by Pastor James Bell

Sometimes we refer to it as baggage, but it’s probably more accurate to call it trash. It’s the stuff you don’t want to think about or talk about. It’s that bad, yucky, embarrassing stuff that you carry with you on your journey through life.

One of the bizarre similarities between Gehenna, a smoky, smelly place which became a symbol of hell, and Golgotha, the hill upon which Jesus was crucified, was that they both became trash dumps. Gehenna was often referred to as the place where “the fire is not quenched”. It was filled with burning, rotting, useless debris. It came to represent the darkness and repulsion of sins not dealt with.

The cross provides a distinctly different kind of trash heap. Unlike Gehenna, Golgotha is where life experiences are dumped. This is where we cast all our care upon the Lord. We leave our burdens, our baggage, our trash at the foot of the cross. The biggest difference in Golgotha’s trash is that it gets recycled. After we lay it down and walk away free, God actually uses this trash for His higher purposes.

The very thought of this is at first reprehensible. Jesus came to destroy the work of the devil, not re-use it. But when you consider just what you left at the cross, you become cognizant of a higher purpose that God has in mind. The trash consists of our hurts, our wounds, even our trauma about the effects of sin (ours and the sins of others against us) upon our hearts and minds. The redemptive grace of God allows us to leave it all there and walk away free.

But then Jesus starts sifting through the trash. What was unredeemed gets redeemed. Jesus takes the hurt, the bitterness, the disappointment, even the fear that we laid at his feet and redeems it by his blood. He doesn’t redeem the sin, but it’s effect upon you. He redeems the process that led to the death of self and the birth of the new you. You are suddenly empowered with new strength as the word of your testimony causes you to overcome in every area of your life, as well as providing power for your outreach into others lives.

A type of this is found in the Old Testament when the recipe was given for the incense used on the golden altar inside the Holy Place. The fragrant offering of this incense enabled the priest to enter the Holy of Holies with the approval of the Most High. One of the ingredients was taken directly from the brazen altar where sacrifices for sin were made. God took some of the remains of the sacrificial sin offering and used them as a part of the transforming incense that proceeded ultimate intimacy between man and God.

Is that Jesus sifting through the trash of past crises in your life? I hope so! Will he use the redeemed “trash” from your past to launch new ministry into your current lifestyle? Yes! Then you will begin to understand something amazing: God doesn’t waste anything. He redeems everything. If you feel that you’ve wasted some of your life, make sure you leave it in the trash pile at the foot of the cross.

It might become the core of a brand new ministry God will birth in you!

by Pastor James Bell

Proverbs says they are faithful (the wounds, not necessarily the friends). That means there is a caring purpose in the wounds of a friend. Friends don’t hide truth, they share it. Their friendship grows as truth shapes and develops them.

If you are like most of us, you have both assumed friends and trusted friends. The difference in assumption and trust defines, sometimes sadly, the quality of a friendship. For example, there are friends about whom we assume good things. We feel a certain level of confidence in these friends. We assume they like us and have our backs. We assume whatever we hope for but don’t have reason to actually know. The somewhat crude dissection of that word, assume, is to some people enlightening. It doesn’t,  however, prevent us from the sadness of the realization that we assumed incorrectly that someone was more of a friend than they actually were. But the bitter taste of false assumption does help us to grow a little bit emotionally and spiritually. We might end up blindsided and disappointed, but we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and move on down the road. Lesson learned.

But when a friendship is based on trust, things happen differently. There is the unique and enjoyable privilege of being oneself, faults and all, without fear of being judged or misunderstood. Acceptance is based on our mutual knowledge of our core values and our struggle to let God mold us into something better as we grow. A trusted friend appreciates your struggle as much as the benchmarks that indicate the progress you have made. Freedom of expression in an atmosphere of acceptance is the hallmark of friendships based on trust instead of assumption. Through the years, I have learned to greatly value those friendships.

Unfortunately, when we love and trust, we risk the loss of the very relationship we value. A broken trust is much more devastating than a false assumption. You don’t kick yourself for assuming; you focus on trying to survive the tidal wave of hurt. Initial disbelief is followed by a sucker punch of lethal, joy-killing truth about what happened or what was said. For the first few minutes you feel like you want to die, but instead you just throw up. Your trust is screaming in your mind that this cannot be true. Days pass with a kind of emotional numbness. After a time, the open wound becomes a tender sore spot, then it becomes a scar. It doesn’t hurt like it did, but the memory of what happened stays with you. Sentences and phrases keep repeating in your thoughts, neatly categorized and tucked away in the complicated filing system of the mind.

