Dr. Terry Dorsett has written a study aimed at addressing the spiritual gifts within the body of Christ. (paid link to the left) He seeks to not merely delve into their Scriptural basis, but also repeatedly draw out how those with various giftings can best work together to balance each other out for the good and growth of the Body of Christ.
The layout of the book leaves it up to the individual or group Bible Study leader to figure out how best to divide up the study into workable sessions. There are seven lessons overall, some longer than others, and some with more Scriptural question sections than others. So the first thing the reader needs to do, is decide what a workable pace is for themselves or their group, and then go through the devotional accordingly.
Dr Dorsett comes from a Baptist background, and this persuasion shows up clearly in some of his discussions of the various spiritual gifts. Those of other denominational backgrounds will notice how some of the verses within the passages he asks the reader to review, are either not discussed, or interpreted quite differently than what they have been taught. Other passages that would give a different perspective on the discussions presented, are not offered at all. Consequently, this reviewer is forced to conclude that Dr. Dorsett chose to stay firmly within the bounds of the teachings of the Baptist denomination rather than venture into broader territory.
For the reader who wants to broaden their understanding of how various denominations view things such as the Gifts of the Spirit, this book will offer them another opportunity. It is important for Christians of different persuasions to understand how fellow believers from other denominations interpret Scriptural concepts so that such potential points of division between church families can be accepted as mere differences and not lead to the division that the enemy of our souls is after so desperately.
This reviewer was unable to agree with everything Dr. Dorsett brought out in his interpretation of the Scripture passages he chose, but he said many things I do agree with.
One of the gifts discussed in the book is the Gift of Discernment. It is the desire of this reviewer that each person who picks up this book will be like the Bereans and not only read the Scriptures offered and their interpretations, but delve even deeper into the Word, asking the Holy Spirit for discernment as they seek His empowering to engage in their specific role within the Body of Christ.
Thank you Dr. Dorsett, for the opportunity to review your book.
That’s right, I’ve been busy writing again. The inspiration for this particular book project was a booklet I’d put together back in 2008, aimed at helping people learn how to use The Lord’s Prayer as an outline. I hadn’t done much with it at that time, didn’t even know how to put a book together at that point. So I dusted off the concept again in February, but didn’t actually dive into the research required till March of this year.
“A Year in Prayer With Jesus” is now in the hands of reviewers and editors as of this weekend! Once again, my daughter assisted in the creation of my book cover, and if I may say so myself, it’s an awesome cover and shrinks to thumbnail size very nicely!
I invite you to check out the one-month preview available on my Facebook author page.
Here is what will appear on the back cover:
“Do you struggle with the idea of a daily prayer life? Have you ever found yourself asking along with the disciples, “Lord, teach us to pray”? Then this book is for you. Let us join the disciples as we sit at Jesus’ feet and join Him in prayer. . . for an entire year.
It is important to realize that The Lord’s Prayer is not a recipe for answered prayer. Rather, it is a recipe for increased relationship with the One Who desires to answer our prayers. There is a very specific order in which Christ says we should approach God the Father. This order, if followed, brings the child of God into a place of gratitude, humility, and reverence. It seeks to bring the heart of the prayerful one into alignment with what beats God’s heart and it moves the Christian to put feet to their prayer life.
It is my desire as you go through the coming year with me, that you’ll gain a practical, living understanding and personal experiencial insight into the realm of prayer that will lift you above the materialistic tendencies; above the selfish motives; above the need for instant gratification and attention, and into the realm of God’s heart not just for you, but for those around you; not just for your own issues and needs, but those around you, and lastly, that you will experience the richness of just “being” in His presence.”
Matthew 14:23 And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.
Psalms 63:6 When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.
Psalms 5:3 My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.
Psalms 55:17 Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.
Mark 1:35 And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.
This morning’s daily verse in Matthew jogged a pet peeve to mind again. It always amazes me how people, and in this particular case, a lot of people seemingly in high places within the global church of God, can build forceful doctrines out of sporadic verses here and there and teach them in such a way as to cause the layman to look at each other in judgement if they don’t follow said doctrines.
The doctrine I am speaking of, is that of the apparent necessity to rise early in the morning to spend time with God in prayer and Bible reading. The understanding is, that by giving up an hour or two of sleep every day, you are somehow being “more like Jesus” and developing a closer relationship with God the Father in the process. Being a night-owl by nature, this has always bothered me. In recent years, hidden health problems that finally surfaced this past year, are making the need for sleep even more apparent and the thought of losing sleep even more ludicrous. So I opened e-Sword to my favourite KJV Bible, and searched for morning and prayer.
