Earthdate: 20160202 — These are the ramblings of one traveler’s journey on earth as he makes his way toward a heavenly home.

If you’re like me, sometimes the work days seem ordinary and the uniqueness of each day gets lost in the routines of life.  One of the benefits of committing to this routine of writing each day’s page in this journey of life is that it makes me pause at the end of the day and consider the lessons God has been trying to teach me.  While each work day for me generally begins with the same tasks, I have to choose each day what my attitude about doing those tasks will be.  I have discovered that if I approach each task with a prayerful attitude then it is easier to take things as they come and try to see how God will use them to accomplish His purposes.  

As I worked on details for some possible opportunities to represent Impact Prayer Ministry, the birds returned to the trees and bushes outside my office window after being absent yesterday for some reason.  At one point two cardinals came as sat next to each other causing me to think of the old saying, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”.  I’ve always understood this to mean that a sure thing is worth as much, or more, than multiple possibilities that may, or may not, come to pass.  Sometimes it is easy to give in to the temptation to skip things that seem small with the hope that bigger things will come along.  Once again I was reminded of the consistent teaching of Jesus that calls me to be faithful with the little things or I don’t even have a chance to be trusted with larger things.  Potential opportunities are good, but I’ve learned to spend time with God fully considering each opportunity that comes my way and address it based not on its prestige or perceived potential, but on what I become convinced God wants me to do.  As I made inquiries into potential conferences and conventions where I believe the prayer-based materials I have written would be useful, I continually prayed that God would give me great wisdom and clarity in both understanding and accepting the answers He knows are best.  

God instructs us to make the most of every opportunity and I pray that you and I do so on a consistent basis.  I also pray that we don’t miss the opportunity that is in our hand because we are distracted by multiple opportunities in the bush.  May you and I prove faithful in everything that God calls us to without concern for its apparent size. 

Earthdate: 20160201 — These are the ramblings of one traveler’s journey on earth as he makes his way toward a heavenly home.

After a great conference last week, today was a return to a “normal” work schedule.  I was up early and headed to work at 6 AM to do the morning cleaning and check on maintenance requests that had been left for me last week.  I am blessed to be a part of a church family and staff that supports the work God does through me in Impact Prayer Ministry.  Not only is there a financial support, but I know that I am prayed for and that there are people willing to clean the building and handle whatever tasks come up while I am out teaching, preaching, and representing the prayer ministry.  The deacons and my fellow staff members at Deer Run are a vital part of the Impact Prayer Ministry team and I appreciate them greatly.  I don’t dread coming back from a week-long conference because I know that things have been taken care of while I was gone and not simply left to accumulate for my return.  Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to each person who helped last week!

Upon completing the cleaning and changing a couple light bulbs that I had a note about, I settled in to my Monday morning routine.  If nothing pressing demands my time, Monday mornings are when I spend time with God writing the prayer guide that will be published for the following week.  While there have been a few intentional duplicates and an occasional new prayer guide that reuses a topic, I continue to be amazed at how God has given the content for these guides each week since November 2012.  On their own, each prayer guide may not seem like much but they represent a faithfulness in doing a seemingly small thing that God has called and gifted me to do.

As the day unfolded, I thought about my visit to Mingus Mill last week in the Smoky Mountains National Park.  As you approach the mill, the creek that it is built next to is nothing that would shout “power source”!  It is a small meandering stream that flows from the nearby mountains into the valley below.  It is not the volume of the stream that makes this mill still function 130 years after it was built, it is the faithfulness of its flow.  A partial diversion of the stream’s water down an elevated wooden raceway continues to power this mill on a seasonal basis just as it did for the early residents years ago.  While any part of this process may not seem that significant, and some parts may not even seem suitable to the task, all of the pieces work together to do what they were designed to do and provide cornmeal or flour to those needing food to eat.  

Many times God gives us gifts and abilities that at first glance do not seem all that impressive.  They may be easy to overlook and perhaps even be neglected as we long for something more visible that brings greater notice to us.  Unfortunately, those “greater things” rarely come when we fail to be faithful in the “little things” that God has designed for us to do.  I pray that you and I take a fresh look at all of the pieces and people that God has brought together in our lives and consider how faithfulness in each one doing their part would look.  When we are faithful with everything God gives us, we are able to share the Bread of Life with people who are in desperate need of the life we have found in Jesus.

After being away from home for nearly a week representing Impact Prayer Ministry at a camp conference, today was a day to relax.  My staying home allowed Susan a chance to sleep in — at least for a while until a seizure took hold of her.  I began the morning with some reflection and devotional time followed by the writing of yesterday’s “page”.  After helping Susan as she came through her seizure, I worked on going through emails and messages from the week.  Eventually I made it to going through the photos from the times I was able to spend in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park during the conference.  I am almost always surprised at the number of pictures I take when I’m out enjoying the great beauty of God’s creation.  The total photograph count from the conference trip is 870!  As I go through each one, I am reminded of just how glorious God is.  I even find things in them that I hadn’t noticed when I took the pictures.  