To feel the stabbing pain in the small of your back, and then pull out a knife with the fingerprints of a trusted friend is not the same as the wounds Proverbs describes. These wounds are not for growth, insight, and course correction. They can destroy your capacity to love and trust others. They cause fear of intimacy and cynicism about all things relational. They stifle the child in your spirit. They steal your joy. You have to make yourself go on.

If you are reading this and you can relate to some or all of the feelings on this page, I want you to know something. I have been there, my friend. Unexpectedly, I have often met Jesus in these dark places and have experienced his love in a deeper way than at any other time in my life. In these deep valleys of hurt he rushes to us, with a hard embrace and a strong word of encouragement. And he leads us out again, into the light.

Yesterday I lost a trusted friend. Today I will allow Jesus to treat these wounds. Tomorrow I will love people, even trust people, knowing that there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. I also realize, through tears of understanding, that he will stick close, just as close, to the friend I lost.

Your wounded heart will heal. In fact, grace heals us and heals through us. Often at the same time.

Pastor James

by Pastor James Bell

It was 5:30, way too early in the morning for me to come strolling into our living room. Suz, an early riser, asked me what I was doing up at this time, and the dogs on her lap twisted their heads as they seemed to question why I had invaded their daily quiet time.

I told my wife and dogs that I was up because I was mad. Mad at the devil. I had encountered his schemes all week long, losing sleep and being distracted from things that were more important than his nonsense. I wondered out loud why we pastors never mention some things that most of us know all too well. We think it’s not becoming for someone in our position to speak up about it. We think it’s not spiritual to mention it. But it eats on us, tearing us apart from the inside out.

I decided to tell you about it. It’s all about the strategies of the spiritual enemy we face, and how often we are set up for embarrassment, criticism and even failure. It is about the feeling that we are dealing with a no-win situation, and therefore we must internalize things that should be on the prayerful lips of our intercessors. Most of all, it is about a basic situation that will happen over and over in vibrant, growing congregations and in the hearts of well-intentioned, hard-working pastors until the wheels start coming off of everything and nobody really knows why. I am going to tell you why.

Three entities, when they are in sync, can destroy even the strongest church unless they are identified and stopped. Those three entities consist of two flawed personality types and one devil. Now, this destructive combination is not Satan’s only weapon against the church, but I am convinced it is by far the most often used in his arsenal.

First, it is the devil, the father of lies. Then it is a flawed personality trait in people I have dubbed “bomb-throwers”. Thirdly, it is milder, even pseudo-spiritual, version of the same flaw in folks we’ll call “poop-stirrers”. The devil plants the idea, the bomb-thrower chooses to almost innocently drop a false statement or half truth about a sensitive subject, and the poop-stirrers keep the comment alive by passing it along, often with some disclaimer about not being sure that it’s right and certainly not to, shall we say, keep the poop stirred. But by passing it along, they do precisely that very thing.

Satan chooses an event. It can be almost any event involving change. He then plants seeds of untruth or half-truths in the hearts of potential bomb-throwers who might be concerned, disappointed or fearful of the changes. All they have to do is find the right opportunity to speak those twisted comments. Note that the motivation is (1) selfish pride in one’s opinion and (2) a desire to thwart the change that is happening.

Example Scenario – Singles out for a meal after church. One of the guys wants to impress some of the ladies at the table. He says that he recently hung out with someone who had left with his family to attend another church. The guy told him the real reason he left. Didn’t like some changes the pastor was making (interestingly enough, the very changes this guy, or someone close to him, doesn’t like).

Okay, time out for facts. The alleged conversation with the person who left never happened. The guys did hang out, but didn’t discuss anything about the changes. In fact, the person leaving didn’t know about the changes and had left the right way, with the pastor’s understanding and support. The bomb-thrower “created” this comment to be interesting and appear knowledgeable to his peers. After that meal, he thought, nothing more would happen. But now the poop-stirrers see an opportunity to enliven next week’s conversations with their friends.