What I found, was that whenever God had a specific directive to a specific person, He often called that person to rise early to complete that directive. However, the concept of mixing prayer and mornings together is no more frequent than that of other time frames throughout the day. What jogged this issue for me today, is that this morning’s verse from Matthew does not mention Christ getting away in the morning, like other passages do such as the one in Mark shared above. This verse shows Christ getting away to pray in the evening! But Christendom has been taught that to be like Christ, we need to get up early and pray! Then I found the verses in Psalms, written by the man God called “A man after my own heart”, and find King David speaking of engaging in prayer, praise, and meditation at all hours of the day!
“All hours of the day”. . . We are told in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 “Pray without ceasing.” The basic definition of what this means, is to always be in conversation with God about everything going on in your life, all day long. Whether you are concerned with a family member, bothered by traffic, late for a meeting, making a difficult decision. . . God wants to be included in everything you do, in all aspects of your life, but the only way He can be included is if you do the including!
As a single mother for the past 15 years, hearing sermons and attending Bible studies where doctrines about early mornings and regular daily devotions were heavily taught, often brought me to feelings of condemnation, until I realized one very key fact about spending time with God in a day. God doesn’t care how it looks, just as long as you give Him the best part of your day, whenever that lands in your usual routine. Sometimes giving God your best means rearranging your schedule and you are encouraged to do that whenever circumstances let you. I have found that daily responsibilities have meant a schedule shift every few months, so having a regular quiet time has always been a struggle. It is encouraging then to find that “The man after God’s own heart” found time for God at any point throughout his day! It is encouraging for me to discover that Christ got alone with God the Father at evening as well as morning. I’ve also discovered that my love for writing gets me into the Word and meditating on it fairly frequently as well. This has been a saving grace for me at times when daily schedules have run me off my feet.
Not everyone is blessed with the health required to cut short their sleeping schedule to fulfill the apparent doctrine of rising early to meet with God as a sign of personal holiness. There is grace in the heart of God for people to include Him at all times of the day, and in all reality, God would prefer we include Him throughout the day, rather than just for one or two hours first thing in the morning.
Something to think about.
Hebrews 4:14-16 Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. 15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
Back when I was compiling my series, “Becoming the Bride of Christ: A Personal Journey”, I would comment in various places how awkward it felt at times to describe God’s behaviour toward me in the human terms I was using. I kept wanting to apologize for using such “low” descriptions in a vain effort to express how God had invaded my home as my unseen Husband. However, 7 – 8 years after writing my story in that series, Pastor shared a sermon this morning and I no longer feel awkward describing God’s behaviour toward me. He preached from the story of Mary, Martha and raising Lazarus from the dead in John 11. As we all know, this is where the shortest verse of the Bible is located:
John 11:35 Jesus wept.
Pastor shared a quote from another book he’d read, where the author asked why someone in writing would be set up as divine and then be allowed to “get sucked into” a mere mortal’s feelings and state of heart. The answer of course, was that Jesus had willingly accepted not only the form of mankind, but allowed Himself to fully experience life as a man, complete with temptations, limitations and feelings of a man. We are then told in Scripture, that He understands our infirmities, He’s been touched by them as much as we are. In choosing to experience these things, He also chose to empathize, to sympathize, and to enter into our feelings. The thought then, that even after rising again, God the Son would continue to ascribe human attributes to Himself as noted by the Apostle Paul and others in the New Testament, really is more than mental ascent or ethereal attribution! When we read in Hebrews that we have a High Priest who is touched by our infirmities, and when we read that He understands our feelings, it’s for real!
As I was going through a lengthy tedious step in my next book project this afternoon, I was thinking over this confirmation and consolation that I’m not out in left field, that Christ has been reaching out to me in a very human manner, all I could do was thank Him and praise Him for choosing to meet me in this way. Ever since God took me through that period of healing and restoration back in 2007, He’s been working at softening me and drawing out the “Mary” side of me to ease up on the harshness of the “Martha” side of me. I get so busy doing, and people around me get used to seeing me doing, that the idea of letting me just “be” in my Lord’s presence and allow Him that intimate relationship He longs for, can get to be a foreign concept at times. People around me can actually balk at it and refuse me what I long for in certain circumstances.
