Decisions of how to serve God occasionally turn on very small hinges. While my father wanted an athlete for a son, my mother desperately wanted a musician. I\u2019m not sure of the content or length of their discussion on the subject, but in the early days of my athlete career, my mother asked me if I would like to play a musical instrument as a way of serving God. I volunteered to play the saxophone. Since my godly mother could not envision me playing a godly saxophone in church, she purchased a trombone for me and hired a teacher. During the first lesson, the teacher showed me the positions on the slide, and the sounds made by each position. During the second lesson, I surprised him by playing \u201cWhispering Hope.\u201d Then he surprised my mother by resigning with the comment, \u201cI can\u2019t teach someone who plays by ear.\u201d Thus ended my budding musical career, and corresponding service to God. Several years later, having given up all hope, my mother sold the trombone in a garage sale and gave my younger brother voice lessons (which, by the way, served him well to this day, contrary to my short-lived athlete career). Small hinges; lifetime directions! The Psalmist said, \u201cIt is good to give thanks to the LORD, and to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; to declare Your lovingkindness in the morning, and Your faithfulness every night, on an instrument of ten strings, on the lute, and on the harp, with harmonious sound\u201d (Psalm 92:1-3). If you\u2019re like me, and don\u2019t play an instrument, nor sing very well, I\u2019d encourage you to join me today in finding ways to serve God by declaring loving kindness and faithfulness.<\/p>\n
Join me this week in praying for the following global concerns:
\n\u2022 Pray for Marilyn and others who serve through the Hope Clinic in Macau.
\n\u2022 Thanks for praying for the Sochi Olympic Games ministries. 220 Southern Baptist volunteers and local Baptists handed out 17,000 pins that included a gospel message. Over 350 individuals gave contact information, allowing opportunities for follow up and 5 prayed to receive Christ, as their Lord and Savior.
\n\u2022 The events of the past months in Ukraine have created a new level of uncertainty across Europe. Pray for those who minister there.
\n\u2022 Pray for Ed and other team members who are on a prayer journey in Paris, France, focusing on West African immigrants and related ministries. Join the team and pray from a distance- http:\/\/bit.ly\/1dgqgjL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Decisions of how to serve God occasionally turn on very small hinges. While my father wanted an athlete for a son, my mother desperately wanted a musician. I\u2019m not sure of the content or length of their discussion on the subject, but in the early days of my athlete career, my mother asked me if…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}