Other scenarios follow. A situation happened in a small group (that didn’t actually happen that way at all), the pastor preached a sermon aimed at one person in the congregation he disagreed with (not effective, I know better than to try that), the pastor’s wife (or his friend, or an elder) has a hidden agenda, and on and on we go. Bombers bomb with suspicions and twisted statements. Poop-stirrers keep the stuff moving. Pastors hear about it with disbelief and shock, thinking these were their friends and the ones they have given their lives for. Satan lifts a toast. People say to rise above it. I don’t sleep.

It’s almost impossible to restore truth when church members are, often unknowingly, spreading lies. See, even now that word seems a little strong to you when talking about Christians. But the number one sin among Christians, far more common (and damnable) than other sins, is lying. If a pastor confronts this activity, he will be accused of being judgmental, defensive or argumentative. Even poop-stirrers will step back in horror that their pastor would not just rise above the fray and stay positive.

The battle, over something which (and this is so important for you to realize) never, ever, actually happened in the first place, now spreads to a conflict between the defensive pastor and the frantically backpedaling bomb-thrower. The poop-stirrers deny any involvement and begin to act like victims, even at times leaving the church.Visitors and new members think the whole thing is childish and immature, and begin to question the pastor’s leadership and maturity. Meanwhile, demons dance in the darkness and Satan gloats over his victory against that local church, chipping away at the higher purposes of the kingdom of God.

The bottom line unless we act is this:

• A pastor will feel that confronting the wrong will cause the conflict to spread.
• Bomb-throwers will toss more bombs to cover their, often unintentional, damaging remarks.
• Poop-stirrers will stir, self-righteously stating that these are not necessarily their opinions.
• Congregants will be confused by the division among believers.
• Satan, bomb-throwers and poop-stirrers never even make it into the conversation, as the Evil One scans the church’s agenda for the next opportunity to attack.

How do we stop this cycle? Here are some suggestions:

• Bomb-throwers, quit tossing those bombs. We need you.  Talk to us, work with us.
• Poop-stirrers, just quit stirring. Help us communicate the good news!
• Pastor, pastor people better than they’ve ever been pastored!
• Leaders, lead on!

Then, let all of us humbly serve the interests of others, as Jesus teaches us to do. Dialogue, listen, get involved. When we walk in unity, following Jesus, all hell trembles. This is not my church or your church, or even our church. It’s His.

This is going to be a year of breakthroughs and victories on several levels. God is whispering to us of exciting things He has in store. Even if you have been affected by these situations, don’t ever feel like you have to walk away. Every pastor knows these experiences well. They happen everywhere unless confronted. Resolve these things right here and our bonds of love will grow even stronger.

Pastor James

by Pastor James Bell

A little girl said it well. Riding home from the crowded mall, sharing the backseat with her revved up siblings, she pressed her nose against the cold, foggy window. She saw the brightly lit plywood manger scene in someone’s front yard. Over the noisy voices of her excited brothers and her frantic, tired mom, she blurted out, “Merry Christmas, Jesus!”

Did Jesus have a Merry Christmas? His best friend John said it simply, “He came to his own and his own people didn’t receive him.” That rejection ultimately led to the cross, but it started in Bethlehem. Those people didn’t even know he was born, let alone who he was. Jesus’ birthday was the stuff of shepherd’s chatter and angelic myths. In fact, it wasn’t until the Magi showed up almost two years later that people started getting a clue.

By the time Jesus was thirty-three, it was pretty obvious that he was not going to have a mega-church in Jerusalem. He did draw some big crowds, and he could have pulled it off by cutting some corners here and there and not always being so bluntly truthful. But on the other hand, after being God and creating the world, the promise of a really large congregation was not enough to cause him to swerve from his prophetic destiny.

Here’s the tough part: He expected no less of his disciples. Jesus valued truth as essential for spiritual freedom. He saw success in terms that were more qualitative than quantitative. Would some of today’s leaders accuse him of negativism if he said to their constituents, “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” Larry King and Piers Morgan would question his exclusivity. Diane Sawyer might try to coax him into a more acceptable position on social issues. Millions would just switch back to ESPN or Dancing With The Stars. Funny that most people on Earth have never really cared about the things that are so riveting to the inhabitants of both heaven and hell. Not yet.

