Steven Colborne's Blog, page 25

Calling all Authors!

Greetings, all. Just a quick post today to let you know that I have relaunched Tealight Books, which is my publishing consultancy for independent (self-publishing) authors. I have enough capacity to work with one or two authors, and anyone is welcome to contact me, whether you’ve yet to start writing your book, are part way through the writing and publishing process, or have a finished book and are looking for marketing ideas.

To find out more about the services I offer, visit the Tealight Books website, or view this earlier post where I listed some of the ways I can help independent authors.

You can also email me for a casual chat about your project — steven@tealightbooks.com

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Do you need help with writing, publishing, or promoting a book?

Having self-published more than a dozen books, I have learned a lot about self-publishing and the publishing industry in general. My books have been purchased or downloaded more than 15,000 times, and with more than a decade of self-publishing experience I’m now in a position to help other authors to write, publish, and promote their books.

Tealight Books is my publishing imprint and has now been developed to incorporate author services. Some of the things I’m able to help authors with include the following:

Refining and developing an idea for a bookFinding the right editor for your bookBuilding an author platformOptimising a blog for book salesBlog promotion and marketingCreating an author websiteBook cover design and interior formattingDistribution of books and eBooksBook promotion and marketing
…and much more!

I’m looking to work with individuals at any stage of their book publishing journey to help clarify and achieve their goals and make an impact in their chosen genre. My expertise is mainly in non-fiction, though I’m open to working with any author who is producing work that is groundbreaking or interesting.

Visit the Tealight Books website to learn more.

I’m offering a 20% discount on my service fees until the end of September 2022, though I can only work with one or two clients at a time so space is limited. I’m open to working with authors anywhere in the world, and I can accommodate different time zones and preferred methods of communication.

With any questions, or with an expression of interest, please email steven@tealightbooks.com. It would be great to hear from you.

Four Strategies for Dealing with Depression

The last thing someone wants to hear when they are dealing with depression is that they need to be proactive. Depression can be so crippling that even getting out of bed and having something to eat can be very challenging. But in this article I want to suggest a few gentle nudges that you can give yourself when feeling depressed that can make a world of difference to your mood and to how your day unfolds.

Recognise that your frame of mind CAN change

Just because you wake up feeling depressed, doesn’t mean that your whole day will be clouded by depression. Even if you have struggled to get up by 10am, 11am, or even midday, there’s still a whole day left and there are plenty of ways your day might unfold in such a way as to lift your mood. So resist the urge to feel defeated if you are struggling at the beginning of the day. There is still hope.

Be mindful of your ambitions and your victories

Sometimes, when we’re depressed, we need something to cling to in order to feel at all motivated. I believe God gives everyone talents as well as visions of what they might be able to do in the future. It’s important, when struggling with depression, to remember that a single day is only a very small part of your life journey and that you will have better days when you make good progress towards realising your dreams and ambitions. Even if there’s not much you can do today, maybe next week you will have a breakthrough day when everything goes your way. Also, think about how far you’ve come and what you’ve achieved already.

Implement your coping strategies

If you’re able to pull yourself out of bed, a good way to begin the day is to look at a list you have made of things that help you to deal with your depression. Personally, I keep a list on my smartphone titled ‘encouragement’ and set it to recur daily so whenever I check my phone it’s easy to find. Some of the strategies that work well for me are journaling, listening to uplifting or relaxing music, taking medication, small mood boosters (for me it’s vaping, drinking Coke, messaging a friend, eating some chocolate, watching my favourite YouTube subscriptions, listening to a favourite podcast, reading some Pslams, drinking a cup of coffee, etc). Yes, not all of these things are particularly healthy, but sometimes with depression you’re struggling to survive, so you can cut yourself a little slack. I also have some quotations in my ‘encouragement’ list that help me to feel grounded and positive.

Do one thing that stretches you, just a little

In order to break out of a depressive frame of mind, it can really help just to do something productive, whatever it is. Some things that help me are writing a blog post, picking up my guitar and having a jam, doing some tidying or washing, having something healthy and substantial to eat, reading a book, or doing some exercise. Admittedly, exercise is one of the hardest things for me when I’m feeling depressed, but even a 5-10 minute workout can be enough to improve my thoughts and provoke a sense of accomplishment. But do what works for you.

