I wish I could say I was a great man of Faith but that wouldn’t be true. I'm flawed in many ways and usually catch myself lacking in the devotion I have to God. But my walk with Christ is the most important thing in life to me and I always look for ways to improve it. I've found that through service at Church, attendance in Godly activities and daily time devoted to prayer and the Bible, I keep Jesus where he needs to be, directly in front of me.
Most of the time that is.
As someone always looking to increase my exposure to Christ and improve that relationship, I look for positive ways to do so. I love to write and although I don’t know much about grammar or sentence structure, I find it easier to express my thoughts in the written word. I have kept a journal from the very beginning of my Christian life and it’s interesting to be able to look back in the past. I see how misinformed I was in some areas early on but more often I find where my current views are over thought, lacking the simplicity that true Faith encompasses. I have always shared select entries in my journal with those very close to me. I want the people that I find important in life to have a view of what’s going on inside my head, see the real Jeff that at times I have a hard time expressing verbally.
I soon began to do some writing for the express reason of encouraging a few friends. I sent these out sporadically and they were simple and rarely talked about. They were intimate and direct as they were composed with just a few people in mind. I found that these messages while sent to others, were really just my way of working things out with God. And a pleasant side effect was that it gave me a positive way to glorify God whenever I wanted, or really at times I needed to. When I felt that I had strayed or not done things according to God’s will, spending an hour or so writing about Jesus usually got me back on track.
As I got more engaged in Church and that group of good friends increased, so did the number I emailed, now on a regular basis. Then I added my Sunday Bible Fellowship class as recipients. I still wanted to encourage and at times ask difficult questions but doing so to a larger group created a new challenge. How to create an intimate message to a larger group keeping in mind I didn’t know some as well as others. These soon became “messages”, broader in scope. Encouragement became the topic, asking the difficult questions we need to ask ourselves to remain true to Christ fell away. I soon began to have people approach me and ask to be included on my list, and they were. I even got a couple of copies of the email that had been forwarded to someone I didn’t know asking to be included in the future.
The number of people asking to get added to the list was beginning to be kind of difficult to manage, OK I’m just lazy, so I started to post my thoughts on facebook and tag different people. That was OK but it got responses from some I didn’t care for and some felt I should keep “those kinds of opinions to myself”. So the idea of a blog sounded good. If someone wanted to be added or get my thoughts they could subscribe. I didn’t have to manage anything, just form my thoughts whenever I felt the desire. And more importantly, I could say or ask whatever I wanted because people would have to choose to read it. I could make it more intimate. And go back to making this just really between God and me, a way for me to work out my stuff. Around this time my son and I were at a Cub Scout meeting and after the Pledge of Allegiance, Dylan said “Hey if we are One Nation, Under God you could be One Dad under God”. I loved it and had been looking for a way to use it every since.
I use to get excited every week to look up the number of subscribers I had but soon realized that wasn’t the point. I have chosen not to look at the number of people that subscribe to my post anymore because it doesn't matter. If there is 300-400 great, if there isn't anyone that's OK too, this is really about me working things out with God again. I enjoy writing words of encouragement because I need a lot of encouraging but I also find that at times I have to ask myself hard questions, questions that make me uncomfortable. Writing about my thoughts and beliefs for anyone to read about also sets the bar for accountability pretty high and doesn't give much wiggle room. That's good because wiggle room usually get's me in trouble. I try to be as transparent as possible so whoever wants to see what’s going on in my head, welcome.
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