But this truth remains through the years: Jesus’ birth is made sacred by the life it produced. Every time you remember the manger, whenever you follow your faith to the cross,  and as often as you truly worship the Son of God, something happens that will someday shake the world!

These days, along with many other pastors I’m sure, I receive as many heartbreaking stories as Christmas cards. I see, up close and personal, crumbling values, deteriorating relationships and broken hearts. Then I hear the voices of many high-profile Christian leaders giving slick, motivational messages rooted more in pop psychology than the Bible. I feel backed against the wall, seeing Satan’s perverted grin as he communicates in myriad ways a message that says, “If you don’t play along with us, we will paint you as an insensitive, judgmental, grace-bashing, relic of the religious past.”

But spiritual leaders who are spiritual leaders hold to biblical values, presenting love, grace, surrender, service and fulfillment as the Christian way.  Smiling imposters offer grace, grace, grace and more grace as an alternative and tell people to choose their own way. Tragically, it seems to be working pretty well for them, at least on this side of eternity. But anyone with even a little bit of spiritual sensitivity has to ask, “What is the birth of Christ without the cross? What is the message of hope without the empty tomb? What is Christmas without a Savior?”

So I find myself joining that little girl, with my face pressed against the window. In the mix of devotion and dysfunction, friendly faces and frustrating disappointment, the smiles of children and the fears of old men, amidst the carols and chaos….I still believe. With my nose against the glass, I see the hope that lies in a manger. I say with a choked up voice and tears of realization, “Merry Christmas, Jesus!”

by Pastor James Bell

What you do when things don’t work out reflects your true character.

It’s when you look around for your support group and there is nothing but crickets serenading the darkness. It might be when you yell, “Charge!” and your closest allies retreat. It could be when you seek the solace of a friend and find an empty heart and a blank expression. Sometimes it’s sharing about how God gave you the design for this plan and then, along with everyone else, you watch the wheels come off. What you do next reveals the substance of what God has built within you.

Regardless of how failure hits you, be it a right cross to the jaw or a sucker punch to the solar plexus, it will challenge you like nothing else. Like most all of us, failure wants acceptance. Will you at last accept all those things you feared you were, but hoped you were not? Can’t you just grovel in the bittersweet comfort of self-pity for awhile? Don’t you seriously feel a little bit like shaking your fist heavenward and saying something profound like, “Thanks a lot, God!”

Since this isn’t the first time you’ve faced failure’s challenge, you know those options don’t work for you anymore. Here is what you do instead:

• Ask God to search your heart for anything wrong or inappropriate in your actions.

• Forgive those who contributed to your failure by their own actions.

• Take some time to just sit at Jesus’ feet and listen.

• Do something nice for someone you don’t like…….yourself!
Note: I recommend a chair massage at the mall, a Godiva chocolate bar, or a large Dr. Pepper,     depending on your budget for “something nice”.

• Start over. Get up and pursue your destiny as never before!

Failure is never a reason to quit. Failure is a crucial part of your education. Failure teaches you to know yourself better, to understand what makes friendship authentic, to value integrity and character. In many ways, failure can propel you toward success.

Balance and objectivity are the keys to making failure work for you. Avoid defensiveness and reject condemnation. Right there, in between those two destructive emotions, there are some great truths waiting to be revealed to you about yourself. Then you’ll better understand the spiritual giftedness God is providing to enable you to achieve what he has called you to do.

Through the years, my enthusiasm for relationships and teamwork has often caused me to lead with my chin and end up on my backside. My heart has become a mosaic of broken pieces put back together by the gentle hand of a loving God. Every true shepherd knows brokenness. Every victorious warrior is no stranger to despair. Failure will challenge you, but you will win.

It’s your destiny.

Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.   – Philippians 3:13-14 

by Pastor James Bell

by Pastor James Bell

That’s what I said to myself many years ago. “Give a tenth of my income to God? Yeah, right.” Just the thought of tithing was enough to make me think twice about joining a church. I mean, I didn’t even like to pay retail. Not that I was stingy or that I didn’t give to needy causes. I even let my company remove 3% from my paychecks every two weeks for the United Way. Tithing was an uncomfortable proposition to me. I’d say, “Can’t we just talk about Jesus?”