But now I actually feel freed in my usage of language to describe how Christ is to me. All these 7-8 years, I’ve been trying to keep God in the “Almighty God” description while trying to explain to people the intimate level in which He’s chosen to interact in my home, when all I had to do was look at the tender way Christ treated those closest to Him and realize that He willingly took on His human side and willingly chose to act in that capacity at times, and has decided to keep those qualities since His Resurrection. Sometimes my attempts to maintain that attitude of vertical reverence get in the way of the desired horizontal relationship He longs to have. . .that of coming alongside and sharing this journey with me.
My daughter and I went shopping the other day. We were low on quite a few groceries and it was time to stock up. The grocery store had a sale on bulk loose cranberries at $.96/100g. My daughter has gone grocery shopping with me so many times, that while I was elsewhere in the store that day, she compared the sale to the price of pre-packaged dried cranberries, and found the pre-packaged price to be even better! When I finally caught up with her, she explained that she’d compared the prices as she knew I would do, and chose the cheaper price tag.
Needless to say, I was quite proud of how she’d handled the situation. She’s 18, graduated high school last June, and I have no fear of her ever being “loose” with her finances. Shopping for groceries has been a skill taught by both example and explanation, and she’s been an avid student! Her family will eat well in the future.
I share this story because too often, stores of all stripes will do this. What looks like a sale in one area really isn’t that great of a deal when compared to the same or similar product in another part of the same store. It’s always wise to compare first, then buy the better deal.
Sometimes the better deal is in the amount of an item. One time I and my son went shopping together. I had a coupon for a brand-name baking powder package. When we arrived at the store and compared the brand-name’s coupon with other brands and sizes on the same shelf, we quickly discovered that we could get the same couponed price in almost double the quantity by a lesser brand! Needless to say, that coupon went unused and we bought the lesser brand’s product instead.
In today’s economy, it’s fool-hardy to be brand-loyal. By brand-loyal, I’m referring to buying the same brand all the time regardless of quantity changes or price increases. With inflation the way it’s been, particularly versus the slow increase or even stagnation of wages in various industries, it pays to be flexible with the brands you buy at the store. Many times, the lesser-brand, or even no-name or white-label, has the same if not better quality product for a more affordable price. In some cases, the two products roll off the same assembly line into different packaging! Nothing brought this fact home to me more than going from a brand-name Vitamin C product that I prefer, to a lesser-brand bottle of the same kind of Vitamin C. While I’ve always known about the product quality similarities, I was quite surprised to open the lesser-brand bottle and find the exact same product inside! I’m not kidding! The tablets not only looked identical, they tasted identical and broke apart the same way in my mouth! This was a perfect and very recent example of paying more for products simply because they have a recognized brand attached to them! Going with a lesser brand or no-name/white-label isn’t necessarily sacrificing quality, quantity, or expected performance. Be adventerous, experiment. When you find the cheaper variety that you like, save yourself some pennies and make the switch.
Comparing sales, deals, and coupon offers with competing products will:
a) alert you to better savings the store didn’t want you to know about
b) teach healthy analytical shopping habits and
c) stretch your dollar much farther than it would otherwise go if you stuck to your favourite brand.
It truly does pay to do your in-store homework when out for a grocery run! Just as you would shop around and compare online before making other types of purchases, be sure to do this when you hit the store. In fact, with many stores now offering electronic versions of their flyers, you can begin your sleuthing at home, printing the coupons you wish to compare against, and going to the store armed and ready to do battle with your calculator!
Sometimes, as in the case of the cranberry story, you need to compare “apples to apples”, meaning in this case, comparing the price per 100 grams. The packaged product might phrase it as price per kilogram. To see which is the better deal, you need to take the quantity of the package, say 1.82kg for example, translate that into grams, which would be 1082 grams, and divide the price of the package by that amount, then multiply the price per gram by 100. A few seconds with your calculator in-store can mean several dollars in savings by the time your trip is over for the day.
Savings add up, and you might surprise yourself what is left in the bank when you drive home.
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For more tidbits of advice, get my book, “Mom’s Little Black Book: Godly Advice for the High School Graduate”, available via this blog’s store, Amazon, Deeper Shopping, New Christian Books, and in digital format at Google Play and Scribd as well. It makes a perfect grad gift and with grad season approaching in just a couple more months, you’ll want to have your grad shopping out of the way early!
