Archives for July 23, 2021

I am excited and grateful to receive my first book in the Slovak language today, “Navrat na Trat: Like na Duchovny Upadok” (in English it is, “Getting Back in the Race: The Cure for Backsliding”). Pray for God’s blessing on it please.

Last evening I was invited to give the closing prayer to an Employee Recognition Ceremony put on by the Wyoming, Michigan Department of Public Safety for several hundred people on behalf of police officers and firefighters for the work they accomplished in 2020. (This special evening was postponed until now due to Covid.) Scores of police officers and scores of firefighters received recognition in front of their peers and their families and friends for various cases of heroic service—many of which saved lives. The detail of each heroic case was described in a moving way. The loudest standing ovation was given to a group of officers who came to the aid of the Grand Rapids police officers in the downtown summer riots of last year. It is remarkable what the police endured at the risk of their own health and life.

An elder in our church, Tim Pols (see picture below), who is second in command in the Wyoming police force (one of two captains just under the chief of police), served as a kind of “master of ceremonies” on behalf of the police for this special evening. He did an excellent job. Mary and I both thought how great it would be if all Americans could share in an evening like this. Of this I am sure: appreciation for our police and our firefighters would rise dramatically!

Let us pray regularly for those responsible for public safety, and thank God for their steadfast resolve and professionalism in working for our communities so that we may “lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty” (1 Tim. 2:2) and that society might not slide into anarchy.