Final Interview
“For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.” 1Thessalonians 5:9-10 (English Standard)
I hate interviews.
And it’s not because I get nervous or have bad communication skills. The employers don’t intimidate me, and the amount of competing applications don’t even cross my mind. No – it’s that horrible question that you know they’re going to ask: “Why do you deserve this job? Why should we hire you?”
Somehow, whenever I hear that awful question, my mind draws a blank. I mean – what do they want me to say? I don’t want to come up with some “I’m the best” braggart line that turns me into some narcissist. But at the same time I don’t want to say something weak sounding where they think I have no conviction or aspirations!
When we die, we’re going to be confronted with a similar scenario. We’ll have to hand in our resume of all our life’s work. Satan is going to bring up every sin we’ve committed against God and highlight them in yellow. But … we’re covered by the blood of Jesus Christ. In this life, we don’t have to prove anything to people by either boasting or being overly modest. Because in this case we’re not here to display ourselves – but to showcase Him.
Where we fail, Jesus Christ has already stepped in the pick up the slack. There are no rejected applications, no failed interviews, and the ‘benefits’ of heaven are pretty much limitless.
Don’t live life in fear of failing that final judgment – Jesus has already selected you as one of His own.
Christine grew up in the windowless basement of her grandparent’s house and has thus been fondly nicknamed “The vampire in a box” by her friends. She has a strong affinity for sarcasm, shiny purple things, and random, useless information that “normal people probably wouldn’t care about.” She likes to sing, act, draw, write, read, and make fun of Prince Charming in her spare time. Some of her epic skills include: surviving a piano being dropped on her, carrying on a five hour conversation with a wall, and making a grilled cheese sandwich spontaneously explode. (read more…)
Interview with William P. Young, author, The Shack – by Haley Snyder
“Does that mean, “ asked Mack, “that all roads lead to you?”
“Not at all,” smiled Jesus…”Most roads don’t lead anywhere. What it does mean is that I will travel any road to find you.”
William P. Young, The Shack, Windblown Media; 1st edition (December 6, 2007)
I had the privilege of interviewing Mr. Young about his life and his experience writing The Shack. He is a very interesting and inspiring man who followed God’s plan for him even before he knew where it was leading.
Q: I read that this story wasn’t ever supposed to be a book. What happened to make that change?
A: I wrote this story for my six kids. My youngest is 17 and my oldest is 30, so they’re not like little kids. I was just trying to get it done by Christmas. It was never intended to be a published novel. It came time for Christmas and I made 15 copies at Office Depot and went back to work. It was because my friends kept giving it away that I eventually actually published it, even though 26 publishers turned it down. A couple guys I knew created a publishing company and we pooled our resources and found a printer in Los Angeles, ordered a bunch of copies, and that’s how it all started.
Q: What did your kids think of their “present” being published?
A: They loved it, but it took them a while to read it. You give kids a book for Christmas, and it’s just, “Oh, thanks dad. We’ll get right on that.” So, it took them a little while, but they all are thrilled that it’s published and they have each been touched in different ways.
Q: What are the similarities between you and Mack?
A: There’s a lot of them because I had great challenges throughout my history like Mackenzie in the book. The story is really a metaphor of my own history. I had a difficult relationship with my father, similar experiences in bible school and some seminary, great sadness; it is an attempt to extract the core of the heart of the human being, my own soul, the place of the main character’s big purpose and struggle.
Q: Was it difficult writing it like it was someone else’s story?
A: Not really because it had so much to do with my own life. I like story because it gives you distance and in story you create a little picture like artwork or music that has a way of penetrating into your heart without asking for permission. So, story was a good tool to wrap up some of my histories.
Q: In your blog you wrote:
“We live in a world where ‘normal’ does not truly exist except as an idea or concept. For each of us, where and how we grew up plays a foundational role in our sense of ‘normal’, and only when we begin to experience the ‘bigness and diversity’ of the world are we tempted to evaluate our roots.”
Q: What was your normal as a child?
A: Well, my normal was being raised in what had survived of a Stone Age people group in the highlands of New Guinea, now West Papua. So, I thought everybody was running around with cannibals. That’s partly why I wrote that quote because “normal” to me was what would have been very not normal to most people. I was a missionary kid; I grew up with missionary parents, I was ten months old when we moved to the highlands. The tribe was spread out a bit over a hundred square miles, about 40 to 60 thousand people. They had never seen white people before. So, normal was to me what other people would think very not normal.
Q: How has that normal changed as you’ve grown up?
A: Normal is just a reflection of your own life. Every person thinks that their life is normal and then re-evaluates it or grows up thinking it’s not as normal as they had thought, and then re-evaluates both one’s history and definition of ‘normal’. So, I don’t think there is such a thing as normal and ordinary. I think everything is pretty amazing.
