Am I making any progress in this pursuit? Am I growing in my relationship with God? Has all this effort brought me closer to the Lord? How do I even know if I’m growing?

Hello 100 Day Pursuers! Can you believe we are on day 79? I pray that my letters to you would not fade or fizzle in any way. Please cover me in prayer that I might finish strong. Thanks!

If you enjoy Asian foods, you recognize the interesting mix of sweet and sour flavors found in certain dishes. Usually, the sweet is some kind of sugar, and the sour is vinegar or lemon. Delicious!

What works for food, however, does not work in the Christian life. We cannot have a sour attitude toward people and a sweet intimacy with Christ. The two just don’t mix.

A simple definition of the word lament is this: a strong expression of grief, sorrow or regret. The Bible is full of lament. At our church prayer meeting this week, one of our ministers gave a compelling teaching on lament, showing the deep expressions of grief of people in the Word.

I want to talk to you today about one of the great problems of the human heart: pride. Pride comes in a variety of expressions, but I just want to talk about the pride that angles to get praise from people. It’s not just the sin of boasting, but it’s the inward motive of secretly lusting to be recognized, praised and admired by others.

One of my first girl crushes was Tinker Bell. Well, it was more than a crush. We had a relationship for a season. Somehow she must have found out that I liked her because she came to my house. She pursued me, though sometimes she’d play hard-to-get. She only appeared occasionally, and she’d only stay for short periods of time. Because she lived in a mystical world, I couldn’t see her form with detail, but just the light glowing around her. Just like in Peter Pan, Tink didn’t speak audibly, but boy did she know how to communicate. I’d ask her all sorts of questions—mostly yes and no type questions—and she would nod one way or the other. I vividly remember asking her where she lived, and she bid me to follow her down the long hallway and then pointed to the small door that led into our attic. She lives in our attic!

Hey everyone! I’m going to skip the subheadings today because this one is more of a letter from my heart and less like a devotion. It’s a little different. Enjoy.

I just got off the phone with a friend I’ve known for 30 years from my NYC days. It’s so refreshing to talk with someone I would share almost anything with. In our relationships we tend to share varying degrees of our heart.

I’ve always thought fireflies were so cool. Against the dark backdrop of deep woods in my backyard as a kid I remember the fireflies appeared with their gorgeous little glow. I looked it up and found that “Fireflies are nocturnal members of the Lampyridae family. The name comes from the Greek ‘lampein’ which means to shine.” Interesting. They have what appears from a distance to be a little fire inside their belly. Even kids who don’t like insects seem to be attracted to these flying fires. They seem to move in clusters. It’s a picture of the Church as burning lights shining in a dark world.

I want to talk to you today about the oceans of grace available to us in Christ Jesus. We have been chosen by God, adopted by God, to share His riches. It is the Father’s desire that we would obtain so much of what He lavishes that our very lives would declare the goodness of the Lord.

My earliest memories of thinking about God were at about seven years old. We were living in Enfield, Connecticut in a neighborhood with humble ranch houses that each had spacious yards. My yard had a small pool, a giant sandbox, a tin shed, plenty of lounge chairs for making forts in the summer, and a willow tree.

There are times in life when we need to hear from God. There’s no substitute for patience and waiting in the pursuit of hearing from the Lord, but sometimes we need to know, and we need to know urgently. I believe God brings us to these points of desperation in order to teach us the power of praying through.

One of the greatest things that will drive us to pray earnestly and desperately is the need for boldness in sharing the gospel. I’m not talking about in-your-face loud obnoxious boldness. That’s usually not helpful at all. But even the call to gently and respectfully share the gospel with someone requires a certain supernatural boldness.

It’s funny that I waited till day 68 to talk about the idea of house of prayer. This vision of God is very dear to me and it’s something that I’ve longed for the Church to be for many years.

Probably most of us have experienced riding a bike against the wind. It’s not impossible, but it’s extremely hard. Sometimes our family will take our bikes to the local bike path, and the wind is against us as we go in one direction, but then with us as we head in the other direction. What a difference!

We come now to a very sublime topic. During these 100 days, I’m aiming to give you both milk and meat. Milk, in Scripture, represents the more basic teachings that newer and undeveloped Christians need, and that all Christians need to be reminded of. As we advance in our relationship with God we begin to, just like children growing up, eat solid food. Paul said this to the Corinthian believers:

For those who aren’t familiar with the word “intercede” in the Christian faith, it means to pray to God on behalf of others. It’s what Abraham does for Sodom, Moses for the Israelites, Esther for the Jewish people, Epaphras for the Colossians.

I’ve never met a Christian who didn’t think it’s important to pray for others. It’s one of the most basic practices of our faith. Scripture gives us many clear calls to pray for others.

Good morning! I just want to let you know it’s been wonderful to hear from some of you how the 100 Days of Pursuit has impacted you. It’s encouraging—and I need encouragement!

When I was in high school I sometimes stayed up way too late on the weekends. This wasn’t usually a problem because I could sleep in a bit Saturday and Sunday mornings. But then I took a job on Saturday mornings 8-noon cleaning a school. The tiredness really hit me when I drove home from work one day, and I found myself fighting against falling asleep at the wheel. I did okay for a while but then somehow tricked myself into thinking it would be a good idea to just close my eyes for a second. You know, kind of like a very short power nap that refreshes you.

One of the perplexing questions people have is what they should actually say to God. In conversations with people it’s usually true that the more we have in common with a person, the easier it is to converse. And over time the conversations we have are such an assortment that we could call them a medley of discourse.