My heart is so full. Knowing the preparation that goes behind the thousands of children who participated in scores of events prior to and at the Lads convention, I’m overcome with gratitude for what parents and grandparents are contributing right now to the church in the latter half of the 21st century. Unless the trumpet blows beforehand, some of the kids who were shining this weekend will still be working and shining for him as the wise and elderly in the body, even as the calendar page is turned to the 22nd century. Faith works…and the faith that worked for the events of this last weekend will still be working for generations. My heart is full for the legacy so many are working to leave.
I will be gone to the brighter side in a few years. But I am praying those living room speech practices, the big allotments of time we spent in reviewing and repeating Bible bowl answers with four of our grandkids, the way Colleyanna achieved getting the rhythm and beat of 4:4 song leading, the verse that resonated in our hearts over and over as Eliza rehearsed it: “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded!” (James 4:8)—-I am praying that these little things will grow like the mustard seed, into glory from their lives to their Lord. I am praying that the 100 verses memorized by five of my children this year will grow into bigger and bigger faith, because I trust him when he said “Faith comes by hearing the word of God” (Romans 10:17)
(l-r) Colleyanna, Lily, Ezra, Ellis, Maggie and Eliza Jane
I trust him! Ellis’s speech was about his favorite thing…nutcrackers. He explained how some nutcrackers are fake. They cannot “really quack de nuts.” He said it’s the same way with Christians. Some are fake and some are real. Then he said that he wants to be like Daniel, who was the real thing. He wanted to follow God even when it was hard. How I am trusting God, that as their parents pour time and the Word into the children, who are my six grandchildren, that the product will be a faith that works! My deepest desire in this life is to be with all of them in the next.
At the Nashville convention alone this year there were 10,000 participants! Ten-thousand PARTICIPANTS, excluding the non-participating people who were attendees. Although, I cannot bear to think about one of these 10,000 being lost, I know the devil is both busy and crafty. He desperately wants to break the chain of faith in your family. But the way that he responds to our drawing near to God is by fleeing. Did you get that? As Eliza’s verse says, the devil flees when we draw near to God! When you pull your children into the Word, you put the devil on the run. How can we be sparse in our time in the Word while we generously give it to soccer, baseball, school work and entertainment? When we draw near to the things of this world while excluding the eternal things, the devil loves it. He doesn’t have to flee. He just presents himself and entices our children through the unimportant things we love. He presents secularism in the schoolwork. He presents worldliness in the entertainment and he presents misplaced priorities in the sports…IF we are doing these things to the exclusion of getting our kids in the Word!
So gratitude from a deep place in our hearts today for the army of parents and grandparents, mentors and ministers who spent massive amounts of time preparing kids for the spiritual stuff that makes life worth living and draws them near to God. They can’t all yet understand the power that is working in them, but they will know, one day soon, that it is the power of an unyielding faith that will lead them over Jordan and safely to the throne. I’ll be waiting with expectation for them!
Ezra and our brother, Roy Johnson
As it relates to our Digging Deep study and as this month closes, I wanted to ask you to consider the possibilities given in this article. Daniel is nothing short of an amazing leader. He had suffered exile from his homeland, likely castration, intimidation over his desire to please God in his diet, the knowledge that his three closest cohorts were being thrown in a fiery pit for the faith he shared with them, the threat of death, along with all the other princes because an ego-centric
I’m up at four this morning to dig and as I began to do that, I ran across this. I wrote it almost exactly one year ago, well before I had firmly decided to write a study about the God of More. The challenges are slightly different this week, but still just as intense, if not maybe a little more so. So this…still: 
It’s a new year. I’ve decided to do some things that might be helpful for me, personally. I’m going to drink some protein every morning. I’m implementing some new prayer habits and I’m starting the Digging Deep writing process much earlier this year. But more than those resolutions, I’m going to remember that, while there is so much that I cannot control—sickness, technology, sin in the lives of others, to name a few—I serve a Father who is “hyper-able”. I can take all the little inconveniences and mishaps to Him at any given moment, and I can know that He is working with unlimited ability toward the end that He already sees with clarity! And he works in “our house.” I cannot focus on the end of the anxiety yet, because I cannot see the resolution. But I can focus on my “hyper” God and know that He is able to do more than I am asking or thinking for our house! Happy New Year! Your God is able!
The profundity of the comments that children make in Bible discussions never ceases to amaze me. Last night, at my son’s house, there was a discussion of Peter and James in Acts 5 and 12; how that God saw fit to deliver Peter from prison in Acts 5, but did not deliver James in Acts 12. Instead, He allowed his execution. Maggie, who is seven, thought it was interesting and began to think of reasons why that would be the case. Together, they thought of all kinds of reasons God might have had, in His sovereignty and complete knowledge, to allow this disparity. I’m sure they listed reasons having to do with the spread of the gospel and reasons having to do with the strengthening of those left behind. But Ellis, who is four, said, in a trembling and weepy little voice “Wait! God didn’t save James?!!”
I love this painted card submission by Shirley Ginter. In fact, it is practically perfect in every way! Love for Digging Deep, for the season, for all of you, and for the Lord shows through in every stroke! 
You know you really never want the lights that are in between your illuminations to show (when it’s a decoration on your house). I mean you want those stray lights that are not really outlining anything to be hidden. Sometimes you just start a new strand on each thing you’re illuminating. But sometimes you run out of outlets or your strand of lights is just too long not to use somewhere else. So you end up with a little row of lights just dangling in the air here between the wreath and the bush.