What a joy to interview author, Tricia Goyer, about her new book, Walk It Out: The Radical Result of Living God’s Word One Step at a Time.

Interview with Tricia Goyer

1. Walk It Out is such an important message for today’s Christian in our current climate of compromise. Can you tell us about a time when it was particularly challenging for you to walk out what you knew was true?

There have been many times when I’ve read the Bible and knew God was asking me to step out in faith and follow Him. There have been some hard things: sharing my testimony in church and starting a crisis pregnancy center were two. But the hardest was being open to adopt kids from foster care for a second time.

Just 1 ½ years after John and I adopted a special needs sibling group we very clearly felt God asking us to do it again. Both of us felt called to adopt older girls who would soon be aging out of foster care. I’d worked with so many young moms who’d aged out and then found themselves pregnant within months, as they were looking for love in all the wrong places. John and I read God’s mandate to care for the orphans and the widows, and we felt God’s whisper, “Catch them before they find themselves on the streets, pregnant and alone.”

Yet, I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I knew there would be major attitude issues and conflict.

You can’t expect someone who has been abandoned over and over again just to move into your home and accept love with open arms.

It was hard. There were times I even wondered why we were putting ourselves in this situation and becoming the focus of these girls’ anger. It’s been two years since they moved in with us, and while there are still minor challenges, it’s so much better. With the right therapy—and a lot of patience and a lot of love—they’ve come so far. More than that, my heart is bonded with these kids. They are truly mine, and I am truly theirs. It’s a miracle!

I would not want to live through those challenging days again, but now that we’re past them I can’t help but praise God for all He’s done!

2. What is one of your favorite parts of Walk It Out and how do you hope it will help others?

I have to admit that my favorite chapter talks about my daughter Leslie’s journey in becoming a missionary in the Czech Republic. I first fell in love with the country while on a research trip with friends in 2000, and the way God led our whole family there on a mission trip was incredible. When we went there, as a family, to serve at an English camp I had no idea what God was going to do with my daughter.

I don’t want to give too much away, but God used a VERY unlikely person to fund my daughters first year there as a full-time missionary. Most people are in shock when they read it. Again … only God!

As for how I hope this part of our family’s story will help others … well, I want readers to know that miracles still happen. Also, if God has placed an International person, or a passion for a country, on your heart don’t ignore it. You have no idea what God is going to do with that!

3. What is one of your go-to Bible verses for this idea of walking out what you believe?

James 1:22 says, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”

It doesn’t get more plain than that!

4. You have written so many books! 60ish right? What advice do you have for aspiring writers who are just getting started?

I believe it’s over seventy books now. I need to go back and count!

First, don’t compare your beginning with someone’s middle or end. I started writing in 1994, when I attended my first writer’s conference. I started getting articles published a few years later. Then in 1999 I got a work-for-hire book project. My first novel didn’t come out until 2003. That’s a lot of time sitting at the computer and writing and writing with few results. Yet all those quiet years helped me grow into the writer I am today.

Second, you need to find healing for the pain deep in your own heart before you can offer anything (especially writing) to others. I talk about this in Walk It Out too. So many times we want to encourage or inspire others but we’re still carrying around pain and shame from our own past sins.

Once I discovered true freedom in Christ I was more open and willing to share the really hard stuff, and it’s then that the words flowed.

5. Anything else you’d like to share?

Yes, God has great purposes for you. It’s not just about the ONE THING that we feel matches our unique talents. Instead, we discover various elements of our purpose as we follow God day-by-day, step-by-step. It’s the small acts of obedience that lead us to the larger purposes that God has.

Thank you so much for sharing with us today, Tricia.

Pick up your copy of Walk It Out (and one for a friend, perhaps?) and be encouraged to put feet to your faith.

Tricia Goyer is a prolific author of more than sixty books. She is a homeschooling mom of ten, grandmother of four, and wife to John. She is the founder of Hope Pregnancy Center in Kalispell, Montana and now leads a teen mom support group in Little Rock, Arkansas.

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P.S. Are you a writer? Add your blog post to the #RaRaLinkup over on purposefulfaith.com