Saturday, January 31, 2009

Bonus Saturday: Wilderness Knees


There are a few gems in the Words to Go archive that were published before a readership started gathering here in cyberspace. Because Monday launches our first "Ask the Expert Week" and the week's theme is prayer, I'm pulling out a past fuel for thought to top off our tanks for the week's challenging discussions. Monday please join bestselling author Neta Jackson (Yada Yada Prayer Group) and I as we discuss the power of prayer and praise.


"Wilderness Knees"

I believed for much of my Christian life that in order to be able to pray effectively, that I had to follow the guiding principles of Mark 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” Jesus was giving the believers an assurance, knowing they would eventually gather fearfully at times after He had ascended to heaven. But it was an erroneous assumption on my part that my prayers alone were not potent enough. . . that I had to have a partner or a group of people to reach the ears of God.


That was until the year I discovered the power of wilderness knees. I use this term to describe the times of hard-fought spiritual battles, the ones that are fought invisibly in the heavens on our behalf because we have spent some knee time before God and often in isolation. I think of John the Baptist crying in the desert and his words falling on only the sand and the wind. But it was in the isolated wilderness that God lifted him up and used him like a town crier. . . Make way! Make Way! God is come to earth!


And so it happened that I had read an article one year in a local newspaper about a mother who was asking a librarian to remove a pornographic magazine from the eye level of her young child. She wasn’t trying to be prudish or fracture anyone else’s rights but was asking that the magazine be removed from plain sight of her young child as they entered the library door. Emotional intelligence ought to prevail. But instead the librarian refused to move the magazine out of sight claiming First Amendment rights. The story was buried on the back page of the local newspaper. I bowed my head at my desk at the office where I worked and prayed. I asked God what he thought ought to be done about it. I then quietly picked up the telephone and called the local mayor’s office. I asked him about the article and if he had gotten any complaints from parents.

“No, none at all,” said the mayor. He seemed sympathetic but told me that without a consensus, he had no call to act.


“Would you respond if it seemed that more parents cared?” I asked.

“Of course. But no one cares. You’re the only one who’s called,” he told me.

I got off the phone and studied the matter thoughtfully. I took some time during my lunch hour to pray some more and called church offices around our town. I summarized the article to each secretary and told them what the mayor had said, that no one seemed to care.

After an hour, I went back to work. By the end of the day, I wondered if my quiet prayer and the hour spent in phone calls could have possibly done any good. After all, I was a nameless mom. Out of curiosity, I called the mayor’s office before the close of office hours. I was surprised to find his office in a frenzy. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Little woman, I don’t know who you are but we have been getting phone calls not only from local parents but from all over the country. Even the ACLU is calling and a TV news magazine. What kind of strings did you pull? You must have a lot of clout,” he told me.

“No,” I told him quietly. “I prayed and made a few phone calls. “Are you pulling the porn out the library?” I asked.

“It’s gone,” he told me. He never gave out my name to any of the media. I was glad. I liked the solitude of wilderness knees.

I welcome FaceBook guests to Words to Go. Please post your thoughts with Neta Jackson on praise and its power Monday!

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Ask the Experts Week Countdown


February 2-6 “Ask the Experts” Week
“Women Authors on Prayer”


I was able to snag one more author girlfriend for an "Ask the Experts" week's discussion on prayer. So please make note and take note of this exciting calendar that starts next week, as we roll out the first week of February at Words to Go:

☺ Mon. Feb. 2 “Praying and Praise" We'll kick off the week by chatting with Neta Jackson author of the Yada Yada Prayer Group series. Neta especially wanted to chat about the topic "Prayer and Praise." Neta said, she'd be especially into talking about "the importance of praise and adoration as a regular part of our prayers--which is actually an important part of spiritual warfare." Each day this week, we invite bloggers to post your thoughts and comments about the myriad of values that can be drawn from a life dedicated to prayer.

