What a mix of emotions today!

First, I am so thankful for the many years the Lord has given me. I usually just take my birthday for granted. I don’t care about celebrating it. It is just another ordinary day. But this time around, I am so thankful for the 62 years He has given me. If the Lord sees it fit that I should continue to live a few more seconds, a few more days, a few more weeks, a few more months, or a few more years, then I pray that I will be faithful enough to do it for Him.

As I make this commitment to sincerely live my life for the Lord, I am also faced with challenges and obstacles that attempt to discourage me, and I fall for it! I am learning, especially thru fellow believers, to recognize that these are wily ways from the devil. It is not easy to be refined by fire – to be humbled, corrected, impassioned, and strengthened.

My birthday wish, my birthday prayer, is this — that my family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers (who read these FMRWJ blog posts) will come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

It is a good time to be alive. Bible prophecy is being fulfilled. World events are frightening and evil is blatant and growing, but this only proves the authenticity of the Word of God. This time has been foretold. And people are turning to God and Jesus Christ! What the devil means for evil, the Lord will use for good (Genesis 5:20).

And this is my challenge for fellow believers — who knows you were born and are alive for such a time as this? I am talking to every believer, not just those who are placed in positions of authority and expertise. Make the most use of where God has placed you and be an active participant in fulfilling God’s purposes, not simply as a spectator. Now is not the time to be afraid. Now is not the time to be silent.

Esther 4:13-14: And Mordecai told them to answer Esther: “Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king’s palace any more than all the other Jews. ¹⁴ For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”