August 22 2018 – Click here to listen
Every morning I sit down to write Words for the Day. I don’t pre-plan what I write, preferring to be led by the Holy Spirit. My original intent in writing it was to help my employees deal with life. Many of them had little to no spiritual connection in their lives. I’d been in that place and was hopeful that my experiences and Bible study would provide at least something for them to help deal with life’s sometimes difficult circumstances. I would go through the same stuff that others were encountering and more, but I derived comfort and peace from God when I began sinking into the darkness of this world. I was doing my own daily devotions anyway and figured maybe they would glean something from my study.
And so it began. I began writing it and made it available on a strictly volunteer basis. I didn’t look at the subscriber list and still don’t. I didn’t want the status of whether they subscribed or not to affect anything, positive or negative in my relationship with anyone. After a while it began to spread far and wide and I ended up with subscribers whom I didn’t even know from all over the place, It began taking more and more of my time writing it, sending it out daily, and dealing with subscribers and doing it all manually. One day I enlisted the help of one of my close programmer friends who told me to design what I wanted, and he would write the software program to make it easier to distribute and manage subscriptions. Oddly he was an atheist at that time and I’m so sad to report he remains one to this day.
Years later I checked into it to see if we may have actually invented the blog, because 20 years ago, daily blogs did not exist and software such as Word Press had not been developed yet. I was miffed to discover that some guy in Japan beat us by developing a system for himself 3 months prior to the one we implemented for Words for the Day.
Since those early days I’ve written millions of words and posted 5 times per week. I have posted it from all over the world and it goes all over the world. I wrote it when I was sick and when I was healthy as a horse, when working, or on vacation, I posted it when feeling good, and feeling bad, when happy and sad. I’ve received letters from people who claimed that they were intent on committing suicide or getting a divorce that changed their minds after reading it. I’ve received others who told me that what I had written on that day really struck a chord with them that day and then they thanked me. And yes, I’ve received many death threats and angry rants from those who disagreed with me. My number one rule has always been to base my posts on what is occurring in my life or the world and then relate it to what I believe the Bible has to say about it. You may disagree with my interpretation of the Bible, but I always try my utmost to base my conclusions on it and not on my own logic and opinions.
It seems that time has gotten away from me and here I am still writing Words for the Day after two decades. Recently I’ve been praying about it and wondering if it has outlived its time and if anyone is being helped by it. I suppose Jesus is the only One who knows the answer to that. I know He reads them daily and I wonder if I’m hitting the mark. It will be interesting to hear His comments. Most of all I pray I’m doing what He wants and that I’m being led by the Holy Spirit.
How about you? Do you pray daily that you will do what the Holy Spirit wants you to do, write about, or say? Who leads you day in and day out?
Romans 8:14
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.