Some of my favorite mountain scenes, and therefore photographs, are the waterfalls.  With significant snowfall just before I arrived, and warming temperatures during my stay, the waterfalls were running with great force.  As I considered the power, the purity, and the polishing force of the falls, I reflected on how well they represent God’s grace in my life.  While it can be fun to stick a hand under the edge of one of these major waterfalls, it would flatten you at its base to bear the full force of it.  Sometimes pride keeps us from allowing the full power of God’s grace to drive us to knees before Him.  We are satisfied with just testing the edges of His grace rather than experiencing the fullness of it.  The water rushing over these mountain falls is crystal clear and represents a purity that we all long for in water everywhere.  As it gathers in the pools at the base of the waterfall, it sparkles in the sunshine and magnifies the gravel on the pool bottom.  One of the attractive qualities of God’s grace is its absolute purity.  When we allow God’s grace to rush over us and gather in the pool of our life, we should sparkle and reflect the evidence of God’s grace in a way that is visible to the people around us.  One of the fun parts of visiting a waterfall is collecting the smooth polished stones that collect in its path.  When we live in the power and purity of God’s grace, we find our life continually being polished into the image of His Son, Jesus.  The polish He puts on our life enables us to live in a blameless way — His grace has covered and removed the sin and roughness so that no accusations against us have reason to stick.

I pray that each day of our lives, you and I would live fully under the waterfall of God’s grace.

The view out my window this morning was nothing but thick fog.  Even after getting breakfast and spending the morning and lunch time talking with people about the prayer-focused resources I had available, the fog remained when I returned to my room for an extended afternoon break.  As I contemplated what my afternoon free time would look like, I began to wonder if the road over the mountains between Gatlinburg, Tennessee and Cherokee, North Carolina would rise above the fog.  The adventurer in me wanted to get out and hike and the photographer in me wanted to take pictures from above the fog.  Fortunately, the solution for both of those was to get out and drive the Newfound Gap road looking for adventure and photo opportunities.  As it turned out, I found both. 🙂

The drive up the mountainside was foggy until just before the Newfound Gap overlook as the road crested the mountain.  As I left the fog behind, it was still spread out like a blanket over the area I had just left.  The photo opportunities I anticipated were also spread out in the valley below.  As I stood at the dividing line between Tennessee and North Carolina, the contrast was remarkable.  Fog blanketed the valleys and low-lying areas on the Tennessee side of the mountain while it was completely clear on the North Carolina side.  With clear skies ahead, I headed toward a series of waterfalls and hikes that I now knew would be clearly visible with no fog on their side of the mountain.  

As I enjoyed the beautiful afternoon, I thought about the verse in Proverbs that talks about the sluggard saying he is not going out because there is a lion in the street.  I’ve always heard that it was unlikely that there was actually a lion but that since it was a possibility it simply became an excuse not to do what needed done.  When I worked on a roofing crew, there were times we were rained off of a job, but never a time we were “forecasted” off of a job.  Sometimes we talk ourselves out of doing the things God wants us to do because we are not willing to move forward in faith by simply taking the next step.  The prospects don’t look that promising.  The “what ifs” tend to paralyze us and we never end up knowing if the should have been actually could have been.  It would have been easy today for me to look at the fog and decide it wasn’t good hiking weather and it would be impossible to take pictures that would turn out at all.  What if I get to the top of the mountain and it is just as foggy there as where I started from?  I overcame the “what ifs” and decided I would never know until I got out and tried it.  The result was even better than I had hoped for but the truth is even if the fog had continued up one side of the mountain and all the way down the other, it would have been a good trip to enjoy the goodness of God’s creation.  

As I wrapped up my sightseeing on the North Carolina side of the mountain it was looking possible that I would reach the peak just as the sun was setting.  I hadn’t even thought about trying to make that happen and it was looking as if God was wanting to give me an extra blessing beyond all the goodness He had already shared today.  As it turned out, I was a little late getting to the peak for the best photos but I had incredible views of the sun setting down the back side of the mountain — there just weren’t any pull-offs with clearings to the west where I could get pictures of anything but trees with a sunset behind them.  Even so, there was still some color in the sky when I reached the top so I managed a few pictures of a fading sunset.