To be honest, God doesn’t need my money. Or yours. Or Donald Trump’s. Speaking the worlds into existence, the all powerful One has plenty of resources without soliciting our support. Of course, the church does need your support, even though God will provide for what He establishes. It is the biblical plan for God’s work to be supported by God’s people. Through the years, Hosanna’s members have been very faithful in their giving and there are many testimonies of God’s blessing poured out on people who have developed a generous spirit of giving.

In my life, as I became a part of a church family, I finally discovered that giving was more related to blessing than sacrifice. The loosening or tightening of my purse strings was an indication of the issues of my heart. A generous spirit really does bring happiness to the inner man and those who bless are blessed. The “blessed” 90% has a way of going further and doing more than the “unblessed” 100%. It’s like something positive and creative is released in those who honor God with the tithe.

In the Bible there were beautiful examples of giving that were passed along throughout the generations of God-honoring people. The gift wasn’t only the tenth (tithe) but it was the first tenth. In other words, the first tenth was considered God’s and the rest was considered blessed. The first tenth, freely given, activated the blessing of the remaining ninety.

The principle of giving tithes and offerings was always about more than just supporting the work of ministry, even though it did accomplish that. There is a release of the restraints that hold us back from really trusting God when we give according to His plan. A generous spirit releases you in many other areas of your life. You begin to see things with different eyes. Values change. Eventually, Matthew 6:33 becomes a reality in your life.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Your giving prioritizes your values. It opens an avenue of trust between you and God. Then one day you will look around and realize, “I am really blessed!”

As we have seen our congregation grow, I have begun to realize that we don’t talk enough about giving. Lots of our newer members haven’t been taught about the “blessed life”. If you aren’t tithing, take some time to consider how your life could be richly blessed by relearning God’s principles about giving.

It might be just what you need to make that boat float.

by Pastor James Bell

Her name meant “gifted” and she definitely was. When compared to the others, she was a fresh breeze of excitement and change. She had that “it” quality, and men wrote books to try out their own theories of just what it was that made her so attractive.

But she wasn’t a girl, she was the focus of a religious movement. Born out of the passion of religious zeal and spiritual desperation, Charisma won us over with her fervent, joyous attitude about life. Many of us quickly decided that she would make a far better bride for the Master than those tired looking,    denominational ladies in waiting, all of whom seemed to feel a sense of entitlement. Unashamedly, we smiled approvingly as her very own movement hoisted her upon it’s strong shoulders and introduced her to millions of Christians around the world.

We needed this infusion of new life. We had been so dry and so introspective for so long. The beauty of Charisma made us feel closer to God and strangely empowered to accomplish the impossible. We wrote new songs, began to dance again, and laughed in the face of trouble. On a spiritual high, we bought bumper stickers and gave away millions of cassettes and CD’s. We thought the Bride, the one mentioned in the scripture, must look a lot like this. And then the unthinkable happened.

We found Charisma in the arms of another lover. And then another. And then many others. What happened to the Bride? What happened to the life-giving love affair with God? How could the one we saw as the Bride of Christ ever choose another lover? As one leader after another fell, the restoration process became shorter and shorter until a few burnt out leaders began to mumble something about restoration not being the answer at all. “Grace is what we need”, they said, “We just need to really understand grace.”

But when we looked at Charisma, we saw a different woman. Her dresses were often torn and dirty. Her countenance changed from beauty to shame to defiance. She would at times scream out at us in a high shrill voice, “I am still the Bride! The problem is not me, it’s you!” Some people started agreeing with her. After all, she was on television. She must be doing something right.

Suddenly there was a whisper that began to make it’s way across the world. The Spirit of God whispered into our hearts, “The church is the Bride of Christ”.  That really made a lot of sense, especially when we realized that the Holy Spirit was using the Bible as the basis of that communication. Of course, when we arrived at this conclusion, we saw our baggage from the recent past scattered all over the station. What would we do now?

We didn’t want to call ourselves “charismatic” anymore. We found out, however, that we really are. Big time. The revelation was like this:

We don’t worship Charisma anymore, but we are very charismatic, knowing that all true giftedness is a reflection of Jesus in our lives. And His gifts are in us all.

Her name was Charisma. She was a movement. She left our Master for another. But she didn’t leave us alone. The Holy Spirit remains with the true Bride. And we are becoming the kind of charismatic that Charisma couldn’t ever be.

