Godspeed!

Over a dozen years ago, I stood on my porch and prayed,

 

“LORD, I’m having some financial trouble here. I can’t pay all my bills like I should. What should I do?” 

 

I listed several ideas I had, like taking a second job in an auto parts store, when I very clearly heard a still, small voice in the back of my head say, 

 

“Dan, you’re a writer. You should write.”

 

So, I said, “Okay God.” and I sat down at my computer and began to write about God and Jesus. 

 

After I had done this for a couple of months, I found myself back on my porch again, praying,

 

“LORD, I did what you said, but my finances haven’t gotten any better. I’m still having problems.” And that same still, small voice said,

 

“Dan, you should arrange for people to read what you have written.”

 

And I said, “Okay, God” and I sent out two emails. One was to a friend who was the editor of a business magazine and the other was to Matt Dorfner, then Executive Director of Kinship Christian Radio. 

 

To this day, my friend at the business magazine claims he never saw such an email. I have no reason to doubt him. 

 

Matt Dorfner, on the other hand, responded immediately. He asked for samples of what I had written and very soon after asked if I would like to be the editor and writer of the blog Kinship did not yet have.

 

I accepted the position without hesitation.

 

Since that time, I have been blessed in glorious and immeasurable ways by writing this blog. Sitting down ever Monday night and asking the Holy Spirit to put the words on the screen in front of me so that our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ would be glorified and you, the readers, would come to know Him and see Him in deeper and fuller and more glorious ways opened my life to wonders and joy I never imagined.

 

I could not just sit down at the keyboard and make stuff up about the power and majesty and glory of our LORD. It caused me to look deeper into His Word and all that He is. I often found that the words I had originally intended to share with you were small and feeble compared to the awesome reality of His true greatness, majesty, and power. I found that no one in all the history of the world has changed the world more than Jesus Christ –and He is most certainly not done yet!

 

I have been humbled and awed time after time –not just by what He showed me while sitting behind the keyboard, but by the chain of events He put in place after I was just obedient enough to say, “Okay God,” that first time.

 

In 2015, God opened a door that led me on my first mission trip to the Dominican Republic. While on that trip, I experienced a moment when the  awesome width, length, height, and depth of God’s love reached down from the throne room of heaven and touched me in a way I will never forget. (See Ephesians 3:18-20.) It changed my life forever. 

 

When I returned from the Dominican Republic, I told the LORD I would go anywhere He sent me. I told Him I had a longing to be a missionary.

 

The still, small voice said, “Okay, watch this!”

 

Since then, I’ve been on mission trips to the Dominican Republic two more times (once with Kinship staff to lend support to the start-up of an internet Christian radio station there), to an orphanage in Guatemala twice, to Liberia, to the Amazon jungle in Peru, numerous trips within the US, and to Israel three times! I have preached and shared the Good News of Jesus Christ in churches at home and abroad. I have gone to places I would have never imagined and been in the presence of His wonder and glory time and time again, and in all of it, I have felt that I was doing exactly what the LORD would have me do! (All the wondrous things the LORD has done on those trips are documented in the blog archives.)

 

Oh, and lest I forget to mention it, shortly after I agreed to write the blog, (Which is a voluntary position with a salary of zero dollars.) God stepped in and helped with my financial situation and I now lack for nothing. Hallelujah LORD! 

 

Then, in January of 2024, I received my Certificate of General License from Harvest Network International and I am now a pastor. 

 

On April 15 of 2024, in the culmination of a longing I have had since my return from the first mission trip in 2015, I quit my previous job of 23 years and became a full-time Freedom Quest missionary with a wonderful ministry called GoServ Global. 

 

I am convinced all of these glorious blessings flowed out of that initial “Okay, God” and writing the blog all these years. I have truly been blessed beyond measure in ways far beyond anything I’ve ever deserved or would have imagined when all this began some 500 or so blogs ago. I would tell you, dear readers, that one of the greatest joys in all of life is to simply be obedient and to follow Jesus wherever He leads you. I have learned that is what it is to be a disciple. 

 

And that is why, having simply followed Jesus where He has led me, I am now led to a place where I have been asked to do more writing for GoServ Global. At the very same time, Kinship Radio has decided to produce future blog posts internally. Jennifer Hayden Stokes, Kinship’s Executive Director, is a published author. Kinship Program Director Beth Crosby is a writer as well, as are several other staff members. I pray they, and the ministry of Kinship Radio, are blessed in ways exceeding the amazing spiritual riches that have been poured out on me!

 

So, with the beginning of this New Year, I am overwhelmed with joy knowing that this is not in any way an ending, but an exciting and glorious new beginning to something even greater than I have previously experienced!

 

HALLELUJAH KING JESUS!

 

 

Today’s Praise

Ephesians 3:20-21 

“Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.” (NLT)

 

(Godspeed is a parting statement that expresses a wish for someone to have success or a prosperous journey. In this case, it is meant in a spiritual sense. )

(Photo of sunrise over the Sea of Galilee by author –one of those many, many amazing blessings I have experienced on mission trips and symbolic of new beginnings.)