“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.”
–Muhammad Ali

In advance I apologize for not responding to all the emails that have come in since Friday when I sent out my “pre-order the book” email. Those emails contained requests for nearly 150 books. Several times I fought back tears of emotion as the emails started coming in Friday before I left to go to Portland for an all day Christian writers conference Saturday (which is an amazing story in and of itself on how that conference found me and how God revealed Him self throughout the conference). The emotion was about the number of books, but more so about the personal responses attached to the numbers. Even this morning I still shake my head because God is doing something far beyond anything I could imagine.

Your responses were also an answer to an unuttered prayer. I was comfortable in how I had formatted the book, and the number of devotions/reflections I had collected. But along the way some people with whom I had shared the book questioned me about its format. And i defended the book I wanted to write. However, in your responses, and in what I heard at the conference, I found God convicting me. My book that was going to be about 140 devotions is now going to be a full-fledged 365-day devotional. The reason is that I was convicted of my own fear, laziness and frugality.Fear really. A smaller book was comfortable and less risky. And yet, by mid-day Saturday I knew that this book was about Him. To be about Him it needed to represent my best effort, apart from fear or laziness or expense. It needed to be 365 days of my encountering God in unexpected places and in unexpected ways.

In all things God seeks to reveal Himself. That obviously is the premise of my book and each of my emails, but I still find that astounding. ASTOUNDING! It gives me goosebumps because I know without a doubt that this book isn’t the end of God’s plan for what I have been doing. I don’t know where God is taking me, but I thank each of you personally for being part of that revelation. Thank you for constantly encouraging me. My hope is that this is but the first of many books, for I want to share so much more about Him, for there is not enough ink.

My courage does not come from within, it comes from His Spirit. And that which I long to accomplish fails in comparison to what He will accomplish. I only need present myself as willing to do His Work. He will know when it is done.

“However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.”
–Acts 20:24