Page 328 found last week’s conference schedule catching up with me.  Fortunately, school was out for an early start to the Thanksgiving holiday and only the preschool had classes today so I did not need to head in early to clean.  This allowed both Susan and I to sleep in and start to catch up on some needed rest.  I’ll be taking pulled pork to Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, so once I got up I fired up the pellet grill and began the 12+ hour process of slow cooking/smoking the pork.  Today’s photo was taken at about hour 11 and fortunately it is not a scratch-and-sniff photo or your screen might end up with a hole worn through it. 😉  

After I had the pork on the grill, I sat down to work on the monthly Impact Prayer Ministry Newsletter while Susan continued sleeping away the morning.  As I wrote the newsletter, it only seemed fitting that it focused on giving thanks.  Perhaps if we set aside time on a regular basis to examine the many things we have to be thankful for, we would learn to live life with a lot more gratitude to go around than what is often shown.  How would our attitudes change if we deliberately gave thanks every day like we are encouraged to do for the Thanksgiving holiday?  When I give thanks for the partners in prayer and finances God has provided for the ministry, I am less likely to complain about not having enough.  When I am thankful for the opportunities that God gives me to preach and teach, I discover a contentment that looks beyond missed opportunities.  When I give thanks for the gifts God has put within my life, I find myself being a more gracious giver with the gifts that are actually His.  When I am thankful for my family, I recognize a gift from God that needs to be treated with great care.  Thankfulness isn’t just about being thankful, it is about a complete transformation of my mind and spirit which recognizes in a real way that “every good and perfect gift comes from above.”  

As I finished up the newsletter and sent it out, Susan made it up so we got our things around and headed into work.  I spent a little more time on my sermon for Sunday as I waited for preschool to finish for the day.  Once they were done, I began my Friday cleaning routine as I worked to get the building cleaned and ready for the weekend.  One of the nice parts about a holiday break is that I can start the weekend prep and know that I have a couple days to finish it rather than have to work a late night in order to have it ready.  With an empty and quiet building, I was able to get most of the regular weekend cleaning done and will only have a little touch-up to do before Sunday morning.  As the afternoon came to a close, I called it a day and headed home to see how the pork was doing.  The smell of the slow roasting pork made me want to just sit in the garage but it was cold and rainy outside so I went in to the warmth of the house and would just go out to the garage to “visit” every now and then.  As I finish up the writing of today’s page, the cooking should be nearing an end and then it will be time to pull it apart and get it ready for tomorrow.  

I pray that you and I would pay attention to the rest we need — not just the rest our body needs, but the rest we need for our soul and spirit.  I pray that we would learn patience as we wait for God’s work to be complete in us at just the right time.  I pray that we would commit to being thankful at all times.  I pray that we would live with a transformed mind as we live a life of gratitude.

Page 327 began with all the appearances of an ordinary Tuesday.  I arrived at work in the early morning darkness to clean bathrooms, floors, and other areas to get the building ready for the day.  As I collected up the trash from throughout the building, I noticed a pink glow in the northern sky.  Not wanting to miss the morning beauty, I took my camera with me when I took the trash out.  When I got outside, it was obvious that the pink glow on the northern horizon was simply the overflow of the brilliant color coming up from the east.  Today’s photo through the playground equipment was the first one I took after depositing the trash in the dumpster.  I took others as well, but none seemed to capture the majesty of the morning better than this one.  It was as if God was telling me not to judge a day as ordinary that He has created as special.

Much of the day was spent working on a sermon I’ll share at the North Wayne Mennonite Church this coming Sunday morning.  As I continue a series that considers the idea of living as the Lord’s servant, this week I will address the need for the Lord’s servant to give thanks.  We seem to live in a time when thankfulness appears to be in short supply.  I suspect that a culture that teaches us that we deserve whatever we have and whatever we want, isn’t going to create a fertile ground for gratitude to grow in.  When contentment is just out of our grasp, we tend to not only become ungrateful but that lack of giving thanks soon turns into resentment.  As I thought about gratitude and contentment, a brief conversation that took place last week at ICOM came to my mind.  A person reacted to my giving out free books to anyone who would use them with a response that indicated it would be more helpful if I could make college free.  I’m pretty sure there was no thought that I would have any influence in making that happen but instead of saying thank you, the response came across as a feeling that my offer wasn’t all that useful.  I share that not to come down on this person, but as an example of how easy it is to miss out on a life of thankfulness simply because we are focused on what we don’t have rather than on what we’ve been given.  

