Let me answer the question—“What is the God Hunt?”—by sharing directly from The God Hunt, an Inter Varsity Publication, by my wife, Karen Mains:

 The aptitude for hunting for and finding God is native to every human heart, but as we mature we often lose or neglect the capacity to do so. We only become intent on finding him when terror is nearby, when sadness insists on keeping company, or when pain becomes a relentless stalker. Let us instead begin the God Hunt as a game of hide-and-seek—in a childlike way, with laughter and delight.

What is the God Hunt? Simply defined, the God Hunt is choosing to recognize God anytime he intervenes in our everyday life.

Then Karen lists four categories where people are to look for God’s interventions in their daily lives:

1. Any Obvious Answer to Prayer. (I’m going to illustrate this item from scripture in just a moment.)
2. Any Unexpected Evidence of His Care.
3. Any Help to do God’s Work in the World … and …
4. Any Unusual Linkage or Timing.

Let’s begin with the first one: Any Obvious Answer to Prayer. In Genesis chapter 24 is a delightful “eHarmony.com” type of story. Abraham’s chief servant has been sent on an important but difficult mission. He’s commissioned by his master to find a bride for Isaac, the son of Abraham’s old age.

I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to suggest who would be a good marriage partner for a son or daughter or close friend, but it’s not exactly the easiest of assignments. On top of that, this poor fellow has to travel to another land to find this special young lady. Thinking about it further, he asks, “Hey, what if the woman is unwilling to come back with me?”

We’ll pick up this story in the next blog post in this series.

——————————————–

Sunday’s coming. Do you have your sermon ready? Is it relevant? Will it effectively motivate your congregation to walk more in step with the Master? What about that Sermon Series you’ve been thinking about?

Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?

David Mains and Mainstay Ministries can help. We offer a wide variety of Sermon Starters and Full Sermons that will give you Sermon Ideas to help you prepare for regular Saturday or Sunday sermons, Mid-week Bible Sermons, and Sermons for special occasions.

We also offer assistance as you create Topical Sermons, Sermons Series, and sermons for special times of the year. We have resources available to help you with Advent Celebrations, Advent Sermons, Christmas Sermons, Easter Sunday Sermons, Patriotic Sermons, and more.

For more information on how to create better Bible Sermons and how to turn Sermon Ideas into Sermon Outlines, and then into effective, meaningful Sunday Sermons, please click here to visit David Mains’ website.

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.

Share and Enjoy

In the previous blog post, I’ve begun to share from I Spy God – A God Hunt Book for Kids. It’s by multiple award-winning author Karen Mains who is also my wife. Not only does it have this delightful tale of Loser eventually searching very hard for something quite important to him, the booklet helps children look for God in their everyday lives, which is an important practice for adults as well as children.

Please note these words from page 14:

 One really important treasure hunt that can go on for life is the hunt for God. This is a treasure hunt where the more you look, the more you find!

Soon you will be an adult. Surprisingly, adults often have trouble finding God! They become busy looking for the wrong treasures in life. That’s why it’s important for you to practice hunting for God now, while you are young.

Did you identify at all with the sentence about adults often having trouble finding God in their everyday lives? The truth is, this is a common problem. Busy lives keep our minds occupied with all kinds of thoughts, but not that many are God related. And it’s not that we want it this way. It just happens!

Even people who are well disciplined in terms of daily Bible study and prayer will admit that it’s hard to stay God-focused once you’ve left the quiet of your time alone with the Lord. This is a culture that almost screams at you for attention with its ads everywhere, its phones everywhere, its all-too-convenient media outlets everywhere, and its just plain noise everywhere.

Well, for several blog posts, I want to address this issue of “Finding God in Your Everyday World.” That’s my subject, and my prediction is that by the end of this series of blog posts most of you will not only say you’re getting good at finding God in your everyday world, in the process you’ll also have a lot of fun. This bold prediction of mine will be true for children as well as adults. In fact, in any given group of people who learn how to find God in their daily lives, there’s a good chance that the younger ones will outshine those of us who are older.

