Join us for an inspiring conversation with Lori Wilkie, an author, musician, pastor, and teacher with a wealth of spiritual wisdom. In this episode, Lori shares the joy of becoming a grandma and introduces her book ‘Keep the Flame Burning’, which emphasizes the importance of knowing God in our busy lives. Through the metaphor of the Divine Circle of Life, she explains how knowing God, receiving his blessings, serving him, and thanking him are essential steps for spiritual growth and fulfillment.
It’s Mike Train with 670 KLTT, and I’m joined by Lori Wilkie. Lori is an author, musician, a pastor and teacher. I mean, Lori, you have a lot going on, don’t you?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, I do. And now a grandma.
SPEAKER 01 :
And now grandma. You know what?
SPEAKER 02 :
I just got to be a grandma.
SPEAKER 01 :
That sounds awesome. Congratulations. I’m not there yet, but I’m hoping soon.
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s a blessing. Her name is Shiloh Brielle, and she’s a little blessing. My daughter was really excited about it, and she just newly was married to James. So they’re very thankful for their blessing, and I love being a grandma. It’s a blessing for me, too.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s right. Beautiful name. And we have lots of grandma and grandpas listening because just the nature of KLTT, we’re such a learning and teaching intensive station. And your new book is Keep the Fire Burning. There’s so much that you do, but I think we wanted to focus in a little bit about the book. So tell us about that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, actually, Mike, it’s a little change there. It’s keep the flame burning. Keep the flame burning.
SPEAKER 01 :
Okay, got it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Keep the flame burning. And same thing with the new music project that is about ready to be released on Spotify. You’ll have one single at a time. We’ll be releasing that music. And it was inspired by the book, actually. They go hand in hand. And a lot of it has to do with just knowing God in this hour. It seems as if it’s difficult to keep the fire burning because there’s so much going on in people’s lives. And so I emphasize the fact that, you know, St. Augustine made a quote and he said, our hearts are restless until we find our rest in God. And that rest needs to be found in the Lord, in knowing him. So I spend a lot of the time in the book talking about the priority of knowing him and spending time in his presence ministering to him. Because once we do that, We have the energy to be able to do everything else. But the first thing has to be that to know him and to want to know him better and then to receive him and all of his benefits and the blessings that come. That’s the second step in this like what I call a divine circle of life. it just never stops it goes on and on but it starts with knowing him and then receiving him as your lord and savior and then you know the blessings that come with receiving him like the guidance that comes from knowing his word and and then the faith that comes in receiving but then it moves into the next phase which is serving god and That’s where a lot of people get hung up because they just focus so much on serving God that they don’t recognize that it’s a circle that has to continue to be activated in a way in which we don’t stop. So we serve him and then we begin to thank him and worship him. And then it leads us right back into knowing him. So it’s a circle in that four-step process. And if we continue with that circle and don’t get stuck in one of those areas, either, you know, I’m just going to know him and that’s it, or I’m just going to receive from God, or I’m just going to serve God, or I’m just going to thank him all the time. But we keep that fire burning in a circle of life. it becomes powerful because if there’s something going a little bit wrong, I usually check and I think, oh, well, where is the problem here? And it’s usually in one of those four areas. Either I’m not getting to know him better or I’m not receiving from him where I need to, or I’m not serving him and sharing his love with others, or I’m just not giving him glory. Because that’s the big thing is when you thank him, when you give him all the glory for everything that exists in life, in him we live and move and have our being, that it keeps that circle going and will continually flow in a revelation of life. And I love what Psalm 119 says, and I wrote a little bit about it in the book. It says, My comfort in my suffering is this, that your promise preserves my life. That’s what David said. So his promise preserves our life. And so if we’re going into an area where there’s hard times, and that was like my former book on Tears in a Bottle. I talk about preserving you in the time of hardness or sadness you know, turmoil, that being vulnerable with God is so essential and knowing him. That was from the former book, Tears in a Bottle. That was a good one for people. I’ve heard people say that it brought them to a point of real freedom. So that’s also available for folks to reach. You know, Mike, it’s like, I don’t know, this is a tough time we live in, and people are getting stuck. You know, they’re getting stuck. And I know we’ve got to keep the fire burning and check out, That first thing to minister to the Lord and to keep that really strong, because that’s the one thing that Jesus said was needful when he was talking to Mary. Remember that story, Mike, with Mary and Martha going on and on about stuff? And Martha was involved in serving and Jesus said, ah, but Mary, she’s not going to be denied the best part. And that’s in ministering to the Lord. So keep that strong, all the listeners, keep that strong and let your quiet times with God be very, very powerful. And he’ll carry you through whatever suffering you’re going through because his promise will preserve your life. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 01 :
We’re speaking with author Lori Wilke. It’s L-O-R-I-W-I-L-K-E. So if you go on Amazon, look for Lori with an I and then Wilke, W-I-L-K-E. The book is called Keep the Flame Burning. And Lori, you said music coming out under the same title too, right? Yep, the same. Okay. Yep.
