it happened” is not a small difference. It’s the difference between memoir and mythology.

Then there were the voice recordings.

I would talk through a scene or a chapter — what happened, what I thought then, what I think now — record it, copy the transcript into Claude, and say: here’s the raw material. Help me shape it. What came back needed work. It always needs work. But it was shaped from my content, my voice, my specific embarrassing stories about mispronouncing Spanish words in front of a congregation in Lima or to our ministry school students in Chorrillos. Nobody else has those stories. AI didn’t invent them. It helped me get them out of my head and onto the page in a form that a human editor can actually do something with.

Here’s the part I want to be transparent about, because I think it matters

AI systems are trained in ways that create a pull toward approval. There’s a real risk that when you’re excited about a scene, Claude or your LLM of choice finds things to praise rather than things to cut. I did my best to build in guardrails — specific instructions about voice, about what the book was and wasn’t supposed to be, about flagging repetition and structural problems rather than just validating what I handed it. And to Claude’s credit, there were moments where it pushed back: identifying passages I’d repeated across multiple chapters, flagging content that belonged in editorial notes rather than the published book, holding the line on things I’d established as rules for the manuscript.

But I’m also self-aware enough to know that I can’t fully audit whether an AI has been straight with me or has been quietly buttering my bread the whole time. That’s not a reason to abandon the process. It’s a reason to not let the process end there.

This manuscript is going to a human editor. Then human proofreaders. Probably even beta readers before either of those stages. It does not go to market without human eye balls first. Not as a formality — as an actual check. A human editor whose professional reputation depends on honest feedback, and who has no particular incentive to make me feel good about two decades’ worth of missionary stories, will catch what Claude won’t. That’s the point.

The AI helped me get the draft across the finish line. The humans will tell me whether the draft is actually any good.

The book is called Just Your Average Revolutionary — working title, may or may not survive contact with the cover design process. It’s a missions memoir, which means it will find its natural audience among people who have been on the foreign mission field. But I’ve written it for anyone who organized their life around a vision that turned out to look nothing like the brochure. That’s a larger category than just missionaries.

It’s funny in places — at least I think it is.

It’s honest about things that are genuinely hard to be honest about. It is emphatically not bitter, which I say not to be defensive about it but because the line between honest and bitter is one I care about, and I’ve worked to stay on the right side of it.

There are stories in here I’ve never told publicly — because the people involved were still my supervisors when I started writing, or because I wasn’t sure the world needed them, or because I hadn’t processed them enough to be fair about them. Some of that has changed.

The thing I was most surprised by in this process was how much having AI involved helped me see my own material clearly. When you’re knee-deep in your own writing, you lose the ability to read it. You know what you meant, so you stop seeing what’s actually on the page. Having something that could analyze the whole manuscript and say you’ve told this story in three different chapters, I’d suggest removing it from two of them — that’s not cheating. That’s editing. The underlying thought is still mine. The decision about what to do with the feedback is still mine. The embarrassing stories are definitely still mine.

What I ended up with is a manuscript I’m genuinely proud of, which is not something I expected to be able to say about this project after it sat dormant for the better part of a decade. Whether it’s actually as good as I think it is — that’s what the humans are for.

If you’re curious about the book, or about this process, or want to tell me I’ve completely sold out and it shows, the comments are open.

Just Your Average Revolutionary is a memoir about twenty years of being somewhere between a missionary and a person, with a lot of cultural misunderstandings, a Peruvian wife who is patient with me, and the slow realization that the revolution was real.

It just looked nothing like the brochure.

Not in a debate-bro way. More like — when I hear someone say something that I believe is wrong, my brain doesn’t just flag “that’s wrong.” It starts cataloging why they believe it, where the argument breaks down, and what would actually need to be true for their position to hold.

I do this almost involuntarily. It’s probably a little annoying at dinner parties, if I went to dinner parties.

I didn’t have language for any of this in late 2013/early 2014 when I originally self-published this book, and still not in 2016 when I Destiny Image Publishers released my book Nine Lies People Believe About Speaking in Tongues. I just knew that the conversations I kept having — online, in person, in my email inbox — were all circling the same handful of bad arguments. And that those arguments weren’t going away on their own.

So I decided to take them apart one by one.

What I Was Actually Trying to Do

The book isn’t a devotional. It’s not a you-need-this-gift pep talk. It’s not trying to make you feel guilty for the theological tradition you grew up in.

What it is, is a systematic look at the most common things people say and believe about speaking in tongues — and an honest examination of whether those things hold up. Things like:

• “Tongues are not for today.” (Then why does the New Testament spend so much time on them?)
• “If you don’t speak in tongues, you’re not saved.” (This one’s wrong too, and it’s done real damage.)
• “You can’t speak in tongues at will — you have to wait for the Spirit to move.” (There’s a misunderstanding about the nature of the gift buried in this one.)
• “Tongues are just the least of the gifts anyway.” (This is actually one of the top Google searches that still lands people on my blog. Ten years later.)

Each of those deserves a careful answer. Not a dismissal, not a sermon — just a genuine, let’s-look-at-what-the-text-actually-says kind of answer. That’s what I was going for.

Why I Finally Finished It

The book sat in draft form for months. Every time I tried to make a theological point properly I felt like I’d have to write a seminary chapter to do it justice, which wasn’t what I wanted. I kept stalling.

What broke the logjam was John MacArthur’s Strange Fire conference in 2013 — a broad attack on the charismatic movement that leaned heavily on the same misconceptions I’d already been planning to address. I’m not going to relitigate that whole controversy here, but it lit a fire under me (pun at least partially intended) to stop procrastinating and get the thing finished.

I published the first version on April 3, 2014 — exactly two weeks after my daughter was born. That’s a whole other story involving a Peruvian hospital, a doctor I strongly suspect was more motivated by his billing rate than my wife’s wellbeing, and me pretending not to speak Spanish while emptying every ATM I could find near that hospital.

What I’d Change, What I Wouldn’t

Honestly? Not that much.

My writing has gotten tighter over the years, and I can see the seams in a few places. I’ve since learned a few revelation nuggets that upon learning them thought “Oh! if I had only known that years ago, I would have included that in the book!” There are a few other questions and tidbits I’ve been asked by readers that I might tackle in a re-release or updated edition if I ever do one.

