A friend summed it up well when he received a copy of Obeying the Gospel a few weeks ago and said, “The Lord has been gracious.” (And perhaps another friend summed it up equally well when he said, “It was looking a little iffy there for a while!”) By any standard, the milestones that have been reached this month are amazing — some would even say astonishing. Given the difficulties of the past five years, I’d be less than honest if I didn’t say that, at times, I never thought I’d see this day. But then, the Lord has a sense of humor and He loves to surprise us, does He not?
So here we are! In just two weeks (or less), Amazon will begin delivering pre-orders for Obeying the Gospel, and as of last week, the AreYouaChristian.com website has been launched as a special section of the new and improved WordPoints.com. The combined total of all these projects has taken me many years to put together, so I am relieved, to put it mildly. If there is such a thing as “good tired,” that is what I am.
Overall, I am pleased with AreYouaChristian.com and the new WordPoints.com. Now that they are live, both will need some fine-tuning but I’m gratified by the early results. As you begin using these resources, please drop me a note whenever you find a broken link or anything that does not seem to be working as it should.
Although I wrote almost all of these materials myself, it still surprises me how much content these websites contain. Right now, there are over 2,000 posts and pages available to the reader, and that number will continue to grow as new things are added each month. When I lived in Texas and asked Warren Berkeley (in maybe 1996) whether he thought I should begin a website, I never imagined as I started the old Brass Tacks site that anything on the magnitude of WordPoints.com would grow out of that. But things have a way of adding up when we keep on doing them. Churchill (Winston, not Caleb) was right when he said, “It is the courage to continue that counts.”
Those of you who know me well, know that I’ve always got a multitude of projects on the “back burner.” So identifying something to work on next will not be a problem, and Lord willing, I will share with you in my January report what my work goals are going to be for 2021 and beyond. There are many, many things waiting to be done, and I’m excited to begin working on some of them. As an older man, I can hear the countdown clock ticking more loudly with each passing day. I’m going to have to keep my nose to the grindstone to have any chance of finishing all this work in the time that remains. At the end of His life, Jesus could say, “It is finished,” which I take to mean that He had accomplished the work that was His to do in the time that was given to Him. To say anything like that, I’m going to have to step it up. (Procrastinators, take note. Before your life is over, you’re going to wish you had some of that time back.)
I will be losing $500 per month in my support due to the impact of covid on one of the congregations that support me. So far, this has been my only loss of support from the pandemic, but there may be others as time goes along.
As this year winds down, I expect we are all hoping for a better year in 2021. Nevertheless, 2020 has not been without its blessings. For me, the completion of Obeying the Gospel and AreYouaChristian.com made this a banner year. I will always look back on 2020 with a special fondness and gratitude. But none of what has been accomplished this year would have been possible without your financial support and emotional encouragement. I hope you know how much I appreciate and love each of you. Above all, your prayers have been greatly appreciated.
Gary Henry – WordPoints.com + AreYouaChristian.com