SPEAKER 02 :
At Spotify, there’s going to be a single release called Keep the Flame Burning. And then about 10 other songs that I wrote. I love to author music. That’s been my favorite thing to do lately. I used to do it many years ago, but I didn’t do it as much. And for about 10 years, 15 years, I spent… mostly working with children, little children in our daycare and then helping my husband pastor. And then God said, no, I want you to write some music, get it out. So I did 10 new songs on this. I’m sorry, 11 new songs that I wrote. And so one by one, they’ll be released on Spotify and you can hear the full project well into this year sometime. You’ll be able to get the whole project too.
SPEAKER 01 :
That’s wonderful. Now, you talked about getting stuck. Laurie, that’s probably the main thing we hear from people is they’ll say, I just feel like I’m stuck. And I’m not even sure they know or discern where in that circle they might be stuck. But speak to that. And how do they get unstuck if they don’t know what spot they are?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, yeah. Well, I know God says in his word that let not the rich man glory in his riches, or the wise man glory in his wisdom, or the strong man glory in his strength, but let him who glories glory in this, that he knows me. And so I would always veer people back to that initially, just to not get all bound up in… Having stuff, I mean, God uses stuff, obviously, for his glory, but we can’t be putting that as our focus, you know, things or popularity. Our identity has to be in our relationship with God. And usually when we haven’t, we don’t even know it. But we get into what’s called idolatry, and we don’t even know we’re in it. And so that becomes a big hindrance. And I’ve prayed so often, Lord, just remove every hindrance in my life. And there’s a song on the music project called Show Me Your Glory. And I’ve been praying and asking God to show me his glory so that I can continue to focus in my life and not get veered off on, what the Bible calls immaterial things, things that are not that important. My husband, he’s just a really great man. He’s a great blessing in this ministry. He’s been supporting this music as we get it out there. But he always said this. He says you can’t, and he’s quoting from the scripture, you can’t serve God and money at the same time. You know, you can’t and you can’t serve popularity and God at the same time either, because the fear of man will enter in and cause you to be stuck, really stuck. And so when you’re free just to be who you are. and not have the fear of man, but just totally embrace what I call the fear of the Lord, which is the respect of God, not to be afraid of him, but to be respectful of him and his ways, it just causes that stuck to leave, because then you’re focusing on the thing that God says is primary. And so the fear of the Lord, the Bible says, is the beginning of wisdom, and it also leads to life and all kinds of blessings. So to respect him, to want to know him better, that is the primary thing. And then if that’s in place and then, you know, maybe you’re getting sick or financially you’re getting stuck or relational issues are a problem, then go back to receiving the promises from God because he will give you his promises forever. so that you can continue to flow in serving others. And then ultimately, you know, what that last step was, was just giving him glory. Just thanking him. Oh, Lord, thank you for all you’ve done. Yes, thank you. And don’t blame yourself. You know, if things go wrong, just go back to knowing him, receiving him, serving and thanking him. And you’ll get out of that what I call the funk, you know, the stuckness of life. You’ll get out.
SPEAKER 01 :
What about the busyness? Do you feel like that, you know, those distractions, the enemy uses those to just kind of keep us out of the circle? Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, yes. That is the main thing that I’ve had to overcome, Mike. And all of those that are listening, please know that I am not at all exempt from that problem because that becomes, in ministry, it becomes even more of a problem. Because it becomes such a draw. People need you. People want you. And that’s a good thing. But hey, if it becomes too much, it can’t override that freedom that we have with our love relationship with Jesus. Jesus is our life. He is our life. So pause to stop and just go, wait a minute. What am I doing here? Ultimately, this is going to end up bad. I can see this going sour. It actually happened to me once years ago. I was getting so busy that I actually got sick. And that was when God woke me up and said, hey, this is not going to work. You’ve got to take the time. to love me and worship me each day. Yeah.
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, Laurie, I think a good first step for our listeners would be to go to your website to get Keep the Flame Burning, which is going to be available on Amazon soon or it’s out now.
SPEAKER 02 :
Keep the Flame Burning is not on Amazon yet. It will be on Amazon in about a couple months for sure. But the ones that are out on now, they can get that. Our recent release of the music Shadow of God and our new book Tears in a Bottle. Those are available that they can find.
SPEAKER 01 :
Super. And they probably best bet is just go to your website. Give us that again so everybody’s clear. Yeah.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, website is lauriewilke.com, and they can find everything there.
SPEAKER 01 :
Social media, everything’s there, yep.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yep, it’s L-O-R-I, L-O-R-I, and then Wilke is W-I-L-K-E. And all of our stuff is on Amazon and Spotify.
SPEAKER 01 :
It was so easy. Laurie, before we talked, I went on Amazon and it’s your book show populate. If they just use Laurie with an I-L-O-R-I, the Wilkie, W-I-L-K-E, they all populate up at the top so they can find everything.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s right. They can find everything.
SPEAKER 01 :
Amazon makes it too easy, right? In this case, for a good thing, to buy your book. Yeah, I love Amazon. Lori, it’s a joy to have time with you. We’re going to bring you back. So at some point, if you’re willing, we’ll have you back. And then when you come minister in Denver, you’re going to let us know because Pastor Ralph Messer is definitely a friend of the station. So we look forward to more.
SPEAKER 02 :
Absolutely. Thank you, Mike. And thank you, all your listeners out there. I pray a blessing upon you today. And that scripture, let it be so strong in you. The comfort that God has in your suffering is this, that God’s promise will preserve your life. Psalm 119.