But the core of it — the patient, premise-by-premise examination of the objections people actually have, rather than the objections it’s easier to answer — I’d write that same book again. The misconceptions I addressed in 2015 are still circulating today. They show up in my DMs. They show up in comments on things I post. Sometimes people tag me or my book on social media when arguing about glossolalia.

Why I’m Posting About This Now

The same guy who got me my publishing contract with Destiny Image messaged me earlier to ask me if I knew the the Kindle version is free right now, and I figured it was worth mentioning. I have no idea how long the publisher is doing this, but probably a few days. By the time you read this the deal is probably finished.

But also — it’s been nearly ten years (give or take a month) since this version of the book came out, and I’m a different version of myself than the guy who wrote it. There’s something interesting about looking back at work you did before you fully understood what you were doing. The theological instincts were right. The structure was right. I just didn’t know yet that “here’s why that objection doesn’t hold up” was how my brain naturally operates, not just something I was doing for the book.

If you’ve been carrying questions about this subject — or carrying objections you inherited from somewhere and never really examined — this is a decent place to start. It’s a few hours of reading, and it’s free.

Get it on Audible here. Read more articles about speaking in tongues.

(wait for it)

…people didn’t like it?

Wild concept, I know.

Over the holidays, I was watching a goofy comedy from the early 2000s with my girls. It was a remake/reboot of a TV show from before I was born. The movie ends in that very obvious “this is setting up sequels” way.

My 11-year-old asked, “How come they never made more of these?”

I told her (paraphrasing and aggressively oversimplifying for an 11- and 8-year-old): “Probably because not enough people liked it. Studios don’t keep spending money on something that won’t make it back.”

Simple.

And I don’t remember anyone at the time accusing the audience of being toxic.

I don’t remember studios blaming the fandom.

I don’t remember press tours explaining how viewers were engaging with the movie incorrectly.

Because back then, “review bombing” wasn’t a convenient narrative, and gaslighting the audience for not showing up wasn’t a strategy.

The assumption was straightforward: if people didn’t come back, something didn’t work.

Somewhere along the way, that changed.

Now, when a piece of content doesn’t land — especially something attached to a big franchise — the conversation often shifts away from the work itself and toward the audience. Suddenly it’s not that the story failed, it’s that the viewers are problematic.

• “Toxic fandom.”
• “Bad faith criticism.”
• “They’re afraid of change.”
• “They just don’t get it.”

Here’s the thing: calling a fandom toxic is lazy.

If you’re going to take a big creative risk, you have to be prepared for the possibility that the audience won’t go with you — and that the result might be failure.

That’s not persecution. That’s the cost of risk.

And this doesn’t just apply to movies or streaming.

It applies to everything that gets made and put into the world.

Including books.

From time to time, I’ve seen some of the same bad habits showing up in the online publishing world: if a book doesn’t sell, or a series doesn’t take off, or reviews are mixed, the narrative quietly shifts away from the work and toward the reader.

They didn’t understand it.
They weren’t the right audience.
They’re conditioned by tropes.
They’re uncomfortable with change.

Maybe.

Or maybe the story didn’t do what the story needed to do.

The market isn’t a moral judgment.

It’s information.

Silence, indifference, and “meh” aren’t acts of violence. They’re data points.

You don’t learn anything by assuming every reader who didn’t love your work is acting in bad faith. You learn a lot by asking why they quietly walked away.

A lot of writers say they want honest feedback.

What they actually want is reassurance.

Those are not the same thing.

Honest feedback sounds like:

• “I stopped reading.”
• “The ending didn’t work for me.”
• “I liked the idea more than the execution.”

That’s not abuse.

That’s someone telling you where the story lost them.

When you create content of any kind — movies, shows, books, art — the marketplace gets a vote. And if that vote is “no,” it doesn’t automatically mean the audience is the problem.

It might mean the work didn’t land.

And that’s uncomfortable. But it’s also useful — if you’re willing to listen.

If your instinct while reading this was to argue with it, sit with that for a minute.

That reaction is often where the most useful work starts.

If you want help doing that work — honestly, without fluff — you know where to find me.

If you’re working on a book right now and worried readers might quietly walk away instead of loudly complaining, that’s not a failure.

It’s a signal.

I help authors learn how to read those signals before the book goes out into the world.

We live in a world that constantly pushes us to consume — scroll a little more, buy a little more, absorb endlessly.

But consumption doesn’t produce clarity.
Creation does.

If you’ve felt a persistent nudge to build, write, launch, or release something God has placed in your care, that’s not accidental. For many people, the issue isn’t lack of calling or conviction — it’s that their insight never gets finished or distilled into something durable.

Recently, I joined Josh Khachadourian on the Raising the Standard podcast, where we talked about the role creation plays — particularly writing — in shaping authority, obedience, and momentum. But this conversation isn’t only for people who think of themselves as “authors.”

It’s for people who sense they’re meant to:

• build something that outlives a season
• clarify a message they’ve been carrying for years
• translate experience into something others can step into
• or stop sitting on insight that was meant to be stewarded

God didn’t design you to stay hidden — but He also didn’t intend for your work to remain undefined.

Listen to the interview here:

From Collected Ideas to Finished Work

Long before publishing books, I was already writing — blogging, podcasting, capturing ideas that wouldn’t leave me alone.

Over time, writing became:

• a way to steward revelation
• a discipling and teaching tool
• a means of serving from the mission field, where I’ve lived and worked for over 16 years now
• and eventually, a way to bring clarity to others

In 2013, I began publishing on Amazon — not because I had formal training, but because I took responsibility for finishing what I was carrying.

Since then, I’ve been able to:

• publish multiple books
• narrate over 45 audiobooks
• host the Fire On Your Head podcast (since 2007)
• help authors and leaders clarify and complete their message

One pattern has held true through all of it:

Clarity compounds when it’s finished.

A finished work doesn’t just communicate — it positions.
It creates alignment.
It becomes something others can return to, share, and build from.

Fear Doesn’t Disappear — It Gets Exposed

People often assume creators operate from confidence and certainty.

In reality, fear shows up every time you approach something that matters.

