Once again, as another week begins, I want to continue to explore what we call Going on a God Hunt. We’re learning how to begin to look for evidences of God making His presence known in our everyday worlds. Specifically, we’re exploring evidence of God at work in our lives through unusual linkage or timing.
I’ve tried to underscore how important it is that you get into the habit of writing down these special sightings every day:
- Any obvious answer to prayer.
- Any unexpected evidence of God’s care.
- Any help to do God’s work in the world.
- Any evidence of unusual linkage and timing.
Making a written record of these God Hunt “Sightings” needs to be a part of your everyday routine.
I’m still reading from Karen’s book The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. I found this most interesting and certainly worthwhile sharing with you.
In an experimental program, three hundred recruits from a city’s welfare and unemployment rolls were taught journal-keeping skills as part of their on-the-job training as nurses’ aides, security guards, maintenance personnel, housekeepers and dietary workers. Ninety percent of the recruits kept their journals over a six-month period, finishing their training and stayed on to perform their low-status positions. After a year 80 percent were still employed or had taken better jobs. One in three had moved into improved housing; one in four had actually started night school or community college.
Would you believe that much of the credit for this advancement was given to the journal-keeping discipline? The director of the experiment stated, “Poverty is not simply the lack of money. Ultimately, it is a person’s lack of feeling for the reality of one’s own inner being.”
Spiritual poverty could be defined in much the same terms. The spiritually impoverished believer has a lack of feeling for the reality of his or her own inner being and the relationship of that being to God. Maybe you’re someone who feels like you live a low-stakes spiritual existence. It’s not that you haven’t tried, but for too long your relationship with the Lord has been at a stand-still. The time-honored practice of keeping a spiritual prayer journal stimulates journal keepers to experience accelerated, measurable and long-term spiritual growth.
The committed diarist will advance out of the pablum, spoon-feeding necessary for young immature Christians into taking responsibility for one’s own spiritual state and the growth needed for it to progress.
Well now, I believe one of the easiest ways to get started prayer journal is by writing down your God Hunt“Sightings.” What could be easier?
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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.
