God saved me from my sin and for His purpose at the age of fourteen. I am now 28 years of age and still serve this God who saved me. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Yeah, that God! There are numerous reasons why I have continually been drawing closer to my Father (He lets me call him Father and even Daddy) over half of my life, but nothing more significant than His Word to us. Growing up in Greenwood and now being in a position to see kids grow up in a very similar environment as I did, I have more than enough fingers to count the number of them consumed with what the Bible is saying. The love for God’s Word is not there. God tells us to find pleasure in it.  

Why did I find pleasure in it and commit to studying it from the moment I was saved?  I credit this to a desire and a person. The desire was to know God. How could I not want to know this God who had taken away my blindness to see His love, grace, and forgiveness I had just received? Then there was Danny Burton. He actually gave me a hug soon after being saved. I began to go to a Bible study that he led at his place on Wednesday nights. These men would start at the first verse of a book and dissect it all the way to the last. There would be nights of spending an hour and thirty minutes on two verses. As a teenager, I didn’t need to be entertained in order to meet with believers. I needed a guy to help me dig deep into the Word. And Danny was the man.

I felt honored when he reserved the seat beside him for me on Sunday mornings. Paul was a disciple of Gamaliel. I was a disciple of Danny Burton! If he asked me to look up a verse, I was on it like white on rice in a snow storm on a paper plate. Though I was hoping he never would ask me to read Scripture from any of the minor prophet books. I didn’t want to be fumbling around embarrassing myself. I sat under him for a good six years before the Lord sent me here to lead the preteen ministry. When I was leaving to take the position, he really only said one thing to me about it. It was a question. He asked me if I was going to teach those kids the Bible. I told him I would.

I hope one day to be as great of a teacher as he was. I would love to have the opportunity to teach a young man like the way he taught me. If you looked at Danny through worldly goggles, he wasn’t qualified. He never attended a bible college or seminary. He was not a polished speaker by any means. He would rarely pronounce a name in the Bible correctly. My favorite was how he would pronounce Ananias. It sounded like a certain body part that I will refrain from typing. He could be described as Peter and John were by the religious leaders of their days. Acts 4:13 says, “The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus.” Danny was a man who had been with Jesus long before he breathed his last breathe in this world.

In the first paragraph I told you I serve the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I’d like to add to that. I serve the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Danny Burton. Yeah, that God!     

There are SO many things I could've written about over the past month. But I've forgotten about them all. So they must have not been worthwhile.

I refuse to write many of my own thoughts at this point. I hear them too much. I don't want you to have hear them too much. I do want to confess that praying is very laboring. Well, that's a fact. It's probably the thing I want to do the most of, but not disciplined to do it the most. Ronnie Deal had some wise things to say about prayer Monday in a meeting. I am not quoting him, but he pretty much said that we won't get far reading about prayer, but rather we will learn about prayer by praying. He said it's a lifelong learning and he doesn't fully understand it. I agree with him. I was about to say the same thing but he cut me off  

I want to share with you some qoutes from a book on prayer. It won't get you far, but doesn't mean it won't get you anywhere. The name of the book is the path of CELTIC PRAYER - An Ancient Way to Everyday Joy. The Celts lived in uncertain and dangerous days of high infant-mortality rates, leprosy and plagues. They prayed continually out of the reality of their lives.

• "The Celts found God no casual diversion. They were too needy to talk about spiritual things over tea cups and pastries."
• "In desperate times, living becomes an altar where you pray and sing because the only good news of the day is that God lives longer than you do."
• "Among some Protestants, there seems to be a new Christ who is less demanding, and who seems to exist only to coddle the doubtful and to make sure that believers get all the goodies they seek for their secular lives."
• "The Celtics took sin seriously because they took God seriously. The self-sufficient, on the other hand, see God as a mere topic of discussion. Therefore, only the needy really have God. To believe in God is to see yourself as both sinful and needy. Why is this so important? For this reason: the needy confess."
• "We can never achieve union with God by clinging to our self-sufficiency. Recognizing and admitting our need in confession creates a heart cry for oneness."

Both Ronnie and Tom McCone mentioned that they think Satan wants to keep us from praying because it's where we get our power to live for Christ. For instance, I've wanted to spend an extended period of time today praying, but instead I wrote this.