Theologicus
Update
I am going to start writing and recording but I need a head start. Let me get a month’s worth of episodes before releasing.
NEW! Study: Romans
Thursday, December 31, 2020
Since starting an internship at my local church, I am prayerfully and utterly dependent on God for direction and steps. Most certainly, “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps."1
What boils that down for me is to answer this question at every turn, “Where does God’s grace have me at the moment?” I am future guy. What that means is that nine times out of ten, I think about the future, stay in the future, and “live” in the future. The past? That is old news. I don’t have time for history. The present? As you can imagine, I have had a difficult time staying present when I spend all of my time trying to get to the future.

But when I ask the question, “Where does God’s grace have me right now?”, that anchors me to the present and makes me realize what God is doing now.
In short, I want to preach the gospel. Most of my energy and time and effort has been to this end. Does it mean plant churches or stand on a street corner or become an elder or become a lead pastor somewhere? Maybe or maybe not. I have been, quite imperfectly, been seeking God’s face and his will for over thirteen years. I don’t know what it entails. I don’t know what else God would have me do.
But because I ask the question of God’s grace, this is what I do know:
First, whatever He asks me to do, I will be prepared and ready. He has called me. He has made me ready. I can wait on him. And I am not always going to be perfectly patient. But He has more than enough grace for me when I get antsy.
Second, until such a time, I, as a child of God, enjoy the freedoms only afforded to me because I am a child of God.
What does that mean? I get to love God. I get to obey His word. I get to repent of sin. I get to fulfill the Great Commandment which includes raise disciples2, understand the Scriptures and be his empowered witness3 to the end of the earth4. If I take it one step further, I know I am called to feed, care, and love His lambs5.
Let us not forget Mark’s account, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation."6
I think I am to preach in the context of corporate worship. Maybe or maybe not. God will call that shot. And with the pandemic as is, that might be a long reach. But, because of the Triune God dwelling inside of me, I do understand the Scripture and study the Scriptures. And with that, I will share my studies.
This is the format I am working out:
- Keep the studies short - I am not here to deliver a minimum study length.
- Start with once per day - My goal is to work up to three times a day
- If safe, host the study - Either a small group at my home or at a local coffee shop. Starting out, I will take precaution and see what the numbers look like from day to day. One thing to note: these studies will be short and sweet. If you can show up, I wouldn’t even bother taking your coat off most of the time. It might be five minutes. It might be five hours. I will go before God and ask Him for what I am to say and teach. He determines the length.
- Post with accompanied podcast episode once per day - For those who can’t make it to the study, I will give a quick daily recap and post it your podcast app of choice. Again, I am not here to adhere to a set time. Five minutes? Five hours? That’s on God.
So join me for a new daily series, Study: Romans. Podcast links to come.
NaNoWriMo: How Did I Do?
Sunday, December 13, 2020
Let’s check the results:
cat wc_theo_totals
Week Of Total Current Since
2020-11-02 1046072 51911 868292
2020-11-09 1080786 34714 903006
2020-11-16 1105046 24260 927266
2020-11-23 1185668 80622 1007888
2020-11-30 1232570 28952 1054790
According to my calculations, the number of words written for the month of November: 186,498.
Not too shabby.
Here’s the kick: most of that is not in blog. Most of those words won’t see the light of day. Most of those are my private, intimate moments with God.
And yet, essentially, I had my prayer journal within my blog–all with Draft status as true
. I felt as though I was playing with fire. I wouldn’t know what to do if they accidentally published or somehow if Google was able to index it and made it available.
So I had to pull them out and put them into their own repo.
Which divides up the word count like so:
====================================================
Week Of Theo Prayers Total Current Since
2020-12-10 325611 1176342 1501953 1176879 1324173
Index:
Theo
- Total word count within my blog
Prayers
- Total word count within my prayer journals
Total
- Theo plus Prayers
Current
- Total words written minus last weeks’ total
Since
- Total words written since migration to Hugo back in April 2020
What I am so deeply encouraged by is that for every four words written in prayer, one word is written on the blog. I like that a lot. It feels like I am on the right track.
I still need to keep punching on Prayers on the Psalms if I am going to finish within my lifetime.
Pray for me.