It tends to disguise itself as:

• perfectionism
• imposter syndrome
• over-research
• endless revisions
• “waiting for the right time”

I’ve faced every one of these.

And I’ve learned that fear doesn’t leave before you act — it loses its power after you move.

During the podcast, Josh said something that landed deeply with me:

Someone is waiting for you to show up. — @Standard_59
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That’s been confirmed repeatedly through messages from people whose clarity, ministries, or next steps were impacted by something I wrote or said.

But that only happens when something is released.

Expression is seed.
Seed only bears fruit when it’s planted.
And, you can’t reap a harvest where you didn’t sow.

The Cost of Never Finishing

There’s a quote I’ve not been able to shake:

Some people won’t hear “Well done, good and faithful servant.”They’ll hear “Well planned, never done.”
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Most people don’t stall because they’re unqualified.
They stall because they never cross the line into completion.

Cemeteries are filled with:

• unwritten books
• undeveloped frameworks
• ministries that never found form
• ideas that stayed internal

Not because people didn’t care — but because they never finished.

I’ve had to confront this in my own life. Completion requires choosing obedience over perfection, and stewardship over comfort.

There is a kind of dominion that only comes with finishing.

And a finished book doesn’t just serve others — it reshapes the person who completes it.

If You’re Carrying Something That Needs Form

If you know you’re meant to write a book — or to bring clarity to something you’ve been carrying — here’s the first step:

Decide what God is asking you to finish.
Not someday.
Not when things slow down.
Now.

For some people, that decision is enough to unlock momentum.

For others, clarity requires help.

Josh and I have opened a small window to work with a limited number of people who want to turn lived experience and insight into a finished authority asset, not just another idea on the shelf.

This isn’t for everyone.
It’s for people who value clarity, depth, and outcomes — and who are ready to steward what they’ve been given responsibly.

If this resonates, you’ll know.

? [Application link]

We review each submission personally and only move forward where there’s a strong fit.

One Final Question

What has God already placed in your hand?
What clarity has been forming quietly for years?

And are you willing to bring it into the light — finished, defined, and stewarded well?

I’ve learned this much through experience:

There is always fruit on the other side of obedience.
And often, obedience looks like finishing what you started.

Let’s build something that lasts.

Time.

As though writing requires booking a monastery retreat and shaving your head before God allows words to flow.

People talk about time like it’s a mythological creature they’ve only heard rumors about:

“I’d totally write if I could just find the time.”

Find it?
Where?
Behind the couch with all the lost socks and TV remotes?
Hidden under that pile of laundry that’s been “almost folded” for three weeks?

Meanwhile, the same people binge an entire Netflix season in one night like it’s an Olympic event.

But sure… writing is impossible because time simply doesn’t exist for them.

Let’s Just Call This What It Is

Not having time is the respectable excuse.
It’s the one that sounds grown-up.

“I don’t have time” sounds better than the truth:

“I’m terrified to start.”
“I don’t know if what I have to say matters.”
“I’m afraid the blank page will expose me as a fraud.”

Time is not the enemy.
Fear is.
And fear is craftier than any Greek participle or semicolon could ever dream of being.

If Time Were Really the Problem…

If time were the actual barrier, humanity would’ve stopped producing TikToks, reaction videos, and conspiracy threads at 2 a.m. a long time ago.

But somehow we always find time to:

• Scroll endlessly
• Watch “one more episode”
• Look up whether the moon landing was faked
• Deep-dive on a stranger’s Instagram profile
• Research air fryers for an hour
• Correct people on the internet who are wrong (which is everyone but me)

Yet writing?
Oh no, sorry.
No time for that. My schedule is booked solid with procrastination and existential dread.

The Real Problem Pulls Up a Chair: Imposter Syndrome

People tell me, “Steve, I want to write, but I’m just so busy.”

Busy?
Friend, when someone really wants to write, they’ll scribble notes on napkins, receipts, and the back of their kid’s homework if they have to.

But when fear shows up — suddenly the whole universe rearranges itself so you have zero time.

Amazing how that works.

Because the truth is:

• The blank page is scary.
• Your own voice is intimidating.
• Starting makes you feel exposed.
• Writing feels like you’re signing up for everyone to judge you.

And heaven forbid you write something terrible.
(You will. It’s called a first draft. Everyone survives it.)

The Blank Page Is Not Demanding a Sacred Time Slot

People treat the blank page like it’s some sacred relic that requires ideal conditions:

“My office needs to be spotless.”
“I need total quiet.”
“I need a full pot of coffee.”
“I need the stars to align in the northern sky or a full moon during equinox.”

Look — the blank page does not care if you’re writing in a noisy kitchen while eating leftover tacos. The blank page is neutral. Unbothered. Patiently waiting for you to stop pretending you need a sabbatical before typing a sentence.

Time Isn’t the Issue: Priorities Are

You always have time for what you make time for.
Even if it’s five minutes.
Even if it’s one paragraph a day.
Even if it’s 100 sloppy, chaotic words that look like they were written during a caffeine overdose.

Writing is not about having time.
It’s about showing up — consistently — even when you feel like an imposter.

You Don’t Need a Time Miracle — You Need Momentum

Write a little today.
More tomorrow.
A tiny bit the next day.

You can fix bad writing.
You can refine messy ideas.
You can edit a clumsy paragraph.

But you can’t edit the book you never wrote because you were too busy telling yourself time was the issue.

Final Thought

God is not withholding creativity just because you didn’t block off a three-hour window of uninterrupted silence. You won’t get smitten for writing a paragraph on your phone while sitting in a grocery store parking lot.

You don’t need perfect circumstances.
You don’t need more time.
You don’t need your life to magically calm down.

You just need to start.

Because the blank page isn’t the enemy.

The “I don’t have time” excuse is just Imposter Syndrome in a cheap disguise.

If this hit a nerve and you’re tired of pretending “no time” is the issue, send me a message and reach out to me. I help people like you start writing when everything in their life says they can’t.

Let’s get you unstuck.

In the meantime, here’s a podcast with fellow author and Canadian Sebastien Richard where we covered the scribe annointing and being obedient to the Lord’s prompting to write.