☺ Tues. Feb. 3 Girl, you will Bee excited to sit in on this day when author and Christian Communicator Thelma Wells and Patty chat about “Praying God’s Will”

☺. Feb.4 Are you hungering to go deep? Then join author and popular conference and retreat leader Jan Winebrenner and Patty as they discuss “Prayer and Meditation.” Jan is a popular speaker for women's retreats and author of The Grace Of Catastrophe: When What
You know About God is All You Have.

☺ Thurs. Feb. 5 Calling All Cracked Pots!!! Yes, it’s a week of extravagant grace as Women of Faith’s Patsy Clairmont and Patty talk about “Praying From a Surrendered Heart”

☺ MYSTERY GUEST FRIDAY!! She’s a best-selling novelist and this mystery will leave you on the edge of your seat trying to figure out who she is! Drop in Friday, Feb. 6 to hear Patty and this Mystery Author discuss the most difficult responsibility in a woman’s faith journey, that of praying for our kids. Join Patty and one of today’s most popular and beloved novelists in a candid discussion just for moms.

♥ COMING FEBRUARY 9-14 “ROMANCE WEEK AT WORDS TO GO!!!”
The Pinnacles and Pitfalls of Being in Love
Veteran romance editor and author Karen Ball and I will talk about the realities of romance and marriage in real time and how romance can still sizzle out of imperfect relationships.

♥ Additionally, Marilyn Meberg, Women of Faith anchor speaker, humorist, and author of Love Me, Never Leave Me and I will discuss one of the deepest of emotions, the fear of abandonment. Marilyn says of this subject, "We crave connection with the ones we love most, and when our bond with them is broken, damaged, or threatened, we fear being left. We fear abandonment." Join Patty and Marilyn as Romance Week at Words to Go continues to soar.
♥ Husband and wife writing team Steve and Janet Bly will chat with Patty about how romance can go from crazy-wonderful to chaotic. They'll share about their romantic trip to Paris but how they then had to survive the days that followed when Steve received a shocking diagnosis.

♥ Fri. Feb. 13 MYSTERY GUEST FRIDAYS VALENTINE'S DAY SPECIAL hosts a veteran bestselling author whose stories of redemption have touched hearts the world over selling in the millions. One of her novels has never left the bestseller list to this day, nearly a decade later. Your heart will palpitate as this author and Patty discuss the Greatest Romance of All Time. Can you guess what that romance might be, Soul Sisters?

John Updike Dies and a Literary Light is Extinguished


John Updike has been my favorite novelist since college when I cracked open a story called A&P. While the assignment was to dissect and analyze, I was lost in the writings of a man whose perception of modern culture was so honest and true, I vowed right then and there to at least strive in my writings to be honest. My favorite Updike novel is In the Beauty of the Lilies. I also remember reading Roger's Version and The Witches of Eastwick. Updike's novels expose the spiritual deficit in middle class culture, underscoring our need to continue reaching for God.


Here is Katelyn Beaty's article from Christianity Today:

January 27, 2009 2:54PM
John Updike, 'Theological Novelist,' Dies at 76
The Pulitzer winner surveyed the spiritual emptiness of post-World War II family life.

by Katelyn Beaty

Prolific American novelist John Updike died Tuesday in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, after a battle with lung cancer. He was 76. Winning the Pulitzer Prize for two books in his best-known Rabbit quartet, Updike's novels and short stories frequently chronicled the spiritual and moral confusion of the middle-class American family adrift of its Judeo-Christian moorings.
Never afraid to explore sexual exploits frankly, the lifelong churchgoer also deftly wove theological themes into many of his novels, most overtly in Roger’s Version (1986), In the Beauty of the Lilies (1996), and Seek My Face (2002). He was strongly influenced by the works of modern theologians Soren Kierkegaard and Karl Barth, but in later years credited his hometown church in Massachusetts as his spiritual foundation.

