International Readers

Yesterday I made a discovery that amazed me. One of the features of Blogspot is something called "Stats" ( statistics). I had only viewed it once since starting the blog in the summer of 2009. When I looked at it again I found a chart that told me the number of page views from the last week, and how many from each separate country. To my surprise forty percent were from countries other than the U. S., nine other countries in all. Thank you, international readers! With some of the countries I have an idea of who the people might be; others are a complete mystery to me. This does point out the power of the Internet as a tool. It also suggests that I should explain cultural references, and not use slang (informal writing) or obscure words.
At the same time I have received counsel that I should not limit myself to short entries but also include longer articles that explain what I believe and teach, from a Scriptural perspective. While I have done this occasionally in the past, I had refrained because I know that most people don't like to read longer essays. So I will explore that and see what the response is.
For today I will leave with the following thought. We will fare much better in our walk with Christ on this earth if we lower our expectations of people in the church, and raise our expectations of God. Often, our real issue is that we want too little of God, not too much.
Correction: For those who may have already read yesterday's post, an alert reader noted that I seem to be saying that I had left the church of which I am an elder. I have edited the post to say that in the past I had left other churches, only to find out the hard way that God does not intend us to be a church of one. ( I understand that certain circumstances, like imprisonment, might prevent fellowship.) I have not departed from my current church.