In addition to the sermon prep, today was filled with a variety of tasks.  Some of the tasks were pleasant but others would be better described as unwanted.  One of those tasks included a considerable amount of blood — not mine, by the way.  After making sure the appropriate people were aware someone had been bleeding, and being assured a couple people in the building are susceptible to significant nosebleeds so it was likely not an emergency, I began the clean-up process.  For most people that may not be a big deal, but I tend to not do well when blood is visible.  Most of the time the fainting that occurs when I see blood tends to be a mind game more than anything else, so as I cleaned I not only prayed for whoever had left the mess but I also thanked God that I have work that enables me to serve others and also lead the prayer ministry He has called me to.  By keeping my mind focused on thankfulness and serving rather than on the details of what had happened, I got the blood cleaned up and didn’t even feel light-headed during the process.

I pray that you and I would realize that the ordinary days of our life are just opportunities for God to reveal His extraordinary character in ways that may well surprise us.  I pray that we would give careful consideration to just how thankful we are.  I pray that we would pay more attention to what we have been given than to what we don’t have that we want.  I pray that we would learn the secret of contentment as we come to know that God is enough.  I pray that we would live thankful lives even when the tasks we must do are difficult.

Page 326 began early as I was back to the morning cleaning and building prep routine of a normal Monday.  As I worked in the quietness of an empty building, I thought about the past few days and found myself singing the words of “How Great Thou Art”.  Once the cleaning was done and the building ready for the day, I sat down to write yesterday’s page as I was too tired when I got home last night to think about writing.  Once that was done, I began work on the prayer guide for next week.  As I spent time with God, the topic of “rejoice” was settled on and I began to prayerfully put the prayer guide together.  While the Bible tells us to rejoice always, it also makes it clear that the way that is possible is when we rejoice in the Lord.  Often it is difficult to rejoice, or even think about rejoicing, when circumstances are not what we like.  Our rejoicing is often a reflection of our feelings, so we end up rejoicing when we feel like it and not rejoicing when we don’t feel like it.  When we understand God’s command, we find that rejoicing must be a decision rather than a reaction.  We must decide to rejoice in the Lord when times are tough, when things are going well, when we suffer for the cause of Christ, when hardships and heartaches come our way, and when we find ourselves riding the waves of God’s blessings in our life.  When our rejoicing is something we do in the Lord, we do so because we trust Him to care for us and carry us through both the valleys and the mountaintops of life.

Once the prayer guide was finished and scheduled to go out next week, I took care of some maintenance tasks and by mid-afternoon it was time to head out for lunch and to pick up some cleaning supplies.  When the work day was done and I finally made it home, I spent some time going through the photos from yesterday’s drive home.  Today’s photo was taken from inside the final bridge I stopped at yesterday.  As I looked out the window of the covered bridge, the sun was shining through the trees creating shadows that were lengthening with each passing minute.  The stillness of the water created vivid reflections of the trees and the cloud-dotted sky.  The scene was absolutely beautiful and provided an excellent backdrop in my mind for a season of worship as I finished my drive home.  While today’s outside temperature was still rather chilly, the same beauty of the sun and sky from yesterday returned and elicited the same response of worship throughout the day.  

I pray that you and I would find reason and ways to worship in the midst of our daily routine.  I pray that we would live with an awareness of the unlimited greatness of our God.  I pray that we would understand God’s command to rejoice and learn to do so always as we rejoice in the Lord.  I pray that we would rejoice through a decision to trust God in every circumstance.  I pray that we would pay attention to the reminders of God’s presence that He continually surrounds us with.

Page 325 was the end of ICOM 2016 and the day to travel home.  After a week of long days both getting ready for and being at ICOM, this page is being written the following morning as my mind needed to rest after I got home.  After taking the display down the night before, I slept in a little bit before heading down for breakfast to begin my day.  The forecast for the trip home was cold but sunny, so after breakfast I went online to see about photo opportunities on the way home.  As I did so, I discovered a cluster of covered bridges between Cincinnati and Indianapolis, so I jotted down their names and soon set off to see what I could find.  As I traveled, the entire day was a day of worship as I sang along with praise songs on the radio and marveled at the incredible beauty God set before me throughout the trip.

