After the service, the pastor greeted the Captain and asked, “I know how strongly you disagreed with what I preached today. I’m wondering why you didn’t stand up and say something?” The captain replied, “Because six years ago, when my wife was dying of cancer in the middle of the night, you came over and stayed bedside all night long.”

…

I just experienced a similar situation that proved the lesson from this story. How I wish I could share it with you! (I would be betraying confidence).

I have always believed it, and acted on it. But now I’ve seen it.

Some people will never trust or respect us until they know how much we care.

They’re never going to know how much we care until we show them. And prove it.

That takes time.

Originally I had stopped blogging for an extended period intentionally to give myself a little “Sabbath” from it. But then I just lost all interest in it. I stopped liking it.

In that process, I discovered something interesting: the pen is mightier than the computer.

It’s true — at least for me.

Typing reduces the mind to rational thoughts, buttons, and a series of one’s and zero’s.

But the pen…. when the smell of ink rolling out of a Soft Grip Bic pen reaches my nose, it’s similar to the reaction a man has from sawdust from cutting wood or smoke from firing a gun…. it’s like, “Yea. I did that.” When I write with a pen, its like creativity sparks from my imagination. The pen gives a great sense of creation to the author. Or at least to me. It’s like I can look at what I wrote and can think, “Yea, I’m did that.” There’s more power in the simple things.

Life is richer because of the simple life. Maybe that’s something we can apply to other areas.

I believe one of the most common reasons many people do not embrace personal or corporate prayer is because it doesn’t make sense. It’s not logical. It seems to us that we are much more productive, that our time is much better spent and that those around us are much better served when we are busy — when we’re not praying, in other words. That’s totally wrong. We actually do more to affect the earth when we pray than when we do anything else. … If we really knew how powerful prayer is, we would prioritize our lives and operate our ministries and businesses very differently.

One of my friends tells a story about an old Chinese evangelist who spent decades in China winning thousands of souls for the Lord. He was crippled because of his age, unable to walk. Someone asked him “How do you feel now that you are not able to go and evangelize China and win souls for Christ?” The man smiled and said, “You don’t understand. When i pray on my bed in this little room, all of China shakes.”

In Acts 17:32, it says that some people flat out SNEERED at Paul and those who talked about Christ. But others of them said, “Hey dude tell me some more.”

The way I see it: This scenario wouldn’t occur very often in our own lives because we’re too scared to have somebody “sneer” at us. We’re too worried about what other people think.

Now I’m not saying for one minute that we should AIM to get people to sneer at us. But I’m saying we have to make sure that we are more concerned about pleasing God than we are about pleasing man. Kinda like this guy…

“the bible is divine entertainment- real entertainment. It contains the life of God, the creator of heaven and earth. And I guarantee that it will blow the mind of anyone who is willing to enter in. We must see the word of God for what it really is: a place of delight and pleasure.”

Quoted from “Pursuit of the Holy” by Corey Russell.

That first paragraph got me thinking. Maybe those loud stimulating forms of entertainment like TV cloud up our creative thoughts and desensitizes our spiritual receptors. How would we expect to receive a vision or hear Gods voice when we are in that state?

- Corey Russell in “Pursuit of the Holy.”

Think about it. We may hear, “The White House says ….” is this a modern day miracle? Did s building miraculously grow lips and begin speaking? Of course not! We know this is refering to what the president and his policies have said.

There are lots of examples. “Washington” often represents the legislators, the individuals. “the pentegon” is another place yet it often refers to the generals and military officials. The employees at the Fort Wayne GM plant refer to their bosses at corporate headquarters by saying something like, “We will wait to hear from Detroit.”

And when [insert your name] says or does anything those around them should know that they’re representing Jesus.

Wouldn’t it be cool if our names were synonomos with “a word from God”.

In fasting the idea is to replace food with God. When your stomach growls, take it as a reminder to worship.

I’m doing the Daniel Fast which is only fruits vegetables and water. I occasionally have cravings for all the other stuff. That’s my “growl.” Some of us have given up other non food things … But the urge to do whatever can still be your “growl.” We must embrace the growl and let it remind us what we are doing.

But why don’t we?

Maybe its just me, but I’m tending to find other ways to occupy my time besides spend it with God. I even went as far as unplugging my TV for these 40 days to ensure I have more time set apart for God. But somehow I find other ways to fill that time. How silly. This is just a diet without embracing more time with God.

I’m gonna embrace the growl more.