Oh, and also a plant that Neelix was carrying with him to be beamed back aboard the ship.

So in other words, everything being beamed up onto the ship’s transporter platform was merged into a single being, rather than separate individuals, one of which was holding that plant from the planet’s surface.

Tuvix wasn’t evil or broken. He’s just… too much.
He’s logical and emotional, calm and excitable, efficient and scattered.
He tries to be everything at once—and ends up a little confusing.

Sound familiar?

That’s similar to what happens every time you feed an AI like ChatGPT or your LLM of choice (I use Magai for a mix) a long, over-stuffed prompt full of questions.

When Your Output Gets “Tuvixed”

Writers love efficiency, so we think, “If I ask eight questions at once in a single prompt, I’ll get eight answers in one go.”

But AI doesn’t reason the way people do.
If you give it eight questions, it won’t combine or prioritize them—it’ll often answer all eight one at a time. Even if two responses overlap, the chat will still produce two distinct and perhaps full paragraphs, because its job is to complete every pattern you feed it.

The result?

• Repetition.
• Contradictions.
• Lots of polite filler words that make you feel like something profound just happened.

It’s not intelligence—it’s a Tuvix response: a fusion of half-connected thoughts trying to satisfy every instruction at once.

AI Mirrors Human Suggestibility

Another example I’ve seen repeatedly is when you tell your LLM of choice “do this, but don’t do that“, it can sometimes, for reasons I still don’t fully understand, see the words “this” and “that”, and then proceed to do both things, including what you explicitly told it not to do.

If you tell someone not to think of a purple elephant, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? The very idea you put there by telling them not to think about; the purple elephant.

Remember that moment in the original Ghostbusters (1984) when Gozer tells the team to choose the form of their destroyer? They all try to clear their minds—but Ray can’t help it. “It just popped in there,” he says about the most harmless thing he could think of, and seconds later the giant building-sized Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man lumbers through New York, stepping on cars while people flee its path.

The same thing happens with AI: if your prompt includes, “Don’t mention X,” the model will likely mention it anyway because you’ve planted the seed. Like Ray’s fluffy nemesis, it can’t un-imagine what you told it not to imagine.

The clearer and more positive your prompt, the smaller the Marshmallow Man you’ll have to clean up after. Like Tuvok, Neelix (and that plant), everything that was beamed up to the space ship was merged; likewise, everything in your prompt will get merged, correctly or incorrectly, into the output you receive from the chat.

Why AI Can’t Filter Like You

Humans naturally compress and summarize information.
If you ask me eight related questions about your chapter, I’ll probably say, “Those first three are really the same issue—let’s tackle that first.”

AI can’t do that unless you tell it to.
It doesn’t recognize redundancy or importance; it just pattern-matches.
So when your prompt merges multiple tasks—analysis, rewriting, summarizing, brainstorming—it tries to be Tuvok and Neelix (and the plant) all at once.

And like the Voyager crew discovered, that rarely ends well.

How to “Un-Tuvix” Your Prompts

Here’s how to get cleaner, smarter results:

1. Ask one clear question at a time.
   Instead of dumping everything in one paragraph, break it into small, sequential asks.
2. Tell the model to consolidate.
   Example: “Look at these eight questions and tell me which ones overlap or don’t need separate answers.” That forces it to think like Tuvok, not talk like Tuvix.
3. Work in dialogue, not monologue.
   Treat AI like a conversation partner. Respond, refine, redirect. You’ll get depth instead of word count.
4. Request brevity.
   Add a constraint: “Answer in 3 bullet points or less.” Constraints sharpen clarity.
5. Edit with discernment.
   AI can fill space, but only you can determine what’s worth keeping. That’s your human edge.

Side note for later: other ways I use AI in my writing.

OR avoid the Tuvix problem in the first place

When you overload your AI with too many questions, you’re not saving time—you’re multiplying clutter. You’re fusing logic and chaos into a single, over-helpful hybrid that sounds smart but isn’t.

You don’t need more tools—you need better direction. If you’d like help structuring your ideas, shaping your message, or using AI as your creative partner (not your ghostwriter), Schedule a call with me.

Too many people assume authors make a fortune (or at least a pretty penny) every time someone buys their book. If only!

The reality is, for indie authors, publishing is both a passion and a business investment. While it offers full creative control and higher royalty percentages than traditional publishing, the margins are still thin—and the costs are real.

While this article is written primarily for first-time authors considering self-publishing — especially those working on nonfiction or faith-based books who are trying to understand realistic costs before spending money in the wrong order —readers will get some insight and understand the work that goes into creating content you consume.

Most confusion around publishing costs comes from not understanding spending order and budget tiers. This piece is meant to clarify both, so authors can make informed decisions without overspending too early.

Let’s take a look at what really happens behind the scenes.

eBooks

When an eBook sells for $5.99, the indie author earns about $3.70 from Amazon.com after distribution fees. Basically you collect 70% of royalties IF your book is priced no less than 2.99 and no higher than 9.99 USD. 

Paperbacks

For a paperback priced at $15.99, the author takes home roughly $6.70 per sale.
Between printing costs and Amazon’s share, profit margins are slimmer than most readers imagine.

Kindle Unlimited Reads

Supposedly, every full read in Kindle Unlimited earns an indie author around $1. I say supposedly because frankly, that depends on your book’s length. I haven’t confirmed if this is the case, but years ago I learned that an author’s ebook in KU paid an author enrolled in it the equivalent of half a cent per page read. 

It adds up slowly, and if you’re a novelist with many lengthy books that sell in high volume, you can make some serious scratch, but each reader still makes a difference.

Production Costs Add Up Fast

Before earning a single sale, indie authors often invest hundreds (or thousands) upfront. You can self-publish cheaply or expensively

The bigger risk is spending money too early on the wrong things.

Editing Is Not One Thing (And Treating It Like One Gets Expensive)

One of the most common mistakes first-time authors make is lumping everything under the word editing.

In reality, editing is not a single service — it’s a sequence of distinct stages, each solving a different problem. Skipping steps or doing them out of order often leads to paying twice.

