I have never received such a huge volume of heartwarming responses for Words for the Day as I received after Friday’s post. It began within minutes of my post going live and has continued through today. I have heard from folks in most every state in the United States and even in such faraway places as Pakistan, Africa, and China. I had no idea that so many readers cared so much about it. Everyone thanked me and many pled the case for me to continue (and some had very compelling arguments). Incredibly I even had two “haters” write and ask me to continue writing it. LOL
I cannot personally answer all your emails, texts, phone messages, etc. (it would be overwhelming). But please know that I read every single one of them and I thank you from the utmost depths of my heart and soul. I do think it is important to tell you why I started writing it and continued writing it all these years. I have written it for two specific reasons:
- To try my utmost to please God, glorify His Holy name, and to thank Him for what He did for me, (a lowly sinner) to save me from hell – I did not and do not deserve His love, but He did it anyway.
- I wanted to encourage and help others to draw closer to God, to realize hope through Christ, and to live a life of victory despite the darkness and evil that dominates this world in which we currently reside.
I read this verse last night in Domenic and his wife Charlie Fusco’s new book The Assignment. It was an eerie feeling reading these words because I was reading using a flashlight after our power went off in the middle of a severe, massive storm complete with thunder, lightning, wind, and a sheets of rain-type downpour. The verse seemed to sum things up for me . . . Let us consider (thoughtfully) how we may encourage one another to love and do good deeds, not forsaking our meeting together (as believers for worship and instruction), as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more (faithfully) as you see the day for Christ’s return approaching. Hebrews 10:24-25
I promised last Friday that I would pray about retiring from writing this column and thought it would take a month or so of intense prayer and possibly fasting to receive an answer. Instead, God answered immediately, something I have found almost rare in my Christian walk. I communicate with God through prayer, but there are four ways I can think of that God communicates with me:
- Revelation that is direct – (“Burning bush” moment of God speaking)
- Revelation through reading His Holy Word the Bible
- Revelation through observation of His creation, (and at times His miraculous intervention)
- Revelation from fellow Christians
This time I prayed about my WFTD dilemma and received my answer from you and from God’s Holy Word. Afterward, I could not envision God wanting me to retire at this juncture, especially in these dangerous times in which we live. The bottom line is that evil and darkness are real and not enough people are trying to battle it and quitting my small part of the fight just didn’t make sense to me. So, at the risk of sounding like legendary quarterback Tom Brady and retiring and then unretiring I am unretiring and will continue with Words for the Day.
As for now I’m going to rest, clear my head, get my surgery behind me, and get tuned up during my recovery and will give it another try when I can lift my arm high enough to type again. One reader wrote that he is currently recovering from rotator cuff surgery, and it took a month to reach a point where he could lift his arm enough to type. Sounds like God is offering me a little rest, albeit painful rest. LOL
So once again I thank all of you for taking the time to write and in so doing becoming one of God’s instruments to answer a brother’s prayer.
BTW you have much to offer. Why not join the fight and start a ministry of your own? If you have already done so, or if you are going to take that step, even if it is just witnessing to one person per day, be encouraged. Satan and his miserable demonic horde are no match for God’s glorious army led by Jesus Christ.
And if in a weak moment somehow Satan makes you think, “What’s the use, I’m working day after day – year after year with no results.” It might prove beneficial to remember this quote by Augustine: “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us” Shouldn’t we emulate God and value every soul as precious and worth the effort?
Perhaps consider too what I have learned in the last few days, that perhaps you may not even be aware of the lives that God might be touching through you.
Isaiah 40:28
“Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall, but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”