In his book Discipline and Discovery, Edward Day writes:

 “It would be a very poor sort of life that was aware of people only when it collided with them … and it is a tragic life that becomes conscious of God only in those events that shatter its habitual thoughts and dreams and compel it to recognize his presence and activity. What makes life splendid is the constant awareness of God.”

What we’re going to do, to tap into that constant awareness, is to learn to go on a daily God Hunt.

“What’s that?” you ask.

Well, you’ll have to come back and read the next blog post to find out.

——————————————–

Sunday’s coming. Do you have your sermon ready? Is it relevant? Will it effectively motivate your congregation to walk more in step with the Master? What about that Sermon Series you’ve been thinking about?

Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?

David Mains and Mainstay Ministries can help. We offer a wide variety of Sermon Starters and Full Sermons that will give you Sermon Ideas to help you prepare for regular Saturday or Sunday sermons, Mid-week Bible Sermons, and Sermons for special occasions.

We also offer assistance as you create Topical Sermons, Sermons Series, and sermons for special times of the year. We have resources available to help you with Advent Celebrations, Advent Sermons, Christmas Sermons, Easter Sunday Sermons, Patriotic Sermons, and more.

For more information on how to create better Bible Sermons and how to turn Sermon Ideas into Sermon Outlines, and then into effective, meaningful Sunday Sermons, please click here to visit David Mains’ website.

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.

Share and Enjoy

 Loser had lots of friends who liked him. He was good at sports, and his mother continually reminded him that the teacher had said he showed “promise.”

Loser’s big problem was that he kept losing things. At last count, he had lost three pairs of gym shoes, a soccer ball, a catcher’s mitt, several math books, hundreds of pencils, one bag of trick-or-treat candy, assorted hats and gloves, one Sunday shoe (the other one showed up under his bed), homework, four library books, a tennis racket, and his father’s pocket calculator.

I’m sharing with you from this little booklet I Spy God – a God Hunt Book for Kids.

 “Loser,” said his mother. “You know I love you, but sometimes you’re a trial.” She said this after Loser couldn’t remember where he had left his birthday present, a shiny new mountain bike.

“Losing things is troublesome, Son,” said his father. “If you’re going to become a man, you have to take responsibility for yourself. Men can’t go around losing things.”

His father said this after Loser had lost two tennis balls in the long grass near the tennis courts and after he couldn’t remember where he had left the tennis racket. (It was his father’s racket.)

“Well, try to remember where you left your homework,” said Ms. Henshaw, his teacher, with a sigh. Ms. Henshaw sighed a lot when Loser was around.

But all the thinking in the world never seemed to do any good. Loser just couldn’t remember. He didn’t know how he lost things. He would go to school with his lunch bag, sit down for a moment, but when he’d turn around his lunch bag would be gone. Or he’d remember it was gone when it was time to go to the lunchroom.

“Oh, he’ll grow out of it,” said his grandma. “He’s still just a boy.”

“Don’t worry so much,” said his grandpa. “When he wants to find something badly enough, he’ll find it.”

Loser’s grandpa was right. But to tell you how would be to get ahead of the story. Again, I’ve been reading from I Spy God – A God Hunt Book for Kids. It’s by multiple award-winning author Karen Mains. Not only does it have this delightful tale of Loser eventually searching very hard for something quite important to him, the booklet helps children look for God in their everyday lives, which is an important practice for adults as well as children.

——————————————–

Sunday’s coming. Do you have your sermon ready? Is it relevant? Will it effectively motivate your congregation to walk more in step with the Master? What about that Sermon Series you’ve been thinking about?

Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?

David Mains and Mainstay Ministries can help. We offer a wide variety of Sermon Starters and Full Sermons that will give you Sermon Ideas to help you prepare for regular Saturday or Sunday sermons, Mid-week Bible Sermons, and Sermons for special occasions.

We also offer assistance as you create Topical Sermons, Sermons Series, and sermons for special times of the year. We have resources available to help you with Advent Celebrations, Advent Sermons, Christmas Sermons, Easter Sunday Sermons, Patriotic Sermons, and more.

For more information on how to create better Bible Sermons and how to turn Sermon Ideas into Sermon Outlines, and then into effective, meaningful Sunday Sermons, please click here to visit David Mains’ website.

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.

Share and Enjoy