Here’s a simplified breakdown:

Manuscript critique / readiness review
This is a diagnostic step, and, for full disclosure, one I often provide for a few hundred bucks depending on the shape your manuscript is currently in. The goal is to assess clarity, structure, argument flow, reader assumptions, and overall readiness before heavy editing begins. It helps identify what kind of editing is actually needed — and what issues should be addressed first.

Cheap alternative: You can usually find beta readers willing to do this for cheap or free, but not all readers’s opinions are created equal (especially friends and family who aren’t your target reader and may gloss over your blindspots or not know what will sell your book)

Developmental or content editing
This focuses on structure, argumentation, organization, and clarity at the chapter and section level. For nonfiction and apologetics, this is often where the most value (and cost) lies.

Line editing
This improves sentence-level clarity, style, and flow once the structure is sound. Line editing polishes what’s already working — it doesn’t fix underlying problems.

Citation checking and source work
For source-heavy books, this is often a separate cost category. It involves verifying claims, formatting citations correctly, and ensuring sources are represented accurately.

Proofreading
This is the final pass, after all substantive changes are completed. Proofreading catches typos and minor errors — it should be the last money you spend, not the first.

Authors get into trouble when they:

• pay for proofreading before structure is settled
• pay for line editing before arguments are clear
• pay for citations before knowing what content will change

Understanding these distinctions is often more important than knowing the exact dollar amounts.

In practice, budget tiers matter less than whether money is being spent at the right stage.

Editing before clarity, marketing before audience, proofreading before revision = wasted money. Then, only if and when you’re satisfied your manuscript is ready for the market you will have investments like:

• Cover design: $35–$400 (however, higher end designers don’t charge this low)
• eBook formatting: $60–$300 
• Paperback formatting: $100–$400 (I do ebook and paperback formatting in Vellum for around $250, depending on how many images and footnotes you included), but for prolific authors, buying the software yourself might be a worthwhile investment if you intend on publishing multiple books
• Advertising & marketing: unpredictable, but often more than the book earns early on. 
• Are you going to launch an author website of your own to promote yourself and your book via Google and NOT rely exclusively on social media and their ever-changing whimsy algorithms for visibility?
• Are you planning on building an email list to collect subscribers who visit your website or want to hear more?

That’s why every purchase, review, and recommendation matters—it helps authors get more visibility for their books, which can lead to more sales, which in turn, eventually helps their investment and fund the next book.

What People Usually Mean by “Budget Tiers”

When people ask about self-publishing budget tiers, they’re usually talking about levels of investment, not guarantees of success.

Here’s a realistic way to think about it:

Tier 1: Shoestring / Proof-of-Concept

$500–$1,500 total

• Minimal or partial editing
• DIY or low-cost cover design
• Basic formatting
• Little to no marketing spend

This tier is common for first-time authors who want to publish responsibly without major financial risk. The trade-off is polish and reach.

Tier 2: Professional / Credibility-Focused

$2,500–$6,000 total

• Professional editing (often developmental + line)
• Professional cover design
• Clean ebook and paperback formatting
• Selective marketing experiments

This tier is where most serious nonfiction and faith-based authors land. The goal isn’t mass sales — it’s producing a book that reflects well on the author and holds up to scrutiny.

Tier 3: Premium / Platform-Driven

$7,500+

• Multiple rounds of editing
• High-end design and branding
• Professional marketing strategy
• Audiobook production

This tier only makes sense when the author already has an audience or a clear downstream business model.

Important:
Spending more does not guarantee better results.
Spending out of order almost guarantees regret.

A note on apologetics and source-heavy Academic books

Books that rely heavily on sources, quotations, and argumentation often incur higher editorial costs — not because they’re poorly written, but because they carry higher accuracy and credibility expectations.

In these cases, clarity of argument and citation readiness matter more early on than surface polish.

Audiobooks

Audiobooks are their own ecosystem, with higher upfront costs and longer break-even timelines. For most first-time authors, they make sense after a book has proven demand, not before.

I’ve written more extensively about this elsewhere, but for budgeting purposes,
read more of my articles for considerations before producing an audiobook for your masterpiece. 

What About Computer Generated Voices?

That said, the prices for hiring professional narrators are one of the reasons authors are tempted by AI-generated narration, which has exploded in visibility recently as a quick, inexpensive option. I explained in my article “How Using AI Narrators Could Backfire for Authors”, what looks like a shortcut can actually become a setback.

AI narration is improving, but it still can’t match a human narrator’s tone, nuance, and emotional depth—and listeners notice. A robotic voice can cheapen your brand and hurt sales across all formats. While it may save money upfront, poor listener engagement and weaker reviews can cost far more in the long run. 

Oh, and Amazon LIMITS how high of a price an author can set for the virtual voice version of your audiobooks. As of writing this, I have anecdotal evidence and feedback from voracious audiobook listeners that many people prefer human narration, full stop. So that’s less interest in your cheaper-made virtual voiced book, and a lower price point, meaning the sales will still be lower than royalties on higher-priced audiobooks. 

For authors serious about building credibility and lasting impact, human narration still remains the wiser investment for now. 

The Bigger Picture: Building Beyond Book Sales

This is why many authors eventually think beyond royalties alone. If you’re thinking of writing a best-selling novel to fund your retirement, you may want to produce quite a few more books in a series first, and learn some marketing.

If you’re a non-fiction author, which is in my wheelhouse, your own book can be the best lead-generator for your coaching, or service business, or speaking engagements.  

As an author coach, ghostwriter, and strategist, I help people not just publish books—but use those books as launchpads to grow their influence, attract opportunities, and create income streams that go far beyond Amazon payouts.

Your book can open doors to speaking engagements, coaching clients, online courses, and partnerships—if it’s positioned strategically.

That’s where real thought leadership begins.

A Note on AI-Assisted Manuscripts to “Save on Cost”

AI tools can improve language and flow, but they often mask deeper issues like logic gaps, weak transitions, repetition, and assumptions about the reader. As a result, AI-assisted manuscripts often feel more finished than they are.

This creates a common mistake: spending money polishing language before resolving structural or argumentative problems — which increases total cost rather than reducing it.

Used wisely, AI can save time. Used prematurely, it often increases downstream editing costs.

Why Every Reader Still Matters

Every purchase, every review, every page read still makes a tangible difference—it’s a vote of confidence that keeps an indie author’s work sustainable.