I hope that at least something I’ve suggested in this article has been helpful to you. I have written a short book titled Finding Your Balance: The 10 Key Ingredients of a Happy Life which offers simple advice for increasing one’s happiness levels. The book is currently available for free as an eBook, and all the details can be found on my Books page. Feel free to comment below with your own coping strategies for depression. Thank you for reading!

Five Ideas to Lift Your Mood Today

There’s a saying I like: Be kind, for everyone you encounter is fighting a hard battle. I think this is true, and the sacred Scriptures of many religions recognise that suffering and life go hand in hand. Nevertheless, there is good in every day, and I thank God for that. Also, in my experience, good days often follow bad days, so remember that other great saying: This too shall pass.

If you’re having a bad day today, I hope you will benefit from the suggestions below. They are all things that have helped me to cope with life’s struggles in the past.

Create a new playlist on your phone

If you have Apple Music, YouTube Music, Spotify, or another streaming app, you can take fifteen minutes to create a new playlist featuring only songs that you presently love. I did this the other day and it felt like a relief when I filtered out songs that I no longer enjoy, for whatever reason. I absolutely love the fact that technology has enabled me to have access to pretty much any song I might want to listen to, but often my musical taste changes or I don’t feel inspired by the AI-generated playlists these apps feature. So yeah, make yourself a new playlist today and enjoy the comfort of knowing every song you listen to is one that you love.

Create a gratitude list

Sometimes, with all of life’s busyness, we start to take things for granted. It can be good to pause and take stock and remember that God is meeting our needs every day in so many ways. A few months ago I published a blog post featuring 20 things I felt grateful for on that particular day. You can read that post here — it might inspire you to make your own list. By all means publish your gratitude list as a blog post, it might inspire others to do the same.

Do a 20-minute cleaning blitz

There’s always more we can do to keep our homes clean and tidy. I’m a minimalist myself (more on that below) but even so my flat can easily become messy. I find it helpful to set the timer on my phone to 20 minutes, and get as much tidying and cleaning as I can done in that time. You can reward yourself afterwards with a nice drink and you can listen to your newly created music playlist (see above) while you tidy.

Make an inventory of everything you own

Doing this was a game-changer for me. Living in unstable accommodation over the last few years has left me with with a fear that I could have to move out at any time. Moving home is recognised as one of life’s most stressful events, but this will be made much easier if you’re aware of everything you own. I use Apple Notes to list pretty much every item in my apartment, categorised by room. Doing this will help you to declutter — you will notice things you have that you don’t use and therefore don’t need, including things that you are doubling up on unnecessarily. Having an inventory is also thoughtful in terms of your family, who may have to sort out all your belongings if you are unexpectedly met with adversity.

Get into nature

If you’re able to, spend some time outside. If you have green spaces or a beach near you, take a walk and find a quiet place to sit peacefully for a while. You could bring your headphones (if you have some) and listen to your newly created favourite music playlist (see above). Failing that, a good book is always a good bet!

I hope you’ve found at least some of these suggestions helpful! Please let me know in the comments if you will be implementing any of them, or if you do some of them already. I know there are a lot of lists like this circulating on the Internet these days, but sometimes (for me, at least) I stumble upon a suggestion that makes a difference in my life. I hope this is the case for some of you, with some of my ideas.

Wishing you a wonderful day,

Steven

For Your Encouragement

I was just looking through my photos from a couple of years ago and found this image of a particularly powerful scripture from the Bible that I had written out. I hope it encourages you today.

A Study Criticising the Qur’an

Dear readers, I just stumbled upon an opportunity not to be missed! I’m signed up to the FreeBooksy email newsletter and so receive an email each day with a selection of free religion and spirituality eBooks.

In today’s email, there’s a book called Creating the Qur’an: A Historical-Critical Study which from the blurb appears to argue that the text of the Qur’an evolved over time, rather than being a perfect revelation, as Muslims believe. I have encountered this view elsewhere, but haven’t yet read an in-depth study exploring the arguments.

I haven’t yet read any of the book. But I have downloaded it and plan to read it asap.

You can find the book for free on Amazon US here, and Amazon UK here.

I hope some of you are up for reading this too and then we can have a discussion! I will almost certainly be reviewing the book here on Perfect Chaos.