One of the bridges that I stopped at, while having a walkway along one side, was not designed for the typical bridge traffic.  Instead, it was built to carry the water of the Whitewater Canal over a stream that fed into the Whitewater River.  I didn’t think about it until I was going through the photos or I would have turned a little more to the right when taking today’s photo, but there were three different bridges designed for different modes of transportation that were crossing this stream at this particular place.  Most visible in the photo are the canal bridge and the railroad bridge with the road bridge railing peaking into the edge of the photo.  While I don’t know the order in which the bridges were built, people evidently decided that all three were necessary to accomplish the transportation needs that existed.  

Knowing the nature of people, I did have to wonder if anyone objected to building another bridge when there was already one in existence.  I can almost hear the possible conversation.  “We’re here today seeking approval to build another bridge that will cross Duck Creek.”  “But there’s already a bridge there.”  “Yes, but this will allow another mode of transportation to carry goods and people across the creek.”  “I’m not in favor!  We already have a good bridge!  If people want to cross the creek they should use the means we’ve already provided for or they can go somewhere else!”  “But this will simply expand our ability to serve more people according to their needs.”  “Well, I think the area is getting crowded the way it is.  Who knows what we’ll end up with if we help even more people to come through here.”  “We’ll end up with more work and the potential for growth.”  “Well, I still don’t like it.  This old bridge has been good enough for me and should be good enough for anyone else that wants to pass through.”

Does the story sound familiar yet?  Yes, Jesus is the only way to the Father and our message must never waver from the truth of God’s word, but sometimes we become convinced that our method of travel along that path is good enough for us and should be good enough for anyone else.  In doing so, we lose sight of the differences that exist among people and end up excluding them from the path of God simply because they are not equipped to travel it in the exact same manner as we do.  It is interesting to note that only one of the three bridges appear to still be in use — at least for its intended purpose — yet down through the years, the purpose of getting goods and people across the creek has been accomplished by different methods that each served a specific purpose.

I pray that you and I would comprehend and not forget the lesson of the three bridges.  I pray that we would understand the difference between our one true message and the different means of transportation that can carry people to the foot of the cross.  I pray that we would always seek ways to help people walk in “The Way” according to their needs and abilities.

Page 324 was a lot like page 323 only longer.  Even with a late night yesterday, I made it up in time for breakfast once again.  With the craziness of the conference schedule, it sure has been nice to start the day with a big breakfast each morning.  Once I made it to the convention center, the day seemed to have a slow start to it.  I suppose fewer people were eager to get up early on a Saturday morning.  By mid-morning, however, a steady stream of people began coming by the display — some to pick up books and resources and some to let me know they had begun reading what they had already picked up and were overwhelmed with gratitude that I was willing to share what God has given me.

Shortly after noon I ran out of copies of two of the titles I had brought with me with low supplies on three other titles.  By early evening the low supplies were gone and I only had copies of three titles remaining.  Several people who had stopped and looked at the books earlier in the conference came back by wanting a specific book or two only to find that they were gone.  I had planned on leaving the display up until after the morning session on Sunday, but as the day came to a close nearly everyone around me had taken down their display.  Even with that, I condensed my display into half of my area and thought I would head back to the hotel and call it a night.  As I calculated how many of my plastic storage tubs I could take back to the truck tonight, the facilities people began coming in and started taking down overhead signs and pulling electric outlets to get ready to turn over the hall into whatever is next.  I decided it would be easier for them if my stuff wasn’t an island they had to work around, so I packed up the rest of my display and hauled it out to the truck to finish up the day.

As I made sure I had everything, I stacked all of the empty boxes on one of the tables.  Each of these boxes had been filled with books when the conference began and now there were no books to put back in them.  I currently have eight different books I have written and between all eight titles, I brought one thousand books with me.  As I packed up the display and did a very quick inventory, I had just 50 books left that are going back home!  I don’t have to think about that very long before I am completely astounded at the work of God through this gift of writing.  And as I would tell people throughout the entire conference, the writing of the books all began with a single poem that God put in my mind not even three years ago!  I continually stand amazed at the gifting of God that He continues to increase in proportion to my faithfulness in using it.  I don’t believe we typically consider the scope of what God could do through us if we would only share what He has already given.