Jesuit magazine America awarded Updike its Campion Award in 1997 as “a distinguished Christian person of letters,” and President George W. Bush gave him the National Medal for the Humanities in 2003.Christianity Today contributing editor Mark Buchanan called Updike “North America’s most theological novelist” in his profile of the author from July 2003. He wrote,
Nearly [Updike’s] entire life’s work is concerned with theological questions, and a good number of his works hinge on these. How many other contemporary authors could—or would—bandy about the theology of Barth, Tillich, or Bultmann in their novels? Or have page after page of dialogue between characters working out intricate doctrinal positions? Updike does this repeatedly and with discernment.
Mark Oppenheimer also profiled Updike in sister magazine Books & Culture in 2004, observing of his angst-ridden protagonists, “Updike’s characters were raised in church, and they want truly to believe in God, but the disciplines God requires inhibit the joy he is supposed to bring.”
Read more obituaries from The New York Times (which also has a slideshow), the Associated Press, Time magazine, and PBS's Religion and Ethics Newsweekly.
Kendall Harmon at TitusOneNine posted "Seven Stanzas at Easter," Updike's well-known poem on the Resurrection, last March.
Posted by Katelyn Beaty on January 27, 2009 2:54PM

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Update from Girlfriend's Weekend--Jefferson, Texas or Bust!

Here is a great photage from Girlfriend’s Weekend, just in from Queen Kathy Patrick.Girlfriend’s Weekend Photos


I spent the weekend in Jefferson, Texas at a wild booklover’s festival called Girlfriend’s Weekend, sponsored by the Pulpwood Queen, Kathy Patrick. Kathy is the owner of the world’s only beauty salon and bookstore, Beauty and the Book. You would think that in a town as small as Jefferson, Texas that a book festival would be impossible to pull off. But book lovers came from as far away as Kansas, wearing tiaras and bringing a great spirit of merriment and expectation with them—they are passionate about books and eager to hear novelists tell their stories. I met many new friends, like authors Karen Harrington, Leslie Lehr, Kaya McLaren, River Jordan, (yes, that's her real name) and Margaret Cezair-Thompson. And, of course, I’m lining them all up for an author chat. You’re going to just love talking with them. They are all sparkling new talents in the world of fiction. And Kathy Patrick is the genius bringing book lovers and authors together Suthern Style, and stylin' we all were in our costumes and tiaras!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Watch for Exciting Guests During Ask the Experts Week, Romance Week, and Upcoming Mystery Guest Fridays!


REMINDER: Don’t forget Patty will be dropping in as a featured author to Jefferson, Texas this upcoming weekend at the PULPWOOD QUEENS AUTHOR EXTRAVAGANZA!!

We all had such a great time visiting last week with author Lisa Samson. In addition to Mystery Guest Fridays, I’ll be hosting an occasional “Ask the Experts” Week. Here is the upcoming calendar, so be sure and post it to your Blackberry or Outlook calendar so that you can sit in on the fun:

February 2-6 “Ask the Experts” Week
“Women Authors on Prayer”

☺ Mon. Feb. 2 “Praying When it Seems God isn’t Listening”will kick off the week with a chance for bloggers to post your thoughts and comments about this very complicated issue.

☺ Tues. Feb. 3 Girl, you will Bee excited to sit in on this day when author and Christian Communicator Thelma Wells and Patty chat about “Praying God’s Will”

☺. Feb.4 Are you hungering to go deep? Then join author and popular conference and retreat leader Jan Winebrenner and Patty as they discuss “Prayer and Meditation.”

☺ Thurs. Feb. 5 Calling All Cracked Pots!!! Yes, it’s a week of extravagant grace as Women of Faith’s Patsy Clairmont and Patty talk about “Praying From a Surrendered Heart”

☺ MYSTERY GUEST FRIDAY!! She’s a best-selling novelist and this mystery will leave you on the edge of your seat trying to figure out who she is! Drop in Friday, Feb. 6 to hear Patty and this Mystery Author discuss the most difficult responsibility in a woman’s faith journey, that of praying for our kids. Join Patty and one of today’s most popular and beloved novelists in a candid discussion just for moms.