God bless,

Steven

Read my Books for Free 📚

Do you have a Kindle? A Nook? A Kobo? A computer? A smartphone? If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes’ then I have good news!

For a limited time I’ve decided to make all of my books free in their eBook editions. You can browse my catalogue of books on the Books page.

Happy reading!

P.S. Positive reviews help me out a lot, so please consider leaving one if you enjoy my work. Thank you!

‘An Almighty Predicament’ Audiobook

Greetings, friends! I hope you are all in good spirits. I just wanted to let you know that my book titled An Almighty Predicament: A Discourse on the Arguments For and Against Christianity is now available as an auto-narrated audiobook. I was pleasantly surprised by how good this technology is at creating relatively life-like audiobooks. Of course, AI narration will never be as good as human narration, but the cost of an auto-narrated audiobook is much cheaper than the alternative.

If you’d like to buy the audiobook (free sample available via the link), you can do so here:
https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details?id=AQAAAEAC4FGgQM

Currently this audiobook is only available through Google Play. If you buy a copy and listen through, please give me your feedback on the listening experience in the comments; I’d love to get your thoughts.

Also, if you’re an author (or interested in becoming an author) and are planning to make audiobooks, I highly recommend this podcast episode for an in-depth discussion of Google’s text-to-speech technology, including some of their plans for the future.

That’s all for now. God bless and peace be with you!

Christianity, Islam, and the One True God

When I read the Bible properly for the first time and surrendered my life to God during a stay in psychiatric hospital in 2007, it was a major turning point in my life. My spiritual journey leading up to that point had been incredibly chaotic — I had dabbled in yoga, self-enquiry, transcendental meditation, shaking meditation, satsang, spiritual counselling, and various other means by which I had hoped to attain spiritual peace and enlightenment.

Entering into a relationship with Jesus Christ through reading the New Testament in my hospital room was a life-transforming experience, as similar experiences have been for millions of other Christians down through the ages. I really did feel like a new person — I became conscious of the sins I had committed during my promiscuous youth and felt an urgency to repent to God for these and the many other ways in which I had gone astray in life.

After being discharged from hospital, I explored a variety of different churches, all of which were wonderful in their own way. From Saint Anselm’s Catholic Church in Tooting Bec, to the Anglican Church in Oxfordshire where my father had worshiped for decades, to Hillsong Church London with its vibrant evangelicalism, and eventually East Hill Baptist Church in Wandsworth where I finally got baptised.

As I embarked upon my journey as a practicing Christian, my life was radically transformed. Attending church and engaging in fellowship with other Christians brought me a great deal of joy, and I experienced the “peace which surpasses all understanding” (Philippians 4:7) that comes from having a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. I had finally found the most profound source of peace a human being can have.

Or had I? As I immersed myself in the rigours of evangelical Christian life, returning to university to study theology, joining a Bible study home group, attending a Bible college, and taking part in a street outreach ministry, I began to explore all the difficult theological questions related to being a Christian. I found that alongside my peace there was also some persistent worry.

For a start, my Christian friends insisted that we have free will, while I had a strong sense that God is in control of everything that happens. This made me uneasy. Also, I read theologians arguing in favour of an eternal Trinity, but I couldn’t understand how three different persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) could have eternal existence. I was also troubled by the notion that Jesus is God, because I had for many years had a sense that there is only one God, the creator and animator of all things, and this firmly held conviction didn’t seem to chime with the theological reasoning at the core of the doctrine of the Trinity.

I began to struggle with these and other questions related to Christian theology in an acute way. I became engaged in a battle of faith versus reason and I began to write books to help me to understand and process my thoughts. I had already written one book about my turbulent spiritual journey before I became a Christian (The Philosophy of a Mad Man), but I felt compelled to write a follow-up book defending the absolute unity and sovereignty of God (Ultimate Truth: God Beyond Religion). These books expressed my passion for philosophical reasoning, and in the latter of the two I explained why I felt the need to distance myself from attending church because I couldn’t agree with so much of the theology I was being exposed to.

