I love a good “how to” video or article online! It is always such a cool thing to sit and watch or read the directions on how to do something new. I love following directions and seeing the finished product of my hard work!

I have recently revived a childhood hobby in my life – building Legos! I love it! All the pieces spread out on the table and a huge book of instructions on how to take hundreds or even thousands of tiny pieces and make them into something so lifelike! But the trick to successful Lego building is to follow the directions.

When I was a kid, I would just build with whatever I had on hand in my huge bucket of Legos. Now that I am older and much more mature, I keep all the pieces for each set separate so that I can easily follow the instructions to build exactly what is intended. 

The message of the Gospel is beautiful in its simplicity. It is straightforward, it never changes, and it holds equal power for every individual who believes. Behind that simple message, though, is an infinite and incomprehensible divine power.

God is behind the Gospel, and He is capable of anything.​

• He can make a Gospel simple enough for a child to understand but complex enough for scholars to discuss for centuries.
• He can make a Gospel simple enough to distill into one sentence and complex enough to fill an entire book.
• He can make a Gospel simple enough to understand at the time of salvation and complex enough to still be learning about it twenty years later.

I love Christmas! Don’t you? There is so much to celebrate, and it’s just a great time to be with family and friends. People are so much more open to the Gospel at Christmas too. Even secular singers take the time to sing about the baby Jesus and the events of the Christmas story. It is one of the only times of the year when people don’t seem reluctant to speak about Jesus. For this and many other reasons, I really do enjoy Christmas. 
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On that first Christmas, there was a very unlikely audience to the initial proclamation of Jesus’ birth. The response of this audience produced some of the first missionaries to tell the Good News of Jesus’ birth! Go back with me to that familiar, but ever so amazing part of the Christmas story in Luke 2, when the angels came to this unlikely audience on a Judean hillside outside the village of Bethlehem.

As I sit writing this, we are only days away from the start of a new Advent season, and by the time this is posted it will have already begun. While we ought to dwell on the magnificence and mystery of Christ’s incarnation throughout the whole year, it is at this special time, that we as believers should be completely captivated by its significance and meaning in our lives. 

​This can be one of the busiest times of the year for many of us. As we bustle about with church and family gatherings, concerts, shopping, baking, travel, and a host of other activities, we can quickly find ourselves worn out with little thought given to considering what this season is all about. While the fun, parties, gifts, and music are wonderful parts of Christmas, they are not the Thing itself, and we can easily do ourselves and our children a great disservice by not setting aside time to contemplate Christ and wonder at His coming. ​

I was listening to a preacher at a missions conference recently who posed a question about the way that we share the Gospel with unbelievers. His question essentially centered on whether we only witness when there is a clear opportunity handed to us or if we make a concerted effort to go out on purpose to witness to unbelievers.

​I have to admit that my mind was intrigued, and I began to consider my own life. I find that often I leave my witnessing opportunities up to “chance” encounters with unsaved people as I am going about my regular life. As I have pondered on and prayed through these thoughts, I have come to the conclusion that waiting for the opportunities to witness is not wrong. BUT if that is the ONLY time I speak of the wondrous love of my Lord, I may be missing the point of the Great Commission as Christ gave to His disciples prior to His ascension. ​

​My family recently returned from a trip to Hawaii. My husband is overseeing a work project there, and my daughter and I had the good fortune to accompany him on his last trip.

We are always grateful when we can be together and travel as a family when he has to go away for work. But to experience a place like Hawaii with each other was a very special treat.

​Everything was as I expected and more so. It is an amazingly beautiful place with its sandy shores, ocean views, and lush green mountains. It’s no wonder that people call it paradise.

​After a couple of days, I posted a few pictures on social media and a friend messaged me joking about how jealous she was. Her message surprised me, but not in the way one might think. 

I am currently in the midst of close to seven months of traveling in the States reporting to churches about what God has done in England during my first term on the field. I have spent over five years in two churches in England, and as I reflect on those years, there are tons of blessings that I have experienced and could share with you. But the unexpected blessing that I have found to be the most precious is the blessing of loneliness.

Now you might be sitting there reading this and thinking that I have lost it. Why would loneliness be a blessing? Well, let me take you back to my childhood and teen years.

My two sisters and I heard my dad tell us repeatedly the following phrase. You might even call it a family motto since today it is posted on the door to my parents’ home as you leave. The phrase is this – “Be a blessing, not a burden.”