♥ COMING FEBRUARY 9-14 “ROMANCE WEEK AT WORDS TO GO!!!
Veteran romance editor and author Karen Ball and I will talk about the realities of romance and marriage in real time and how romance can still sizzle out of imperfect relationships.


♥ Additionally, Marilyn Meberg, Women of Faith anchor speaker, humorist, and author of Love Me, Never Leave Me and I will discuss one of the deepest of emotions, the fear of abandonment. Marilyn says of this subject, "We crave connection with the ones we love most, and when our bond with them is broken, damaged, or threatened, we fear being left. We fear abandonment." Join Patty and Marilyn as Romance Week at Words to Go continues to soar.

♥ Fri. Feb. 13 MYSTERY GUEST FRIDAYS VALENTINE'S DAY SPECIAL hosts a veteran bestselling author whose stories of redemption have touched hearts the world over selling in the millions. One of her novels has never left the bestseller list to this day, nearly a decade later. Your heart will palpitate as this author and Patty discuss the Greatest Romance of All Time. Can you guess what that romance might be, Soul Sisters?

♪ Now don’t forget Patty will be dropping in as a featured author to Jefferson, Texas this upcoming weekend at the PULPWOOD QUEENS AUTHOR EXTRAVAGANZA!!

Friday, January 9, 2009

Mystery Guest Fridays Welcomes Author Lisa Samson!!


Today’s Mystery Guest is none other than best-selling and Christy award winning author, Lisa Samson. Lisa’s latest novel will release in March 2009 and is entitled The Passion of Mary-Margaret (Thomas Nelson). Lisa and I have been friends for several years. We’ve shared writer’s sleepovers at her cabin in the Kentucky hills. And we’ve commiserated and fretted into the wee hours of the morning over our growing pangs in Christ. Welcome, Lisa to Words to Go. We’ll start Lisa, by asking if you’d mind giving us your take on “Being Good”?

LISA: I always equated being good with being busy for the Lord. So, the more I did, the more God would love me. At one point in time, I was writing Christian fiction, teaching Sunday School, leading the worship ministry, typing the bulletin, teaching creative writing at my children's Christian school, writing for a Christian children's radio program, leading a neighborhood prayer group, and taking care of my dying mother.

PATTY: I remember when your mom died. Grief can surely be the final straw on top of a hurry-sick load. What happened that changed all your perceptions?
LISA: A friend took me aside a few years after my mother's death, when my schedule had cleared of a few of those things, but the mentality had not. She told me something God had for me to hear. "I know you're doing good works to please me, but I want your heart."The truth was, I didn't even know how to love God. Particularly God the Father. Jesus, well, what's not to love? The Holy Spirit is here among us. But God the Father was aloof and disapproving. I loved Him because I had to, not because I felt any particular burning affection. And was that really love? Well, probably not. My first step in understanding what it meant to please God, was to begin to understand His great love for me. Let's face it, it's easier to love someone you know already loves you. I had just never really believed He loved me.

PATTY: Why is it, you think, that you’re sticking point was with God the Father?

LISA: I had the old illness of equating my Heavenly Father with my earthly one. (Sorry Dad, but you're in heaven now, so you know.) I never felt I could quite measure up for my father. And then, well, from young adulthood forward, I'd lived with a series of disappointments, prayers not answered the way I thought they should be. Probably a pretty typical drill for a lot of people.

PATTY: Yes. Most of us can relate. Even as parents, we know that we’re not perfect examples for our own kids. What happened next?
LISA: What happened next was a four year odyssey of a Father seeking His child. I pushed Him away again and again. But He held fast, constantly with me, proving to me over and over that He would not let me go. In a way, I was like that child in an emotional fit that a mother must hold tight until she finally calms down and rests her head against the bosom of her loving parent.