I pray that you and I would pay attention to the opportunities that God puts in front of us and respond in a timely fashion so that the opportunity does not slip by.  I pray that we would pay attention to the needs of others and look out for their interests above our own.  I pray that we would recognize God’s gifting in our life, even when we don’t fully understand His purpose for giving it to us.  I pray that we would be faithful in the things we consider little so that He can increase it to His glory. 

Page 323 has been a long and busy day as I’ve talked with people about prayer ministry and shared a lot of books and resources with them.  In fact, if tomorrow has the same interest in the resources, I will be out of the books I brought with me before the conference ends!  Today was a great encouragement and affirmation of what I do with Impact Prayer Ministry and helped me to process some interaction from yesterday.  I had an individual pray with me and tell me they had a sense that I didn’t feel like I belonged there.  It was an interesting encounter because I often don’t feel like I belong anywhere.  And then today happened.  Today was a steady stream of people, often with tears in their eyes, telling me how glad they were that I was there and that they  had stopped to see what I had.  Some of them had picked up books yesterday and had begun to go through them last night.  They said they were so moved by what they found that they just had to come and thank me for being there and for giving books away.  Others would leaf through the books and tear up when I said that they were all free and they could take whatever they would use.  I’m not sure I’ve ever made so many people cry all in one day — but these were all tears of joy.

The most common question of the day is some form of, “How can you give books away?”.  My answer in all sincerity was always that they were God’s gift to me and early on in the writing process, God’s Spirit caused within me a conviction that I was to share them as freely as He has given them.  The missions support that Impact Prayer Ministry receives from Deer Run and a number of individuals make them partners in supplying prayer-based resources to people who desire to grow in their connection to God through prayer.  All of my books have been written out of my prayer time and I share them with the hope and prayer that the encourage others as they use them in their prayer time.

As with most conferences such as this, the day was also filled with reconnecting with people that I know but often don’t see except at conventions and conferences.  It makes me imagine the reunion we will experience in heaven as we have opportunity to greet friends from far and near that we have not been able to see for one reason or another.  The joy of seeing that old friend and knowing they are okay will be great, but it will pale in comparison to the joy of seeing Jesus and knowing that it is finally completely well with our soul.

I pray that you and I would be faithful in doing what God calls us to do even when circumstances may make us feel we don’t belong.  I pray that we would find ways to encourage one another as we value the work God has given them to do.  I pray that we would rejoice with friends we have made throughout our lifetime.  I pray that we would keep our eyes fixed on Jesus as we look forward to that day when we will rejoice with Him in heaven.  

After setting up the display yesterday, page 322 was the actual start of the International Conference on Missions so it has been a full and busy day.  I began by taking advantage of the free breakfast the hotel gave me.  I don’t often eat breakfast, but my schedule when displaying at a conference becomes so chaotic that I’ve learned to eat when I have the chance.  After breakfast I headed over to the exhibit hall to take another look at my display and see if there were changes I wanted to make.  I’m not sure what it means, if it means anything, but I think this was the first time I have left the display alone after the initial set-up.  

With the display ready to go I had the morning free so I headed out for a drive to Natural Bridge State Park to do some hiking and prayer time before the exhibit hall opened.  One of the highlights of the park is the feature it is named for, the natural bridge, but it is filled with wonder and beauty all around that central feature.  My hike to the natural bridge was up a trail with a lot of steps carved into the rock, as well as plenty of wooden steps to supplement the stone ones.  It didn’t take long to remember that I prefer coming down all those steps rather than going up them.  Today’s photo is of a section of those carved stone steps.  I look at that and my mind thinks of the incredible amount of work that it took to carve them into the rock.  And if that wasn’t difficult enough, to come along and put in posts for railing along the rock steps had to be a task like few others.  As I thought about the work that had taken place so that I had steps to climb, I decided the work I was doing in climbing them really wasn’t all that bad.  

Sometimes we all need something to give us a better perspective of the things in our life.  We may think we have it tough in this life when things don’t turn out the way we want them to.  Then I think of Paul’s question of whether I have resisted sin to the point of shedding blood.  When I think of the work that Jesus did in preparing a way for me so that I could reach the heights of heaven with Him, the troubles of this life seem to not be such a big deal.  Without the work of people before my time carving steps into stone, I don’t think I would have made it to the top of the natural bridge.  While it still required work on my part, the way had been made so that I could make it to the top if I wanted to.  Jesus told us that we would have trouble in this world but that we should take heart because He has overcome the world.  By His going before us and shedding His blood on the cross as payment for our sin, the path of being made right with God was opened up to all of us.  While we still have to choose that path and “work out our salvation with fear and trembling”, being made right with God is no longer an impossibility.  