I continued to believe in God, and I would sometimes pray to Jesus, but my spirituality became a rather solitary affair. I felt that no one I knew could really relate to the theological struggles I was going through. I think many of my Christian friends felt that my interest in philosophical theology was a kind of blasphemy or weakness of faith; that I was being ungodly by deeply questioning these matters. But in my own mind I knew I still had a very real relationship with God, and I knew that the philosophical perspective God had given me, as well as my spiritual struggles, were an important part of my calling.

* * *

In the years that followed, I wrote many more books as I tried to deepen my understanding of Christian theology. My book An Almighty Predicament: A Discourse on the Arguments For and Against Christianity testified to my fervent desire to do the right thing in God’s eyes, but I concluded the book with a question mark over whether or not I could embrace the Christian faith with a clear conscience, owing to what seemed to me to be absurdities that many Christians either consciously or subconsciously believed.

In 2019, I wrote God’s Grand Game: Divine Sovereignty and the Cosmic Playground, a book in which I argued in favour of the absolute sovereignty and unity of God, and His control over the unfolding of all events in both the microcosm and the macrocosm. The book explores sin, suffering, free will, the nature of God, Satan, good and evil, and a whole lot more, from the perspective that God is in control of everything that happens. It is this strong belief in God’s absolute sovereignty, and our lack of free will, that has characterised my thought and my writing ever since.

* * *

During some time spent in prayer in late 2019, I asked God whether it would be wise for me to read the Qur’an. I had attempted to read the Qur’an on a couple of occasions previously, but hadn’t got on at all well with the particular translations I had access to. In response to my prayer, God told me that I should read the Qur’an. I went onto Amazon and found a relatively new translation of the Qur’an by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, which was part of an Oxford World’s Classics series. I bought the Kindle version of the book and immediately began reading it.

It’s difficult for me to convey in words the profound effect reading the Qur’an properly, via Haleem’s lucid translation, had on me. I was deeply impacted by what I read, so much so that I was in tears on a number of occasions and prostrating myself on the floor at regular intervals. The Qur’an spoke to me in an incredibly powerful way, and I couldn’t quite believe how logical, consistent, and coherent the text was. I knew, as I read the Qur’an that time, that my life would never be the same again, and this proved to be so.

After reading the Qur’an on a daily basis for some weeks following that experience, I started to mention the Scripture to many of my old Christian friends. I also wrote a short book titled Discovering the Qur’an which I made available for free. What I found was that my Christian friends were afraid to read the Qur’an due to their perceived risk of being drawn away from Jesus, and some said they had tried to read it in the past and had not been particularly impressed.

Due to the fact that reading the Qur’an had changed my theological perspective so profoundly, my friends’ unwillingness to engage with the Scripture left me feeling rather frustrated. But as the Qur’an repeatedly says, God guides whoever He wills to guide, and leaves to stray whoever He wills to stray. The important thing for me was that I had finally landed upon the truth — the Qur’an made sense of all the difficult theological problems I had been wrestling with for years as a Christian, and having been impacted by the incomparably powerful content of the Qur’an, I had finally settled upon the ultimate truth I had long been searching for.

Or had I?

Above is an extract from the introduction to my latest book, titled Christianity, Islam, and the One True God. The book is out now and available everywhere. Click the cover image below to view a retailer choice page.

King David, Thank you

I know I’m not alone in saying that in my lowest moments, I turn to the Psalms. The Psalms are unusual in that they are considered sacred Scripture in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I felt absolutely destroyed by life today, struggling with feelings I find hard to convey, but thank God I reached for my Bible and turned to the Psalms. As usual, there was comfort to be found.

When I open my Bible it automatically opens at Psalm 37, such is the frequency with which I have turned to that Psalm for comfort in recent years. So I read through Psalms 37-40, and I will share just five verses that resonated with me today. Perhaps they will help someone reading this, or encourage someone to return to the Psalms or read them for the first time.

For my iniquities have gone over my head,
like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.

(Psalm 38:4)

I am feeble and crushed,
I groan because of the tumult of my heart.

(Psalm 38:8)

My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague,
and my nearest kin stand far off.

(Psalm 38:11)

Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust,
who does not turn to the proud,
to those who go astray after a lie!

(Psalm 40:4)

Trust in the Lord and do good,
dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

(Psalm 37:3)

I hope that many people reading this have had the great mercy of reading and being comforted by the Psalms. King David, thank you! Lord God, thank you!