PATTY: How have you changed through all of this “letting go” process? Are you tempted to return to your old responses?

LISA: Do I want to "be good?" Well, yes. But the why is different. I want to be good because I want to be like my Father. And that is a completely different motivation. Because when I try to do the things He cares about, minister to the poor and marginalized, welcome the stranger, and other things, I get to know Him in ways I couldn't possibly otherwise and I realize how merciful and all-encompassing is His love for His creation. And then, guess what? I love Him more for all of that. It's a yummy, delicious circle and it leads to intimacy with God and man.

PATTY: Yummy. That’s a good description, like we’re wrapped in delicious comfort. The point of this week’s discussion was to help all of us contemplate the deeper path to intimacy with God—not being good, but in surrendering to a oneness in Christ so that we’re becoming more like him. You’ve helped us cap off this discussion so honestly, Lisa. In the process of this surrender you so aptly describe is where we find intimacy with God because now all of our desires are wrapped up in his. Do you have a favorite scripture that speaks to this intimacy or this surrender?

LISA: “How great is the love of the Father for us, that we should be called the children of God." And you know, "His mercies are new every morning," layers my soul with warmth and hope.

PATTY: Both great scriptures to feast on. Lam. 3:22, 23 is another one of those great morning devotions too! Thank you so much, Lisa, for being our mystery guest today. You’ve given us so much great food for the road to take us into the weekend as we prepare our hearts for worship, in whatever way we deem as our most excellent worship to God.

Thank you for visiting Words to Go—on the Road with Patty. Have a great weekend of intimacy with God who has a passion for you!

Thursday, January 8, 2009

On Being Good: Healthy Alliance—Healthy Reliance

Teaser Alert!!!
Tomorrow commences "Mystery Guest Fridays," a day that spotlights bestselling and award winning Christian authors from around the country. This week's mystery guest and I will be chatting over coffee about this week's topic "On Being Good." Tune in Friday and see if you were able to guess who our mystery guest is this week. Here's your hint:
She's hip and trendy, but humble and gifted with the pen; a Christy Award winning author who's always "Straight Up" about her faith in Christ. Who is she?

Now, back to this week's topic "On Being Good."
As my friend Patsy says, it’s time to reach for the positives. I’ve admitted this week my earlier erroneous perceptions of obtaining spiritual maturity, that of trying to be good through sheer force of will. But for a practical perspective on how one might get on track and get on with growth, I’d like to introduce into the dialogue a healthy alliance that leads to a healthy reliance.

This morning I woke up like I often do as a morning person with an Alpha personality. At the top of the To-do list, along with my writing work, my family’s needs and a morning devotion was World Domination. It’s not a dangerous trait necessarily, often harmless since my desire for domination usually involves conquering the mundane daily problems that might possibly ruin my day later on if I don’t get them solved. This morning I woke up with my World Domination gear locked and loaded. It’s an exhilarating feeling, if you’re a card-carrying choleric. But it can go to my head very quickly, a wee problem when I’m committed to strengthening my spiritual muscles rather than trying to throw my weight around—Paul would call that operating in “the flesh.”

Because I’ve committed this week to the study of practicing obedience rather than “being good”, I mentally took a brick bat to my Inner Dominator. Then the thought came to me: “Hold on! What about this oneness with Christ you’ve been spouting about all week?” Wrestling with the self is an exhausting exercise so early in the morning. So I elevated my thoughts to a loftier plane. Reliance on God is an exercise, but not in sheer white-knuckle force of will. I have to drop one practice to pick up another. I traded my “be good” card for a “practicing the presence of God” card. I mentally began to praise God while admitting what had just happened. It’s like laying down your whole poker hand and allowing him to examine it—hmm, nope, you don’t have a full house after all—so here, Patty, I’ll give you My hand: Love, Joy, Peace, Gentleness, Kindness, Self Control . . .

