Meeting the man in the striped shirt was part of my journal the same evening

The roots of this blog go way back, to well before I started writing it or even considered having a blog. I used to travel a lot for our ministry. When I would return home after a few days, and occasionally after a couple of weeks, my wife, Dayle, would ask me what happened. In typical husbandly fashion, I would compress it all into a couple of sentences, leaving out lots of the detail she wanted to hear. So she let me know that things had to change.

But something happened I did not expect. First, in the evening when I was remembering what happened during the day, I would realize that something that happened, or something that was said, was important for my ministry. Perhaps a church leader had said that a translation was progressing too slowly, or a Christian in church would say that he or she was having trouble buying a translation in his languages because the sales point was always closed, or far away. Then I began so see patterns. For example, over time I found that several Church leaders had mentioned in passing that a translation was going too slow – each speaking about a different translation.

I realized that I had been missing these patterns and forgetting important things that were said.

So in addition to writing my journal to Dayle, I started writing a paragraph or two about what I had noticed, a bit of analysis of it and perhaps further actions to take, such as gathering more information. That started guiding my conversations with translators, local people and church leaders. The result was rich in insights.

I realized in the process that God really is in the still small voice. He is not pushy. But he does reveal Himself. We just have to take the time to reflect, be quiet and listen. My way of being quiet and listening is to stop and write a little journal. The things God is revealing almost pop off the page at me.

the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. I Kings 19:11-13