Q: In your blog you also wrote
“Facts alone might help you understand where a person has been, but often hide who they actually are.”
What did you mean by that?
A: When we meet each other we tell you what we do but it takes a relationship and time to learn who someone is. So, when you meet someone it can give you an idea, but it doesn’t tell you at all who they are. It’s going to take time, and conversation, and openness, and relationship in order to tell who someone really is. That’s why infatuation will not work, because infatuation is based on not knowing someone. People are infatuated and then when they start to get to know that person, a lot of times they are disappointed because what they thought was there wasn’t really there. It was just a way to love themselves through some sort of object, even if that object is a person.
Q: What facts about where you have been hide who you truly are?
A: Well, again facts in general tend to take you on to deeper conversation. When I say that I grew up around Stone Age tribal people and I went to boarding school when I was six, when you say that, it doesn’t have the same impact as when I tell you that I was sexually abused in boarding school. I can then tell you how that experience became part of how I looked at life and how I spent so much of my life trying to find a way to be safe. That’s a whole level of conversation that doesn’t exist if I just tell you the facts.
Q: How has this book being published changed your daily life?
A: My daily life has changed. When I first wrote it I was working three jobs, so now I don’t work three jobs anymore. My life is quite busy because a lot of things have happened that weren’t a possibility before. I travel a lot; I just got back from a trip with my wife and one of my daughters. We went to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Serbia, and the UK, for two weeks to talk about the book. That wasn’t a possibility before, so I live a different lifestyle now that it was before. We have been able to do some things, like start a foundation, which we couldn’t have done before. So, a lot of things like that, but who we are hasn’t changed. The book didn’t change anything that really matters.
Q: What would be your advice to aspiring Christian authors?
A: First, don’t get your identity tied up with what you do…this would apply to anyone actually, but especially to those who create. If you put your identity in anything that can be taken from you, it is just a matter of time. Write for people you care about, not for the ‘masses’…write something and share it with people who love you (they will love it and encourage you) and with people you don’t know (they will be more objective)…you need both.
Q: This book did not follow normal procedure because it was published by a friend’s publishing company. Did you still have to work with an editor? What was your experience with that editor?
A: Editors are indispensable. I would never publish a book without the skills of an involved editor. These people are highly skilled at what they do and will clean up your clutter as well as give you perspective.
Q: You also said in your blog:
“For me, everything is about Jesus and Father and Holy Spirit and relationships, and life is an adventure of faith lived one day at a time.”
Q: How do you live one day at a time?
A: It is a process, like almost everything that matters. You learn through experience and over time to give up control begin to rest in the grace of one day. It doesn’t come easily, especially for those of us who have learned skill of control so we don’t have to trust anyone. Learning to live inside each day is related to how truly you know that God loves you and therefore how deeply you can trust God. The wonder is that God loves and participates with us in the process, even of learning to trust.
Q: What impact were you hoping this book would have in your children’s lives when you first wrote it?
A: I just wanted them to have a picture of God that wasn’t the God that they grew up with. The angry, distance difficult God watching from a distance. I wanted them to have an understanding of the character and nature of God that pursues us and loves us with infinite and ferocious love.
Q: Many people have said that this book changed their lives and their walk with Christ. How does it make you feel to have written something that impacted people’s lives so greatly in such a positive way?
A: I’m absolutely thrilled, and humbled. I didn’t intend for that to happen, that was just something that God used it for, and I got to participate. So, thrilled to participate and thrilled that this has helped things to happen in other people’s lives.
The Shack has sold over 13 million copies and has been translated in 40 different languages. It is inspiring people all over the world. Will you take the step and let it inspire you too?
I’m Haley Faye Snyder. I’ve lived in the same Christian home in Kentucky since I was born. I have one little brother and two loving parents. I go to Westport Baptist church and have my whole life. I accepted Christ into my heart when I was six and then re-committed my life to Him when I was 11 at Boones Creek Baptist Camp. (read more…)
Interview with Joe Kissack author of The Fourth Fisherman
THE FOURTH FISHERMAN: How Three Mexican Fishermen Who Came Back From the Dead Changed My Life and Saved My Marriage
Interview by Haley Snyder
When you felt the desire to go meet the fishermen, did you know that God was sparking the interest, or did you think it was your own curiosity?
From the very beginning of this journey there was something inside of me that drew me to this story. Here is what I mean: When I first heard of it, and the details were revealed to me, it sparked “my” curiosity, as you mentioned. But, when the parts about the men surviving because of faith, and that they had a bible they read, my curiosity was run over by this mysterious pull towards it. You have to understand that I didn’t really choose this; it chose me!
What addictions did you have before you found Christ?