Dr Luke in his book that bears his name, mentions a time when Jesus was sending out His disciples to do the work of the ministry. He was explaining what not to take with them and how to rely on God’s provision for them via those they would stay with in each village they would pass through. At one point he shares the famous phrase, “. . . for the labourer is worthy of his hire.” In Proverbs, the farmer is urged not to muzzle the ox, but to let it nibble at the corn it threshes.
In the same way today, singers, pastors, teachers, authors, musicians, actors, and artists all work hard to get the message out that God gives them and earn enough to pay the bills while they are at it.
For myself, God has gifted me with the ability to troubleshoot and fix computers, write, sing, coordinate, organize and teach. The last two entries in that list are motivational giftings as I seek to go about life in an organized manner and find joy in helping others learn something new. This comes out in how I organized the content of my series, “Becoming the Bride of Christ: A Personal Journey”, the kinds of advice tidbits that made it into my grad gift, “Mom’s Little Black Book: Godly Advice for the Highschool Graduate”, and in how I present the content in my latest book, “Dressed for Eternity”. Even my tiny ebook, “Practical Thoughts on Becoming an Author” is laid out in a manner aiming to help the aspiring author get into print.
For the past few months while I have been keeping life at a low-key level to heal up from adrenal fatigue, I’ve been working part-time at a realtor’s office as an unlicensed realtor’s assistant. I am not trained as a realtor’s assistant in any way, and it’s been a challenge to apply what I know of basic secretarial/receptionist and even my tech skills to his particular needs. As of this afternoon, (Friday Feb 14th), I have been laid off and am looking to dig up work again while seeking to increase sales of my books. The following list is a shortened list of where you can find my books in both paperback and digital form. The stores in this list all pay either immediately, or monthly regardless of balance. So any purchases from this particular list will help me out more immediately than other locations that didn’t make it on this list. In addition, my latest book, “Dressed for Eternity” is cheaper at these locations than the others as well, which helps us both out. You get my latest book at a savings of roughly $20 – $30, and you help me out in the process.
My own blog store:
https://songdove.fa-ct.com/wordpress-mu/songdovemusings/store/
Storenvy:
http://songdovebooks.storenvy.com
New Christian Books:
http://songdove.fa-ct.com/songsfromwordlistings.shtml
Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/songdove
Kobo:
http://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/practical-thoughts-on-becoming-an-author
http://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/dressed-for-eternity
Scribd:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/194327873/Practical-Thoughts-on-Becoming-an-Author
http://www.scribd.com/doc/198872406/e-Dressed-for-Eternity
http://www.scribd.com/collections/3759796/Becoming-the-Bride-of-Christ
Scribd has an App available in Google Play and ITunes to manage your Scribd library on your Android or IOS device and they now have a monthly book reading program for a small fee.
Google Play:
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=Ms.%20Marilynn%20Dawson&c=books – minus “A Guide to English Grammar” which I didn’t write, so why it comes up under a search for me, I’m not sure.
I mentioned earlier that I am also a computer tech. That website is http://fa-ct.com, and the remote support button will be going live Monday to Friday between the time frames of 9am and 4pm Pacific Standard Time. Any time the button is NOT live during those hours will be due to me being out on a call in my local area. If my writing and my tech support services begin to earn enough to pay March’s rent, then I will continue to work for myself. However if I can’t pay March’s rent, I’ll be scrambling for employment for someone else again. You can guess which form of employment I’d prefer.
Across the top of this website, you’ll see a link that says “Other Services”. Clicking that will show you what writing services I also offer, and a link to my tech website for writing services related to my own business.
So if you’d like to help me out, you can do so by: a) purchasing my books, b) sending tech support calls my way, c) making use of my writing services, and d) telling others about these things as well so they can make use of them. God bless you as you use your purchasing power to support your brothers and sisters in Christ.
So the only picture I actually remembered to take of my entire event, was this pic of the breadbun soup bowls I prepped for the setup crew’s dinner on Feb 8th! I got so wrapped up in everything going on that I failed to take any further pictures at all! In fact, this pic was taken at home! Not at the event even!
Everyone kept commenting how this was such an ingenious idea, and some even thought I did the whole dinner from scratch. Amazing what a sale at Superstore coupled with a creative, improvising mind will be able to pull off! I credit God for ensuring the sale occurred the week I needed it too!
