When It All Began

Tuesday April 29, 2008 I sat down at a Toshiba laptop computer and wrote my first blog on this site. I wrote about Sitting With The Savior. I have been writing ever since. That was nine years ago. Much has happened in that nine years.

Since writing that first article I have served three different churches as pastor. I no longer have that Toshiba but now write on an a MacBook. I have written a couple of other books. I have traveled and preached in numerous venues. Two of the boys graduated from high school and are off at college pursuing their dreams. Tucker is a senior this year. In less time than I want our once full table of six will once again experience another subtraction and we will be a table of three. Tucker and Turner have always been close. They shared a room until about a year ago. Our nest is emptying.

Brenda and I celebrated 25 years of marriage a couple of years ago. We have seen and experienced wonderful things from God. We still laugh together. We still hold hands. We still enjoy being together. She has traveled with me to some of my preaching assignments in recent days. I always enjoy preaching more when she is present. I know she prays for me.

One of the constants during these past nine years has been this blog. I have written on all sorts of topics. Sometimes I have written abridged forms of messages I preached earlier. Some days I wrote about things God showed me during my devotions. Other times I wrote about everyday experiences. I wrote to comfort people. I wrote to make people uncomfortable. I wrote to testify to the many ways God worked in our lives. I wrote the tings He stirred in my soul.

I have written this many times but do so again. Writing for me is as natural as breathing. What I should say is writing for me is as supernatural as breathing. Jehovah put that in me. I have always wanted to write. I am not a best selling author as boxes of books sitting in my garage could testify. That was never my aim. I wrote because God put messages in me I needed to get out. I wrote for God. I wrote to help people along the way. I wrote because I had to.

Sometimes that meant writing hard words for a hard time. Sometimes those writings took the shape of comfort and encouragement to help others through difficult times. What few know is most of those writings were born out of my personal struggles of trusting God in difficult times. If God has used those writings to help others all glory goes to Him.

We hit two milestones recently on this blog. A few weeks ago I wrote my 1,600th article. That first year I did not even write 100 articles for the entire year. Last year I wrote well over 200. This year I think I wrote 125 to date.

When I am dead and gone these writings will serve as a lasting legacy of my walk with God and my faith in Him. When I am gone my ministry can continue through these writings. I am always amazed people read these. From time to time I will get numerous readers from as far away as Russia, Portugal, Germany, and Spain. If God can use anything I wrote to help someone here in the States or around the world I praise and glorify His name.

We hit another milestone earlier this morning. We celebrate our 125,000 visit to this blog site. Compared to other writers and the vast world population that is nothing. It is something to this small town country preacher. It testifies of two things to me. God is continually helping me to persevere through many triumphs and trials. I also testify to the truth God uses me. I don't know why.

Somehow God allows me to connect with readers. I may not even know their name but I can feel what they are going through. It is supernatural. It feels like God takes the hearts of people and puts their feelings, their struggles, their pain, their sinful ways in my heart to be able to write to minister to them. I can't really explain it. It is supernatural. I am not saying mystical. God stirs me with the topics to write about.

I can be driving down the road and suddenly inspiration will come about something to write. Sometimes those inspirations come through my personal Bible study. Other times inspiration comes from conversations I have with others. All of life is a laboratory of sermon and writing preparation.

I have great aspirations that one day these articles will spread with increasing rapidity. Instead of hundreds of readers a day I look forward to a day when thousands will read these articles every day. While I thank and praise God for 125,000 different visits to this site my vision is for the day when we have one million visits. I look forward to the day when God will use me to write 5,000 and even 10,000 articles. One thing is for sure. If God is the subject and the Bible the resource there will always be something new to write about. So until next time, thank you for reading and sharing these with pilgrims on their journey.