I had become dependent on prescription medications used to relieve anxiety. I had also abused alcohol from a very young age up until 2001.
Before you found Christ, did anyone suspect your struggles?
Yes. Lot’s of people, including myself. Even before I was overcome by the addiction, I knew that I drank too much and over medicated all the time.
Did you grow up with both of your parents in the same home as you?
I was the youngest of four and by the time I came along everyone was already in “survival mode.” I grew up hearing the screaming matches and seeing the drunken fits of rage that is typical in many dysfunctional and alcoholic households. My parents stayed together in a very unhappy marriage for my sake until I was off in college.
What exactly is your job?
Right now I am a full time speaker, author, screenwriter, and producer.
Do you have kids?
I have two of the most wonderful daughters a father could hope for. In spite of being flawed as a parent, they have turned out to be amazing women. My oldest is 20 and my youngest is 17. Most of the credit goes to their mom, my wife, Carmen. She did an amazing job.
If so, did you have them before you found Christ?
They were nine and 12 when I went through my conversion experience.
If so, how have they responded to the change in you?
They thought aliens has landed and taken over my body. I looked the same; even sounded the same, but I was a different person on the inside and there were sweeping changes in our house around every topic. We stopped doing a lot of the things we had been and we started doing things very differently.
What from your childhood did you learn that affects you as an adult?
I grew up in a house where performance was king. We were expected to perform in everything we did at the best levels. We were to make the highest scores, make the fewest mistakes, and win.
How did meeting the fishermen impact your life?
They have taught me so much about faith; that you don’t have to be perfect to have great faith and recieve amazing grace and mercy. These are men that are regular guys. They are by no means perfect. But, when faced with almost certain fatality and the prospect of the pacific ocean swallowing them up forever in a few seconds, they soon realized that the only way they would survive this ordeal was to have faith that if God wanted them to survive, they would survive. And if He didn’t want them to survive, they were not going survive. In essence, they surrendered the outcome. But they didn’t just lay down and surrender. They got to work. They knew that they had a job to do. To eat, to stay as healthy a possible, and pray for the best possible outcome. The two men that died, did none of that.
How do you think your life would be different if you had been raised in a Christian home?
I think everything in my life would be different. I think there is a good chance that the pain I have suffered and I have caused others could have been greatly reduced, if not completely avoided. I’m not saying that I would necessarily change anything, because I think that I had to go through what I had to go through to get where I am, and for me, it was unavoidable. But I am positive it would be completely different.
How do you think your life would be different if your friend hadn’t told you about Christ?
I think I would be dead. God heard his pleas for my life and answered him.
In your blog you wrote “The wounds we suffer as children, cause us to make vows.” What vows did you make as a child?
I took several. One was that I would never strike, hit, or spank my children. If you ask them today, they just smile. But the biggest vow I took was in response to so many messages that I wasn’t good enough. I associated being good with success, so I took a vow that I was going to be successful at any cost.
What happened to make you make those vows?
It came from many directions. Words that pierce the heart: Don’t be a dummy; You throw like a girl; You’ll never amount to anything. When I was being beat with a fraternity paddle, I used to cry, “I’ll be good. I’ll be good”
How did that affect you growing up?
I was filled with fear, with shame, with guilt, and with anger.
How did your wife respond to you accepting Christ into your heart?
She was thrilled, but cautious at first, thinking it might just be a phase. Soon she realized it was for real.
How did your wife respond to your adventure with the fishermen?
She thought I had lost my mind, and still kind of does think that.
How did your unsaved friends react to you accepting Christ?
This is kind of sad, but most don’t really want to have much to do with me any longer. We had less and less to talk about. I don’t really care about the latest sports scores or stock market rally. So we have drifted apart, and I have gravitated to men and women who share the same love for Christ that I do.
Did any of them find Christ in return?
Yes, a few have. But what is more amazing are the ones who found Christ before me, had drifted away, and were thrilled when I finally did!
Has how you do your job changed since you accepted Christ?
Yes, everything has changed. The center of my universe changed. I look, or try to look, at everything I do through the lens of Christ; as if He is with me 24/7. And not just beside me observing, but dwelling deep inside me at the cellular level with all of my very being.

Paperback: 194 pages
Publisher: Ezekiel 22 Productions; 1ST edition (2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0982691203
ISBN-13: 978-0982691205
http://www.thefourthfisherman.com
I’m Haley Faye Snyder. I’ve lived in the same Christian home in Kentucky since I was born. I have one little brother and two loving parents. I go to Westport Baptist church and have my whole life. I accepted Christ into my heart when I was six and then re-committed my life to Him when I was 11 at Boones Creek Baptist Camp. (read more…)

1. When did God call you to be an author? (I love your story, so if you have time, I’d love to have your testimony.)











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