Three days ago, my dad became 90. He entered a new decade that many people never see. And he still lives on his own, is a part of several social groups that meet either monthly or weekly, and bowls twice a week during the school year. In April he had one game in the 190s!

I am proud of the way my father has aged. Has he slowed down? Sure. But he hasn’t stopped. He has chosen to become a little better each day. He acknowledges when he gets stuck in a rut and often will take action (like a walk around the block) to get out of that rut. More importantly, he tries to live godly. His daily routine includes prayer.

Is he perfect? Of course, not. But more than just by age, he is becoming. As should all of us as we are sanctified and grow closer to Jesus.

The Bible has a lot to say about becoming. And becoming offers two paths. You can become corrupt or you can become like God. Everyone has turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one. (Psalm 53:3, NIV) And [Jesus] said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 18:3, NIV)

To become all that God intends for us to become requires a sacrifice of our egos. We need to recognize that becoming who we were meant to be is not within our power. We cannot willpower our way to our true selves. Unfortunately, the sin within us fights that every step of the way.

Some days, it’s easier to live at the foot of God’s throne and stay in submission. Other times, we want what we want and we ignore the still small voice that encourages us to be something more, part of something and Someone bigger than ourselves.

Isn’t incredibly convicting that when we look back on our lives, that our best moments, the ones we felt most content to acknowledge, were the ones when we were least like ourselves? Those moments of becoming when Christ worked in us and through us revealing glimpses of heaven to us and those around us.

If any book of the Bible really talks about becoming, it is Ephesians. In its chapters we learn how to become the body of Christ, how to become a mature and functioning part of that body, how to become light and mirror the Light, and how to become unified—whether in marriage of community. Paul commits these truths about becoming to a group of believers that he loved. These were the people who cried with him when they knew the Spirit was leading him to danger in Jerusalem. Because he valued them, he didn’t want them to be content in who they had been, or even how they had changed thus far. He wanted them to continue—becoming even more different than the world around them.

When I was a teen, when I still didn’t believe who and what God is, my dad announced we were doing a family Bible study through Advent using prophecies from the book of Isaiah. The beauty of those words was an early tug at my heart that eventually led to me accepting Christ and pursuing faith. Dad’s becoming more Christ-like influenced me to take God a bit more seriously.

It only took another ten years and multiple witnesses.

But thanks, Dad, for an example of becoming before I ever wanted to. Happy birthday!

I uploaded this early because today, Gary and I are flying to Chicago. We will show up at the airport around 7:00 AM which means it’s a very early day!

And because we travel home next Wednesday, that post will be uploaded today, too. Because of those logistics, I will enter the winners for these two weeks in the comments, not in the posts themselves.

School is now out, so in the minds of most it is now summer. We know it doesn’t officially begin until June 21st (which happens to be Father’s Day this year and part of the Juneteenth weekend), but it’s warm enough and buggy enough to call it summer. That means that many people are traveling. Whether they’re going to see family, like we are, or vacationing, or kids heading off to camp, people do a lot of moving from place to place this time of year. The odds of adverse weather getting in the way of their plans diminishes (no snowsqualls in June usually) and the calendar is a bit freer without school and its related activities.

Traveling can be fun and stressful. It can be fun to see new places or to revisit old places that you don’t get to see as much because of the pull of life and schedules. It can be fun to do things not part of your routine and see or meet people you don’t interact with on a daily basis.

But it can be stressful because it’s not the norm. Your clock gets thrown out of whack with both the moving around and being in unfamiliar spaces. You get uncomfortable not knowing the plans for the day and/or knowing that so many things related to the traveling are out of your control. Planes can be delayed. Highways can be backlogged. Events can be canceled. How you roll with the glitches determines whether your travels will be remembered as good or bad or somewhere in between.

This is such an easy topic to translate to our spiritual journey!

We are traveling upon this earth, our temporary home, and heading to our permanent home in heaven. The online concordance offers over 200 references to walk and most of these are about how you live your life. Don’t walk in the way of sinners. Walk through the valley. Walk in the light of God’s truth.

There are also a handful of references to running. Don’t run after other gods. Run the race God has given you. Run with your eyes on Jesus. Run with purpose.

Usually, if we’re moving, if we’re traveling towards our goal, the voyage feels purposeful. There’s a reason for what we’re experiencing, good or bad.

Today, when we get through security, we will have to wait. As we have things scheduled, it will probably be an hour before we can board our flight. But, as anyone knows, the hour can extend if the plane is late in arriving or needs any repairs. Then, we just have to wait until everything is resolved.

We don’t like that part of traveling, physically or spiritually.

But my concordance has nearly as many references to waiting, particularly waiting on God, as it does to walking with Him. I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. (Psalm 130:5) But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. (Romans 8:25)

It can be easier to wait if we sense the reward. For instance, if you smell the meal cooking, you eagerly wait to taste it. But so much waiting as we travel is vague. We don’t know why we’re waiting. We don’t understand why this part of the journey has been put on pause. And we wait for the call.

“Boarding, next destination now boarding.”

I remember the first time I tried to write a blog.

One of the homeschool organizations or publications that I was a regular contributor to or member of (honestly don’t remember which) put out an announcement. “We need contributors to our new website and blog! Come on, adventurous souls! Who knows how your contribution might benefit both you and the homeschool community? If you promise to attempt a blog, we’ll give you your own blog address on our website.”

Some descriptions followed, but no examples. Still, it didn’t sound complicated and I was a writer after all. So, I sent in my request.

A couple of days later, I received confirmation along with instructions. First, I had to log onto their website. Then I had to scroll down to find my blog address. It took me nearly an hour of tapping around to find my actual page.

This was early in the days of blogging. I was in my current home, so it was after 2003 but it had to be before 2006. The blog page looked very much like a form template you see on a medical website that hasn’t been updated in fifteen to twenty years. I wrote about 250 words (too short, but I didn’t know that) and attempted to post. That took about another hour. The instructions didn’t mention that something had to be written in every single block whether relevant or not.

But finally, I had uploaded my first blog.

Crickets. Beyond crickets. Not even the website acknowledged that I had met my end of the bargain.

I never submitted another post to that site. And frankly, I doubted the value of writing a blog. If the purpose of it is to share information, what use is it if the words disappear into the ether?

If you had asked me then, I would’ve said I would never write another blog.

But now, with this website, I’ve been writing a blog for over a decade. (It will be 13 years on November 29th.) I started because my publisher said it was a good way to keep up a steady online presence. I kept it up because I liked the routine of it and the feedback from all of you. Every week, I have a Wednesday deadline. Every week, I write (or have written) at least 500 words on a topic that is either related to writing, faith, homeschooling, personal growth, books, or host a guest blog. I try to write about or include posts that are useful to me in the hopes that they minister to others.

Some weeks, the only writing I accomplish is the blog. Other weeks, it is a small portion of the effort. And, of course, everything in between. There have only been a handful of times that I’ve reused a previous blog, like if I’m sick or suffering a migraine.

Using the 10-year mark and the minimum of 500 words, that’s over 260,000 words posted online. Wow. That’s about 1000-page book.

And that doesn’t include my guest posts on other author or writers group websites.

Seeing that statistic, knowing what a little weekly faithfulness has given as a result, encourages me to work on my other projects and deadlines. Who knows? If I can be as faithful with them as I have been on these pages, maybe my dream of over one hundred books isn’t as farfetched as I thought.

And if you feel so led, pray for that dream of mine! And if you have a dream on your heart, let me know and I’ll pray for that, too.

This week’s winner is Ann. Ann, you’ve won your choice of one of my available paperbacks and one play or monolog copy. Please email me about your choices!