But long-term success comes from pairing your message with a clear strategy for visibility and impact.

Before you hire an editor or spend significant money to produce and launch your book, ask:

• Do I know WHO this book is for?
• Is the argument clear to someone outside my immediate circle?
• Do I know what kind of editor I actually need?

This is why conversations about publishing costs matter less than spending order and clarity of purpose.

A book can stand alone — or it can support a larger mission, message, or business — but those goals should shape how much is invested and when.

I work with authors at different stages of that process, but the principles above apply regardless of who you work with.

Ready to build your platform as a thought leader?
Book a Discovery Call with Me

The phrase “Real artists ship” is famously attributed to Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, and it reflects his intense focus on execution, deadlines, and delivering finished products rather than endlessly perfecting ideas.

The Story Behind the Quote

This quote comes from the development of the original Macintosh in the early 1980s. Steve Jobs was leading a high-pressure project to deliver a groundbreaking personal computer, but his team—particularly some of the engineers and designers—were obsessed with perfecting every detail. They were passionate and creative, often pushing for more time to refine their work.

Jobs, although known for his perfectionism, was even more committed to shipping the product on time. At one point, when the team was falling behind schedule, he reportedly said to them:

Real artists ship

What does that mean for us authors and writers?

It means the difference between a dreamer and a doer. It means the chasm between “almost done” and “out there in the world.” Execution is more important perfection.

I’ve seen it time and again, whether it’s writers with half-finished manuscripts or, in ministry, those who talk about great plans but never quite follow through.

I’ve got social media contacts I’ve been talking to for YEARS who are always tweaking or adding to a book they’re working on, and pushing off handing it to an editor or getting it ready for public consumption because they’re never satisfied that it’s finished or completed.

They’re always updating and making tweaks, but …. never shipping it.

Jobs’ maxim isn’t just about delivering; it’s about unlocking the dormant power within your creation. Until it’s out there, until it’s “shipped,” its potential remains untapped. And let’s be honest, none of us have forever. The sooner we share our gifts, the sooner they can impact others, the sooner they can begin to bear fruit.

To this day, I’m still constantly thinking of nuggets or learning pieces of insight about speaking in tongues that make me say to myself “if only I knew that before publishing the book– I could have included that!”

I tell writing clients of mine who struggle with this perfectionism that their book will NEVER feel ready enough to put out there, but you gotta just publish it (ship it) and get on with life!

My books didn’t impact anyone until they were actually finished and published. Granted, I was already dipping my toes in the water and had immediate feedback loops like my blog and podcast for years prior to self-publishing my first Kindle book, and I was already exploring topics I eventually wrote my books about.

So, how do we, as writers, become “real artists” and start shipping? It’s simpler than you might think, though not always easy.

Here’s how to start “shipping” in 5 steps:

1. Make a list of all your unfinished projects. That half-written book, the blog post draft, the devotional you started but never completed. Get them all down.
2. Decide which of these you will complete and which you will let go of. Not every idea needs to see the light of day. Discernment is a spiritual gift, and it applies here too.
3. Pick one project to finish first. If you’re overwhelmed, pick the one that would make the most significant difference to your calling or ministry. Or, just pick the first one on your list. Don’t overthink it.
4. Finish the project and celebrate your accomplishment. This isn’t just about the work; it’s about acknowledging your dedication and perseverance.
5. Move on to the next writing project on your list (if you have any). Don’t start any new projects before finishing old ones. This creates a powerful momentum and trains you to follow through.

So, the question remains: are you a real artist? Are you willing to ship? Stop playing around in the shallows of endless drafts and unfinished book ideas.

If you’re an author who’s been stuck in the “almost done” phase, or if the idea of “shipping” feels overwhelming, I get it. I’ve walked that road as an author and helped many others cross the finish line.

My passion is seeing your message impact the world.

If you’re ready to stop procrastinating and tweaking, and start transmitting—if you’re ready to get your book out of your head and into the hands of your readers—then I invite you to reach out. I’d love to discuss how we can work together to bring your vision to completion.

I was on a private video call last month with Charlie Webster, the lead translator of The 21st Century New Testament. Instead, I got a masterclass in history, language, and the very heart of the Great Commission.

It left me convinced that what Charlie is doing isn’t just creating another translation—he’s removing barriers that have stood between readers and the text for centuries.

Are We Using the Right Words?

For over 20 years, he has worked to identify these words and replace them with modern language that captures the original intent. The goal? To make the Bible accessible to anyone, especially those who don’t have a background in “church-speak.”

Instead of “disciple,” he uses “trainee.” As he pointed out, “disciple” is a word we almost exclusively use in a religious context today. But “trainee” is universal. It immediately brings to mind a hands-on relationship of learning and practice, which is exactly what following Jesus is about.

Instead of “baptize,”* he uses “immerse.” “Baptize” is just the Greek word baptizo put into English letters—it was never truly translated. This left it open to becoming a purely religious ritual. But “immerse” evokes a powerful, all-encompassing experience: being immersed in the Holy Spirit, in a new community, in a totally new way of life.

By recovering the original, practical meaning of these terms, Charlie’s work is stripping away layers of religious varnish to reveal the vibrant, living message underneath.

But the innovation doesn’t stop at word choice. For me, one of the most exciting features is the structure of the Gospel story itself. Instead of four separate accounts, Charlie has masterfully merged Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John into a single, seamless narrative called Good News. You read the entire story of Jesus in chronological order—each parable and event woven together. This alone is a game-changer, making the life of Jesus more accessible and compelling to read than I’ve ever seen in other translations or books on the life of Jesus in chronological order.

How a Simple Translation Choice Can Change Everything

Here’s where it got really exciting for me. This philosophy of translation isn’t just an academic exercise; it’s directly tied to a vision for how the church is meant to function. If you’ve been following my blog or podcast over the years, you’ll already know I’m all about organic fellowship and disciple-making, or training.

Charlie advocates for a model of church built around small, interactive discussion groups of 2-12 people. He shared a brilliant analogy with me: ants, in their combined mass, outweigh all mammals on earth. Why? Because small things reproduce quickly. Elephants—large, slow-moving institutions—take years to reproduce.