My Inner Dominator deflated and the real person inside of me—now admittedly exposed before the Master of the Universe--felt peace wash over me. I felt lighter. I wasn’t trying to conquer the world before my first cup of coffee. Instead, I was shifting it through a morning exercise of total reliance on God.

As the sun comes up, it’s a practice that will carry me through the day.

“I rise before the dawning of the morning, And cry for help; I hope in Your word. My eyes are awake through the night watches, That I may meditate on Your word.”
Psalm 119:147

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

On Being Good . . . and Letting Others Know the Difference


When coming of age as a teen, a friend of mine struggled with the faith passed onto her by her mother and her desire to just be herself. She was made to feel uncomfortable with desiring the few simple pleasures enjoyed in a small southern town. If she went to the movies with me, she had to lie to her mother about it. It caused her to finally rebel and throw out the beliefs that I had hungered for my non-Christian family to embrace. But I felt bad about the strife between her and her mother and she had a strange jealousy for mine. Of course, I had no rules or boundaries, could stay up as late as I wanted, see a movie, be it bloody or sensual. But I secretly yearned for the healthy boundaries that my mentally ill parents could never pass on.

There was a young man our age who hung out with us and saw our spiritual struggles as something he was glad to avoid. He said to my friend one day, “You’re never going to be good, so you might as well give up.” But that is how he viewed the faith of my friend as well as my newly embraced faith, as a list of dos and don’ts handed to us by a religious establishment. He was right, because that was how religion was perceived by us too so that’s how our lives were read by others. But my precious friend thought that there was something special about me because I didn’t worry about whether or not I could be good. While she struggled with guilt I struggled with believing God really loved me. I grew up avoiding abuse, learning the codified language I needed to survive. Being good was my salvation. But in the end it was not enough to sustain my rootless faith into adulthood. I was headed for a train wreck and didn’t know it. But just as bad, the friends who we might have influenced as teens wanted nothing to do with our spiritual journeys. Our Christology had little do with Christ. We could have been Muslims for all of our striving to “be perfect.”

I’ve tried many different methods for conveying my faith. I’ve been bold and aggressive, trying to throw faith over people like the "man's" harness thrown over me. I’ve used the post-modern method, becoming so much like others that my testimony was without any savor or substance. But when I finally found that Christ-central surrender, I was finally able to bear fruit and see that first person come to Christ through my influence, a person who is still living for the Lord today.

Ravi Zacharias explains this balance in “The Wisdom to Distinguish,” a CT article this week about faith in the workplace. He’s very comfortable with his boundaries because he is very comfortable with his oneness in Christ. It’s the kind of comfort I’ve found I’d never want to live without again.

“For the LORD takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation.”
Psalm 149:4

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

On Being Good

Quick Note:
The annual Pulpwood Queens Best Books of the Year list has just gone up and on it Painted Dresses. Here is what the Pulpwood Queens Founder said of this year’s selections:
“All authorss featured at Girlfriend Weekend will be either be featured Pulpwood Queen Book of the Month Selections or Bonus Book Club Selections. Each author is handpicked by me as the best in books today. I hope you will discover them all and add them to your bookshelves! They deserve to be discovered in really big ways for their books are enlightening, entertaining, educating, and give a new voice to literature which is why I selected them to be represented!”
Kathy Patrick; Pulpwood Queens Founder

I’m grateful to Kathy for selecting Painted Dresses. It’s a big thrill for me and I look forward to the upcoming Girlfriend Weekend next week. If you live in that area, please drop by and say hello to either me or Charles Martin, the two authors selected out of this year’s offerings of faith-based fiction. I had the pleasure of endorsing Charles’s debut novel.
Today's Blog Post:
All that said, today’s topic is on being good. As I mentioned yesterday, the concept of goodness in light of pleasing God was a tough one to crack as a young woman, at least in the early training I received through an outreach to my neighborhood. Like the children that were toted in through a bus ministry, I was fed religion in a hurry. I was a part of the rank-and-file of “outreach ministry” candidates assembled into a children’s Sunday school class. It was a well meaning system of processing children whose parents did not necessarily train them in spiritual precepts. I was handed a list of do’s and don’ts that seemed easily managed to a twelve-year-old who had no rebellious leanings. In comparing myself to some of my friends who majored in rebellious behavior, I was good at “being good.”