These bowls were made in the following manner:
1) Take a sharp knife, I used a steak knife. Place the bun on it’s flat bottom on your work surface and look at the top of the bun. You want to leave as much bun available as possible while obtaining the widest interior possible. So take the knife and begin slicing across the top of the bun, from the outermost edge you hope to ring your bowl, to the farthest edge you are after. Instructions I’ve located that talk about large bread bowls encourage leaving at least 1.5″ available as side walls and base. However, because these are dinner buns here, the best we can hope for is maybe a half inch to 3/4″ around the outside.
2) Once you’ve cut off the top, take the sharp knife and insert it at the inner edge of the bun now, beside the exposed soft interior. Be careful you don’t push the tip all the way to the bottom of the bun. Try to leave at least a half inch on the bottom to prevent leakage.
3) After you’ve cut all the way around the exposed softer bread, remove the knife and using clean fingers, pull out the “plug”. You’ll notice that the bread center will pull out at roughly the depth you had cut with your knife. Set the bread plug aside for use in dipping.
4) Pour some olive oil into a small to medum sized bowl, and liberally apply it to the interior of your bread bun soup bowl. I tried to use a basting brush for this and ended up using my fingers. I also lightly slathered some on the outside of the bun to seal it externally as well.
5) Place buns on cookie sheet and place in 350F oven for at least 15 minutes or until the bun turns golden. For my oven, that turned into 25 minutes.
The bun comes out very crispy inside and out. This allows for one or two servings of thin-broth soup, or 2 to 4 or more servings of cream or thick-broth soups. When the diner begins to notice the bun going soft, it’s time to eat the bun and grab another if they want more soup. The bread bun cores are great dippers to dip in your soup and enjoy, or to serve in other ways. Some people have chopped up the cores into cubes, spiced and then dried them for croutons. Others have cubed them for dipping in sauces.
Needless to say, these little bowls were an all-out hit for the setup crew! My grown kids like them too.
Ok, so maybe the concept of crowd-funding isn’t new. Kickstarter, Indie Go-Go, and others are proving that when a company needs startup funds, crowd-sourcing it can be a very lucrative way to jump-start the business.
The concept of organizations linking up with purchasing sites to aid in raising funds for their much-needed projects isn’t new either. But most of the time, any of the partnerships I’ve seen did not appeal to the general masses, or required extra steps beyond the usual shopping experience. As I read emails from various sources that come through my inbox, it is becoming clear that the retail landscape is catching on to the fact that most average shoppers don’t mind supporting a cause, and that some shoppers might even change stores in order for their purchasing habits to support the cause of their choice. Even credit and department store card companies are getting on board.
The newest, and perhaps most pleasantly surprising store to get on the “shop here and support your favourite charity” bandwagon, made their announcement back in October, 2013: the online shopping giant, Amazon.com! If you’re like me and missed that announcement and just clicked the link now, you will have discovered yourself looking at a screen with a row of charities over on the right. Below that is a button where you can run searches for even more charities registered with the company. Once you’ve found the charity you wish to support and clicked “Select”, you’ll be taken to what appears to be your average Amazon.com webpage. It looks and acts just like the Amazon you’re used to, but with one key change on the back end. When you do your usual shopping and click the checkout button, the Amazon Foundation will donate 0.5% of your purchase to the charity you chose to support. In addition, you’re not stuck with that charity if you have several on your list. Just click the charity’s name in the top left corner, and you’ll be offered the opportunity to pick another charity that you’ll support with that day’s purchase.
Because Amazon.com is so huge, and because so many people already shop there from all over the US as well as around the world, this is an awesome new source of much needed revenue for so many struggling NGO’s, Missions organizations, and other groups seeking to make a difference both at home and on a global scale.
You can learn more about the Amazon Foundation and the Smile.amazon.com website at this link here.
Songdove Books is pleased to be able to offer visitors the opportunity to support your favourite charity while buying Marilynn’s books. Simply visit the Smile page here on the site, and use the links presented there.
Psalms 36:7 How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.
What comes to mind when you think of excellence? For myself, the concept of perfection comes to mind, along with high standing, uprightness, praise-worthy, and more.
When you hear the term, “lovingkindness”, what do you think of? For myself, this is a loaded question. Kindness, (because left-handers tend to think backwards), can often be construed simply to mean gentleness, piety, warm fuzzies, pleasantness, etc. But did you know it is a kind thing to remove splintered chicken bones from your dog’s dinner tray? Did you know it’s a kind thing to prevent a toddler from playing in the swimming pool when you aren’t there? From the dog’s perspective, you are taking away yummy nibblies. To the toddler, your actions mean they can’t have any fun at that moment! If they heard me saying you were being kind, they’d get very upset with me!