As I prepared to set up my display at the conference, I had a few hours to spare so I headed back to the park.  Once again I was greeted by a large sign stating that all park roads were closed.  The road was open to the visitors center, so I stopped in to see a map and decide if I could walk the road to a nearby trailhead.  The gentleman at the desk told me that Cades Cove was open so I told him I had been there yesterday and was looking for something at this end of the park that was shorter than the 10 miles I hiked yesterday.  He then began to show me some options, including the trail to Laurel Falls.  I was slightly confused because the options he was showing me were all along Little River Road, which I thought was closed — it had been yesterday.  As I asked about it, he said it that road was open all the way from Gatlinburg to Townsend.  I was thankful but I guess their definition of all park roads is somewhat different than mine. 🙂

The Laurel Falls trail is the one I was hoping to take, so a short drive from the visitors center found me with boots laced up and ready to hike.  At the beginning, and all along the trail, were various warnings about the dangers of hiking, of this particular trail, and of wildlife.  I really didn’t pay much attention to them because I had hiked this trail before and my intent was to hike it again.  As I hiked, I began to think about how often we tend to ignore the warnings found in God’s Word.  We live life as we wish, convinced nothing can happen to us because the consequences of God’s warnings haven’t been experienced before.  When we read God’s Word, instead of obedience our response is often similar to that of Satan in the garden — “Did God really say?”.  We spend so much time explaining away the warnings that we miss the entire point of God trying to protect us.  

After the round trip hike to the falls and back, I drove the length of Little River Road to enjoy the beauty of the park and take a few more pictures.  When I returned back to the Gatlinburg area, it was time for lunch so I stopped at Subway and then went to a small park next to my hotel to enjoy the sights and sounds of the creek running along the edge of the park.  I found a large rock in the middle of the creek and sat on it for a while, relaxing and spending time with God in the midst of this peaceful place.  The rest of the day was spent at the conference getting set up and then talking with people about the prayer ministry and the resources God has allowed me to make available.  It was fun sharing the story of my books writing and giving God all of the credit for both giving me the gifting in my life and giving me the opportunity to use it.

“This is a test.  This is only a test.  In the unlikely event of an actual emergency . . . ”  One of the benefits of viewing the year as a collection of 365 blank pages that are written on by each day of my life is it helps me to see recurring themes and how God is continually preparing me.  I remember when I taught 5th grade at MCS, the students would constantly be asking, “Will this be on the test?”.  The unspoken reasoning was that if it wasn’t going to be on the test then they wouldn’t pay attention.  Sometimes I think we live life that way.  We’re not convinced the day to day stuff will be on the test, so we don’t pay attention to what God is trying to do in our life.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Today was a travel day as I prepare to represent Impact Prayer Ministry at a camp leader’s conference.  There was great potential for it to be a messy travel day as yesterday and last night a major winter storm rolled across the path I would be taking.  The first half of the trip was clear roads and sky and I was thankful for such a smooth start.  My GPS unit receives traffic information and eventually it alerted me to the fact that there was a 108 minute delay 60 miles ahead of me on my route.  It offered me a new route that only had a 86 minute delay. 🙂  The new route would depart my current route just before the delay so I had a good amount of time to decide.  About 30 miles out, it adjusted the original delay to only being 35 minutes so I decided to stop and top off the truck’s fuel tank and got me an over-sized Ale-8 fountain drink so I would be prepared for whatever upcoming delay there would be.  As I continued, the delay was down to 16 minutes and by the time I went through the delay areas the delay no longer existed.  Lesson number one of the day:  You often have no control over delays on your journey.  Your job is to just be faithful in continuing your journey in order to reach your destination.

I arrived at the hotel and put my things in the room before heading out to take some photos and get something to eat.  On the way out of the hotel, I went down the hall to see where the pool was and what it looked like.  Surprise!  The sign on the door said it was closed for renovations and inside the room was a very empty pool.  My first thought was to complain all the way up whatever chain of command I could find when I returned to the room later.  Then I ended up taking a drive through some of the snow-covered foothills where I was able to take in some of the incredible beauty of God’s creation.  The more I viewed the handiwork of God, the less concerned I was about a man-made pool in a hotel building.  Lesson number two of the day:  Be careful not to miss the beauty of the journey by becoming distracted with things that aren’t primary to the journey.

After a scenic evening drive that ended up being longer than I had planned, it was time to get something to eat.  I decided I would head up the road to Chik-Fil-A where I knew there was a Wal-Mart right behind it so could pick up a few supplies.  As I reached the intersection, I first thought my memory hadn’t served me well because while I saw the Wal-Mart sign, there didn’t appear to be a Chik-Fil-A sign.  After a closer look, the restaurant was there but all of the outside lighting was off and there were only a few lights on inside and there were just a couple cars visible on the property on a Saturday evening.  It was obviously closed for some reason and I was disappointed.  Now I had to rethink what I was hungry for.  A quick trip through Wal-Mart found some turkey slices, BBQ  Fritos, microwave popcorn, chocolate, and bottled water so I had all the makings of a nutritious meal I could have back in my room. 🙂  Lesson three of the day:  You won’t always get exactly what you may have your heart set on but keep your eyes open for viable options.

It’s funny, as I was driving today I thought to myself that today’s written page would probably be much shorter than most of them so far because I hadn’t really done much but drive.  Turns out it is probably one of the longer ones. 🙂  I pray that my face stays  turned toward God so I don’t miss the lessons He gives.  Fortunately, the test that matters the most is all about God’s faithfulness to His Word and my relationship with His Son.

“I’m satisfied with, just a cottage below.”  . . . or a little cabin on the hillside. 🙂