This is his model for the church. Instead of one authoritative leader speaking to a passive crowd, these small “ant-like” communities empower everyone to engage, ask questions, and truly “own” their faith.

And a translation like this is the perfect fuel for that fire. When the text is clear, direct, and free of jargon, anyone can lead a discussion.

Anyone can find meaning.

Anyone can be equipped to go out and multiply.

It democratizes discipleship.

This is also the very essence of the work my wife and I are dedicated to here in Peru—fostering organic communities where everyone is a participant, not a spectator.

Charlie’s work is more than just a new or different version of the New Testament Bible. It’s a tool designed to build the kind of active, reproducing faith communities we see in the New Testament.

It has me wondering: what could happen if we all started reading the Bible not as a sacred rulebook, but as a practical training manual for life?

You can get it on Amazon, or learn more about his ministry at https://ncm-21.com/.

Any podcasters or YouTubers in my world who like to review Bible translations who would perhaps like to have Charlie on as a guest, reach out to me and I’ll introduce you. Or, you can fill out a form at the New Century Ministries website, but bear in mind, he told me DMs on social media are a bad way to reach him, but you’re free to try that if you want.

Remember the Gospel account when a woman was caught in the act of adultery — not just gossiped about sometime later, but caught DOING the deed — and was brought before Jesus by religious leaders who wanted to trap Him into condemning her according to the law, which would’ve required death by stoning?

Many people have at least a cursory familiarity with the story in John 8 and maybe know its context, but it seems EVERYONE and their dog knows the “he who is without sin throw the first stone” line.

It comes from that passage.

One by one, the accusers leave, and Jesus tells the woman He does not condemn her, encouraging her to “go and sin no more.”

Why Do We Flip The Roles With Victim and Perpetrator?

I don’t claim to be speaking for the Lord or that this is a “prophetic statement” or anything. Just some thoughts from reading my Bible and pondering this particular well-known story.

Many people take away from it how Jesus showed this woman incredible mercy when not dealing with her as her sin called for under the law of Moses: to be stoned to death. He alone showed her compassion while nobody else present did, while all her accusers, ready to put her to death, and fled when challenged.

But many people forget that under the law, both offenders were to be stoned to death, not just the woman.

Hang on, I’m going somewhere with this.

Have you ever read this passage and wondered, if she was caught in the very act, then… WHERE’S THE MAN she was caught with? Why was HE not being thrown at Jesus feet by the crowd and demanded that he be stoned to death, too, as per Leviticus 20:10 and Deuteronomy 22:22-24?

Was the Other Sinner a Perpetrator From Among Their Rank?

Other smarter and more well-studied people can corroborate or contradict me, as I admit I could have learned wrong on this, but hear me out: I’ve been persuaded from my learning that it’s likely the guy she was with was one of the religious leaders ready to stone her.

It makes complete sense when you watch how this plays out repeatedly in modern churchianity. Not just a religious leader, the other offender was probably one of the people in that very crowd calling for her stoning.

Maybe even leading the charge?

I can’t prove it, but you can pray and talk to Jesus directly and ask him, as he was there, and see what he tells you.

Anyway, these people, in one of their many failed attempts in the Gospels to trap Jesus, overlooked and “showed grace” to their buddy who they caught in the act with this woman.

Heck, after stoning the woman (which would have silenced her FOR GOOD, wouldn’t it have?), maybe they planned on throwing him a confetti party as they reinstated him in ministry.

Who truly knows?

None of us know for sure if there was a power dynamic at play and whether this woman was a willing participant or a victim, but does it matter for our reflection at the moment?

Whether it was a religious leader who had abused, victimized or coerced his partner into the act(s), and whether it was on just this one occasion or if it was a regular thing until that day, are a moot point; This Scripture passage offers a powerful framework to understand and respond to the modern scenario of a woman rising up to share her story of clergy sexual abuse (CSA) as I see it currently happening repeatedly in different ministries these days.

Why Is The Victim the One We Try To Discredit?

Just as the religious leaders in John 8 quickly condemned the woman without any evident self-examination, at least according to the text, I’ve seen many rush to judge or discredit THE WOMAN (in this case, who was a 20 year-old victim at the time) sharing her painful testimony while running cover for the perpetrator, her 46 year-old boss and spiritual mentor at the time.

They might not be casting physical stones but the modern digital equivalent, which are:

• “Why did she wait so long to bring this up?”
• “She was an adult at the time, not a child! She had to have consented or she could have resisted if she didn’t want his advances!”
• “Has anyone considered she might be lying?” while not questioning whether her abuser is lying about anything, of course!
• “WhY dIdN’t ShE rUn AwAy LiKe JoSePh DiD fRoM PoTiPhAr’s WiFe??”

They cast stones mirroring the hypocrisy of the accusers who ignored their own faults and instead focused harshly on condemning her.

NOTE, I’m NOT implying people casting stones at Sarah, Mike Brown’s young victim, are themselves in sin or hiding their own gross sin, just that they’re seemingly willing to overlook their hero’s at the expense of his victim’s.

Similarly, the tendency to protect a prominent minister uncritically while attacking the CSA survivor(s) reflects a twisted use of power, where religious or institutional interests override truth and compassion.

We need a revolution in the Church!

How many of Mike Brown‘s fans and defenders, who noticed that I just quoted something he said all the time to us back in school as the subheader for this section, have called those of us who believe the victim, witnesses and whistleblowers a mob of critical, bitter, aggressive, vindictive gossipers with a vendetta against him?

We were told to “wait for the investigation to take place and the truth will come to light at that time.

Once we did and and the Firefly report did NOT exonerate him like they hoped it would, despite whatever 27-page statement his board made disagreeing with it and changing definitions of words to sound like no big deal, his defenders switched stones they hurl.

Now the stones they toss are:

• “Wait for God’s justice in HIS timing!”
• “You are just bitter, and not letting the past stay in the past.
• “Sure, he handled it wrong, but it was 23 years ago — move on already!
• “You’re just looking for dirt to dig up!”
• “Ya’all are possessed by a Jezebel spirit!”
• “Sure, what he did was wrong, but you are following the wrong protocol!”
• “YoU oPeRaTe OuT oF a SpIrIt oF oFfEnsE tHaT’s NoT GoDlY!”

