Some of you are no doubt getting tired of all my updates on my wife\u2019s condition, but I mostly write about life as it happens and this is what is happening in my world right now. \u00a0One of my very best friends also writes about life, and last week, he wrote about his teenage years in the early morning coffee shop of his little west Texas town. \u00a0(Those who know who, will know who. \u00a0Enough ID). \u00a0In response to his story, I replied as follows: \u201cTwelve days ago, early in the morning before the sun came up, my daughter and I were at Baylor Medical Center with my wife who was awaiting surgery following a nasty fall sustaining multiple broken bones in her wrist. This followed the implant of a Pacemaker in her heart a few days earlier. Needless to say we were worried and anxious. Lots of friends were praying for us; but one showed up at the hospital to sit with us and drink coffee, in the waiting room. One early morning, coffee-drinking, friend, drove sixty miles in the pre-daylight darkness, just to be there with us, when no one else did so. My Pastor-Father called it, \u201cThe Ministry of Presence\u201d (not an original phrase with him) and it is mostly a lost art in ministry today. Thanks, friend, for being present, early in the morning. You even made the coffee taste better.\u201d \u00a0For those who read my Manna for life lessons, here it is – Practice the ministry of presence and don\u2019t ever underestimate its value. \u00a0And to my many former students, if I failed to teach you this part of ministry, I apologize. \u00a0Please learn it now and practice it often. \u00a0God will be honored that you acted like His Son, and your people will talk about you long after you are gone. \u00a0 \u201cThrough love, serve one another\u201d (Galatians 5:13).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some of you are no doubt getting tired of all my updates on my wife\u2019s condition, but I mostly write about life as it happens and this is what is happening in my world right now. \u00a0One of my very best friends also writes about life, and last week, he wrote about his teenage years…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"default","_kad_post_title":"default","_kad_post_layout":"default","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"default","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"default","_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-3942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3942","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=3942"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3943,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3942\/revisions\/3943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}