Purpose Asia

      The new year is fast approaching and the annual feeling of throwing off the old and running toward the new runs rampant in the air like an electrical charge. Normally, I'm not that into setting new year's resolutions. We all know what normally happens with those. We keep them with zeal and vigor for the first two weeks if we're lucky, and then we slip back into old habits before the hearts and flowers of Valentine's Day saturate the stores, or, if we're particularly motivated, eggs and bunnies fill every aisle.      However, this year I feel a bit different. I've been thinking about New Year's resolutions and bucket lists and what their purpose is or should be in my life. Most people make both to give their life meaning. To somehow prevent their lives from slipping by before they squeezed some life out of it. I, like many people have at least a mental bucket list of things I'd love to do in my lifetime. Visit Italy and see the histo...

Drought Continues in Papua New Guinea Houses no longer standing in water in the town of Kerema, Papua New Guinea   (Aris Messinis) Photo from http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/png-drought/6975594      When you read the Bible do you ever put yourself in the character's shoes? I do. It helps me to make the Bible more real to me and really internalize what it's saying.      For instance, take the story of Elijah praying for rain after 3 years of drought on the mountain top. He had been told to present himself to King Ahab -- the same king he'd been hiding from for the last 3 years -- only then would the Lord God (Yahweh) again send rain on Israel. Elijah had come and boldly presented himself to the king. On top of that, he'd challenged all the prophets of the false god Baal to a knock-down-drag-out contest of who was the true god -- Baal or Yahweh. Baal never showed up but Yahweh, the God of Israel, showed up in a big way c...

In the last month or so I've been working on reading Ann Voskamp's One-Thousand Gifts. It's been humbling and challenging. I think her message -- that the discipline of thankfulness leads to a full, joyful life -- is one that the Lord has been trying to get across to me this last month because it's been popping up everywhere. In my morning devotionals (all three of them), in emails from friends, in radio messages and sermons, and in my times of solitude with the Lord. I've been pleasantly surprised that, as I give thanks to the Lord (something so seemingly simple to me), I've been filled with a joy I have not felt in a long time. I've been more at peace and more filled with contentment as I've set the gaze of my soul more intently on the Lord in an attitude of thanksgiving. It's been delightful and refreshing. So, I want to share a little of my daily thanksgiving and joy with you by sharing a few photos of what I've been thankful for in the past ...