Whether we believe the victim, or believe that the perpetrator is unfit for public ministry based on Scriptural qualifications, as believers we all need humility and self-awareness.

Just as the woman in the Bible is invited into a new way of life through Jesus’s mercy, the survivor’s voice calls the community to transformation—towards justice, accountability, and healing—rather than cover-up or denial.

Understanding why someone may take years to speak out is part of the compassionate stance the passage encourages.

The REAL Reason Victims take years– even decades to come forward

Are you aware that the average age of victims to come forward to reveal childhood and young adult incidents of sexual abuse is 52 years of age? It’s common for victims to take a long time to come forward, because it may be something they grapple with for a long time. But also, they have take a deep breath and get ready for all the stones that the religious folk and their leaders will throw at them.

For far too long victims have had to watch as the ministry machine and its followers jump over themselves to defend the powerful and popular religious figure and hurl stones at the victim.

Who would want to willingly subject themselves to that?

Just as the Bible doesn’t condemn the woman when she was caught, we are reminded that trauma and power dynamics often delay disclosure, and these delays do not diminish the truth or severity of the abuse.

In sum, while this Scripture calls us not to be quick to judge or dismiss, but to drop the stones of condemnation, embrace grace, and listen to the wounded with a heart open to healing and justice, strangely, I’m seeing a lot more calls for people to let go of bitterness and offense and not stone the abuser, while thinking nothing of attacking the victim, calling her all sorts of vile things, such as liar.

Drop the stones, already.

Lately, it feels like every week brings another wave of news about a ministry leader, someone we might have looked up to, facing serious allegations or admitted failures.

For me, the recent situation surrounding Dr. Michael Brown in particular has been weighing heavily on many minds including my own, as have others in the charismatic world. Everything is getting exposed.

But let’s talk about something called “hindsight bias” mixed in with some bandwagon effect and consider something real quick.

I’ve been seeing friends and colleagues of mine I trust posting links to articles and videos about others I’m not so well connected to or in the know about, sharing their reasons for defending someone in the past or not having seen something for themselves that others are coming forward about (like with Todd White, for example) and the comments on these social media posts and YouTube videos are just hard for me to take in.

• “I knew it!”
• “I always had a bad feeling about him.”
• “Something just never sat right with me and that ministry.”
• “Did you see how [insert slightly off-kilter sermon moment from years ago] – it was all there in plain sight!”

Suddenly, conversations are filled with folks claiming 20/20 foresight, AFTER the fact. After the exposure.

Everyone’s an expert in spotting the signs, after the signs are already flashing neon red.

But friends, before we all jump on the “I was right all along” bandwagon, let’s pause and consider a little brain trick called “hindsight bias”.

Psychologists have a name for this, and it’s worth understanding, especially in times like these. Hindsight bias is basically our brain’s sneaky way of rewriting our memory after the fact to make us look smarter, more perceptive, more… right.

We get new information – a public scandal, an admission of sin – and bam! Our memories get a little rewrite and we convince ourselves, innocently enough, that we always had this information all along. And, our brain thinks it did. It’s like we’re editing our past to align with our present knowledge, and then confidently declaring, “See? I knew it all along!”

Have you ever had someone in your life send you an article or a link about something and they tell you “I told you so!” and you think to youself, wait a minute, you’ve never once told me ANYTHING!” This is what could be happening.

Think about it: Before the news broke or someone wrote an article exposing someone or a YouTuber made an exposé and prior to that, many of us never knew any better about someone, we likely focused on the good or were ambivalent at worst. We may have appreciated the teaching, a certain ministry’s impact, the seemingly genuine faith. That’s normal!

But after the revelation?

Suddenly, those past interactions, those sermons, those “vibes” get re-interpreted through a new, and now very critical, lens. A quirky sermon illustration becomes a sign of theological error. A moment of intensity is now seen as manipulation. A strong personality, now labeled as controlling.

Now, let me be clear. It’s absolutely true that for some, these scandals do provide the courage to finally speak out about genuine concerns. When the dam breaks, many who have experienced harm or seen questionable behavior might feel safe enough to share their stories, and that’s valid and important.

And don’t get me wrong: there are people who’ve been sounding the alarm all along about some of these figures now finally having their double lives or hypocrisies come to light. Sometimes, the public unraveling validates what they’ve been saying all along, often dismissed or doubted before. And I’m all here for it!

However, there’s also the danger of the bandwagon effect, mixed with this hindsight bias. It’s easy to get caught up in the collective “I knew it” chorus. There’s a strange social validation in saying “I saw it coming,” even if, in reality, our “seeing” is being significantly colored by what we NOW know.

Are we really remembering genuine red flags from the past?

Or are we just retrofitting our memories to feel validated and perhaps a bit… superior?

And let’s be honest, sometimes, it’s easier to jump on the condemnation train than to engage with the messy, complicated reality of sin, repentance, and restoration. It’s tidier to say, “They were always bad” than to wrestle with the fact that leaders we once admired can fall, and that human nature, even in ministry, is deeply flawed.

Let’s be discerning, yes.

Let’s be wise, absolutely!

But let’s also be deeply honest about the tricks our own minds can play, especially in the aftermath of disappointment and scandal. Maybe, instead of confidently proclaiming “I knew it all along,” we should embrace a bit more humility.

Maybe we should acknowledge that even we can be deceived.

Perhaps we should spend less time re-writing our pasts, and more time praying for genuine brokenness, repentance, and restoration – both in the lives of fallen leaders and in our own hearts.

Because grace, after all, is for the broken. And aren’t we all, in some way, broken and in constant need of it?

Just some thoughts from this coffee drinking canuck down in Peru.

P.S. A couple of good books I’ve listened to multiple times over the years on these kinds of things are by David McRaney,

“You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself”

and

“You Are Now Less Dumb: How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Outsmart Yourself“

There are a lot of good books out there on meta cognition and understanding how our brains work, but I love the narrator’s diction in the audiobook version and the humor the author brings to the work. Be warned there’s some light swearing, so make sure you’re not listening to on speakers with your favorite nun around.