You have a gift. Open it.

by Pastor James Bell

Ever sample that tasty breakfast? I did years ago without knowing what I was eating. It tasted like sausage to me. And I didn’t become, as the purveyor of this culinary disaster insisted I would, any smarter. In fact, the years have proven to me that brains, as well as eggs, can sometimes get scrambled. Evidence of that will be presented in what follows on this page.

As I looked forward to our new series on Sunday mornings and our new series on Tuesday evenings, I realized that the two new series needed to be switched. “Uniquely Christian” is more suited to Sunday Mornings and “Romans for Real People in Real Time” is better on Tuesdays. Here’s why:

• Tuesdays will feature several of our gifted ministers teaching, an interesting variety of speakers.
• I have lived a lot of the “Uniquely Christian” series and, while it’s very scriptural, the illustrations and concepts are developed from my years of pastoring. Wouldn’t really be fair to expect our other teachers to feel what I felt as I developed this series.
• Tuesdays have a growing audience that seems to feel a hunger for some deeper teaching to go along with the worship and ministry time, especially since they know we respect the 7:00 – 8:00 weeknight time frame. Also, our speakers will make every session interesting and anointed.
• We want Sunday Mornings to include a “hook” to reach the hearts of your friends and neighbors who might attend with you, and the “Uniquely Christian” series fits this scenario perfectly.

So we’re going to do the right thing and simply change the sign, the webpage and the announcements in the bulletin. There are a couple of ways I expect people will respond;

1. Appreciate the fact that we really want to do this right.
2. Make cynical comments about indecisiveness and a lack of bold leadership.

I kind of hoped most people would fall into the #1 category. My wife, however, had her own take on this.

“Hey, you’re assuming way too much here. Lot’s of folks don’t even remember that you’re doing a series. Just do it as well as you can and don’t get stressed over such trivial things. Want some scrambled eggs for breakfast?”

I did want the scrambled eggs. And I guess we can forget about the brains.

Love you guys,

Pastor James

p.s. We have a new series starting Sunday, September 11! It’s called “Uniquely Christian” and I think you’ll be blessed by it.  Also, a new series starts Tuesday, September 13. “Romans for Real People in Real Time” is a paraphrased view of Paul’s outpouring of his faith and emotion concerning what God revealed to him.  Good stuff!  (Did that work for you?)

by Pastor James Bell

I have faced God. Really.

Okay, it was not in the sense of seeing Him as Isaiah did. I definitely didn’t experience what John did on the Isle of Patmos. My experiences have been more along the lines of Jesus words, “as long as you did it to these, you did it unto me”. What I have seen is the expression of God with flesh wrapped around it. I have seen the Savior looking back at me through real eyes, eyes of different colors, eyes that stopped me in my tracks.

Have you ever had one of those “facing God” moments? I have seen God while looking into the face of a gifted preacher in a Mexican village, who worked in the cane fields by day and studied the Bible at night. Jesus was in the face of a nurse who whispered her prayers for me in the cardiology unit. Jesus once told me he loved me, through the voice of a complete stranger. God often smiles at me through my grandchildren.

Of course, the day will come when every child of God will actually see Jesus face to face. How indescribable that experience must be! But before He was glorified, Jesus appeared to look like most other men. When Philip was confused by the metaphors Jesus was using, he said, “Lord, just show us the Father and that will be enough”. Jesus said, “Philip, have I been with you this long and you still don’t know me?” He was looking at God fairly often, but never realized it.

For the non-believer, facing God is a fear more than a reality. It’s something they prefer not to think about that much. On the other hand, believers have a tendency to think about God, to talk about God, to even feel that we have a relationship with God….without actually facing God.

To face God means to be responsible for what you see. When He speaks, or even when He expresses a thought with just a look, while using the countenances of earthly people like we all are, something happens that demands a response. This is when we really face God. It’s as if He says, “Now you know.”

Are you ready to face God about your life? Want to talk with Him about the hidden parts of your heart? When you decide to face God about everything, you are in some very good company. Prophets, priests, and kings have been transformed by facing God.

One day we will actually see Him face to face. Today He is looking at us in myriad ways, through all kinds of eyes. Will you know Him when you see Him? I’m looking for Him every day, and I’m finding Him more and more.

Face time happens.