After my morning hike, I came back to the hotel and cleaned up before heading over to the exhibit hall.  It was good to spend the evening talking with people about prayer and the prayer-based resources God has allowed me to write and share.  I still have difficulty at times explaining what Impact Prayer Ministry is and what it is I do, but today the visible part of the ministry was putting resources into the hands of people who will  use them.  

I pray that you and I would be diligent about giving our best to God without letting a pursuit of perfection destroy our obedience.  I pray that we would recognize the work that has gone on before us that enables us to do what we do today.  I pray that we would accept the way God has made for us through Jesus as we follow the path He leads us on.  I pray that we would be encouragers of one another as we give value to the gifting of God in their life.

Page 321 began early as I headed into work to get the cleaning and building prep done before packing up the truck in order to head to ICOM.  As I cleaned the building, I not only prayed for the students who would use the building during the day, I thanked God for a family and church family who encourage the work God uses me to do through the prayer ministry.  Sometimes it is easy to forget, but it is the support of my wife and the partnership with the Deer Run Church of Christ which enables me to head to a conference with 1,000 copies of books God has given me to write.  As I hand those to people over the next couple of days, it will be with a recognition that the encouragement they will bring to people is not my work alone, but primarily the work of God through His Spirit using the support of many people to accomplish a great work.

As I headed down the road, the sun was beginning to crawl over the horizon and it wasn’t long before the photographer in my just had to stop and take a few pictures.  The air was full of moisture that could be seen and felt in the air.  Some areas had fairly dense low-lying fog, but other places were just hazy.  Today’s picture was taken from alongside the highway as the sun rose over a farm with the fog and haze filtering out some of the sun’s usual brightness for being that high in the sky.  It made me think of the fog and haze of life that sometimes filters out the brightness of our light as we live for Jesus.  The good news to me is the promise that “greater is He that is within you than he that is in the world.”  While the things of the world may bring trouble and discouragement, Jesus has put a light within us that the things of this world cannot overcome.  In fact the more we focus on being the light of God that we are called to be, it is the things of the world that become dim rather than them causing the light to go dim.  I love the old hymn, “Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus.  In fact it is the hymn that was sung when I first walked the aisle of a church way back in 4th grade to tell God I wanted to surrender my life to Him.

O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free!
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim.,
In the light of His glory and grace.
(Helen Lemmel, 1922, Public Domain)

The rest of the day was a combination of driving and then setting up the Impact Prayer Ministry display before checking into the hotel for the night.  The first room they sent me to was in complete disarray and obviously had not been cleaned since the previous guest.  A quick call to the front desk and they said they would put me in a different room and offered to bring new keys to me.  I told them I would come down and pick them up and when I did they gave me a pass for free breakfast every morning of my stay!  I don’t usually eat much breakfast but on a conference schedule it is nice to have a filling meal to start the day.  When I got to my new room and looked out the window, I saw an ice skating rink in the plaza across the street.  It had been years since I’ve been ice skating, but with a free evening before the long days of the conference, I headed out to give it a try.  It didn’t take long before I was cruising around the ice and even managed to spend my entire time on actually skating on the ice without falling.  MJ had warned me not to do jumps if I went, so most of the fancy moves were kept in my mind this time.  🙂  

When I returned to my room, the internet was acting up, so instead of getting online to write and post the day’s page I went to sleep around 9 PM.  The skating must have made me tired as I fell asleep quickly and seemed to have slept soundly until a little after 1 AM.  Since I was awake, I checked the internet and it was back working so I sat down to write before heading back to sleep.  All in all, page 321 was a good day.

I pray that you and I would recognize and value the people God has put into our life to help us accomplish the work He has given us.  I pray that we would let our light shine even with the troubles and discouragement of the world attempts to make that light less visible.  I pray that we would keep our eyes fixed on Jesus so that His light would put everything else in perspective.  I pray that we would enjoy life to the full and rest completely in knowing that we’ve given that life fully to God.