January 1

I have often suggested to people that they keep a journal. I have for years, jotted down notes for my own reading later. For some reason I feel impressed of the Holy Spirit to begin jotting things for others to read. Now my problem with that is: (a) I don't feel that anything I write is worth reading and (b) it takes me forever to put my thoughts into print. Oh, I have the words in my head but for some reason when I put it into print it sounds...well dumb.

I don't have any idea how often I will do this but I would like to make it pretty regular. So with the preliminaries out of the way let me begin with the thoughts on my mind.

God has awakened within me a hunger for touching people. Over the last few weeks He has reminded me time and time again of the real reason for ministry: to touch the lives of His creation and bring them the good news that He is alive and well and loves them and cares for them.

Over the last two days God has opened up the door for me to minister to two separate individuals. First there is Philip who is going through a messy divorce. His wife of many years has decided to divorce him, why? Because during a recent visit of his wife's daughter from a previous marriage he got in to a discussion about Jesus. The problem begin when she informed him and her mother for the first time that she had embraced atheism. The discussion became an argument and the daughter became irate. She left the house in a rage and demanded that her mother leave him because he "was a nut that believed in God and Jesus and all that ....". She did. He wasn't looking for anyone to solve his problem, just some one to listen and pray with and for him. So for thirty minutes of my day I listed to Philip. At the end he asked me if I would put his name on our prayer list at church. I said I would and asked if I could pray with him right then. He begin to cry and said yes. We prayed together. A perfect stranger, 30 minutes of my time, a prayer, the presence of the Holy Ghost, a friend of God reminded that he is loved by his Father. And now I remember...it is all about touching people.

Next time I will tell you about Miranda.
DJ