It was this processed faith that I carried with me into adulthood along with the baggage of a difficult home life. Although it seems as if I were only being handed another piece of luggage to stack on top of the others, I see God’s hand of providence in it. I’m still a big proponent of outreach through children’s programs to neighborhoods. Some measure of faith has a way of taking root in a young child’s heart. I still remember hearing the Word of God and, even though it was coming through a rather legalistic filter, how it made my heart burn. God breathed on that early seed and just kept working the soil of my life until it took root.

But it took me a long time, years that still seem wasted to me, to learn the difference between “being good” and obedience. Here’s what Oswald Chambers said:

“Our Lord never insists upon obedience; He tells us very emphatically what we ought to do, but He never takes means to make us do it. We have to obey Him out of a oneness of Spirit.”

I stumbled around in my up-and-down faith for many years before I finally got that oneness of Spirit, the thing I needed most to finally begin to mature and also find inner healing. But it was the pain inside that led me to not stop trying. But my priorities had to shift from desiring that pain to be taken away so that I could obtain what I wanted to finally desiring simply what God wanted. “It is important to note that James did not say that a believer should be joyous for the trials, but in the trials. . . Stress strengthens and deepens a Christian’s faith and lets its reality be displayed.” (The Bible Knowledge Commentary)

The difference between living out faith in order to obtain something for the self and living in the oneness of Spirit will show itself over time as what is true or what is false. I had to learn the difference through painful life’s lessons.

Real Christian faith will stand in the midst of trials because we’re standing or not giving up. That doesn’t mean we’ll never have days where we want to throw in the towel. It just means that we have the assurance that if we don’t, we’ll be strengthened for the next leg of the journey. The stress of those days is our refining process. We’re no longer “being good”, we’re persevering as we are made holy at the hands of a patient God.

“It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.”
Ps. 119:71 NIV

Monday, January 5, 2009

Ready to Ramp


I’ve hit the ground peddaling, trying to finish my WIP The Pirate Queen in the coming days. And after it’s finished, I’m so filled up with God and the things that he’s ordained as missional in my life, I can’t wait to get the spiritual wheels spinning in 2009.

That in mind, I’d like to ramp up the missional language here at Words to Go. So I’m going to offer to you a few weeks out of the year designated as “Ask the Expert” week. I’ve sent interview requests to several authors who are considered “giants of the faith.” But I must add that, in having known most of them for many years, the fact that they’ve humbled themselves to the priesthood of Christ is what has elevated them spiritually. They are not “celebrity” driven leaders, but are simply Christ followers, sold out to obedience to Christ. The first “Ask the Expert” week will have as its topic prayer. Each author/communicator will offer us bits of wisdom about a prayer subject that’s near and dear to her heart regarding prayer and how prayer has changed her for the better.

Additionally, you my friends and fellow bloggers may chime in with your comments on that day. Once the authors are confirmed, I’ll post the dates and reveal the big mystery of who I’ll feature each day. If you don’t mind, please help spread the word in blogdom for those interested in biblical discussions—you’ll want to when you see the list of names.

Fun, fun, fun and even a little deep, deep, deep! This week, I’m going to delve into a subject that for me is personal, the subject of being good versus being obedient to God.
Tomorrow’s blog is entitled “On Being Good.” I look forward to your comments and, please, feel free to chime in with any thoughts or personal stuff. I’m a big believer in being the Confessional Church and that means that I have to unpack my life in all of its flaws with an awareness of my “nothingness” without Christ. I encourage dialogue that speaks to our own flaws rather than others; that’s where we begin to glean from a pure well of thought, filters removed.

Ready to ramp!