Then there is the first half of that term, “loving”. God’s love is as just as it is warm, as firm as it is generous, and it can sting as much as it comforts. People like to paint God’s love as beautiful meadows teaming with flowers under a warm sun and a whispering breeze. But that is a very superficial view of God’s love. When a parent loves a child, they will do everything they can to ensure that child grows up in a safe environment. They will remove broken, unrepairable toys. They will throw out rotten food from the lunchbox. They will discipline the child for doing wrong and teach them what is right. As Scripture puts it, discipline can seem greivous at the time, but when it is done it yeilds fruit unto righteousness. Scripture also says that God disciplines those He loves as a Father disciplines a son, and that if we don’t feel God’s discipline from time to time, we are not sons. (see Hebrews 12:5-11)
God’s lovingkindness then is a more perfect depiction of the loving parent doing their child a favor by ensuring their life is free of harmful contaminents. God longs to give us what is best for us, not what will hurt us. Sometimes we ask for things that God knows will, in the long run, cause us more pain than necessary, so He says no. Sometimes God has us wait for something good we have asked for, knowing that in the waiting we will be shaped and made truly ready for the granting of that request. We don’t like waiting, and we don’t like being denied. There are books written and seminars developed all spelling out ways to make God give us exactly what we want. But I fear we often ask amiss as James 4:3 puts it. We have not drawn close to God, sought His Kingdom and righteousness first (Matthew 6:33), or made ourselves right before Him, repenting of known sin in our lives (James 4:8). We are unable to pray according to God’s will when we are in such a state. We think selfishly and ask for things that Scripture says will be spent upon our own lusts and desires. Such prayers God is not inclined to answer, because the beat of HIs heart is for the lost. Any prayer that leads to not merely the benefit of His children, but enables them to share with others around them, will be answered. God’s lovingkindness is not spelled “sugar-daddy” or “genie in the sky”.
Combining the terms then leads to the combined thought that God’s loving care for us is perfect, praise-worthy and upright. It is in knowing and grasping this concept that we can then move to the next portion of this verse and put our trust under the shadow of God’s protection, described here as His wings. When we can truly grasp the fact that God loves us so deeply that He will care about every detail of our lives perfectly, we are then able to trust Him with those details, and rest, knowing He has it all under control.
It’s not an easy thing learning to put that level of trust in an unseen God. But He has repeatedly proven Himself worthy of that trust. If you don’t believe me, start counting all the things that you enjoy or take for granted today. Are you alive? Are you breathing? Do you have clothes on? Is there a roof over your head? Are you able to get from point A to point B? Have you eaten today? These are just some of the blessings God has seen fit to provide for you. Perhaps you can carry on in the list. What other seemingly every-day things, circumstances, or relationships can you thank God for? No matter how long your list may grow, it is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg of just how deeply God loves and cares for you. Truly His lovingkindness IS excellent, and we can place our implicit trust in His protection over us.
As I’ve been pondering my weekly blog post this week, the only word that keeps coming to mind is “Change”. This week my blog’s website theme underwent a heading change to allow for the addition of my next book, “Dressed for Eternity”. The advent of this book seems to have “Change” written all over it! Putting together my book launch event has other Christian authors in the area asking if either they can join this event, or if I’ll be doing something similar in the future. It appears that choosing to throw together such an ambitious book launch has opened up a potential doorway, causing other authors to wonder about a new way of increased visibility in my area. We’ll have to see where that leads.
All it takes is someone willing to do. So many people have ideas, but are looking for that person who is the doer to pull it off. Being a doer has it’s plus’s and it’s negatives. But being a doer is part of the personality God has given me. As one movie my kids have puts it, “see a need, fill a need”. God has gifted many people with the ability to use their words, whether written or spoken, or even sung, to get a message across to the world. But it is a challenge to get those words out where others will benefit from them in some way, whether by encouragement, exhortation, challenge, comfort, etc.
So we’ll have to see where this takes me. Ideas are bouncing around my head now, and there are other writers eager to meet with me about potential events they’d like to see later this year.
Pray for me that God will give me the guidance and wisdom required to bring together an event or series of events that will bring Him glory through the words of others. God’s been speaking quite a bit lately through my senior pastor about open doors this year. This latest book just might have made way for an open door I didn’t know was there before. Whether this is temporary or long-term I don’t know yet. But I’m heading toward it anyway.