Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 

I am constantly struck by the proximity of “play” and “pray”; this is brought home to me in serendipitous messages from my word processor, when my fingers take on a life of their own and I find myself writing, “It will be necessary to play about this.” —Margaret Guenther

Who has never played hide-and-seek? I’ve yet to find one person, and I’ve inquired of people all over the world, in a variety of cultural and geographical settings, even of those born with severe physical limitations. We all remember the delight of seeking or of being found, and this universal game is an apt paradigm for that lifelong quest, the spiritual hunt. The passion children bring to hide-and-seek is the same passion we need to bring to finding God.

In case your recall of childhood is dim, let me refresh your memory. The game begins with one player who is “It.” It chooses a spot that serves as home base. She closes her eyes and starts counting to a determined number. The game begins as the other players race to find hiding spots, and when the determined number is called out, It then shouts, “Ready or not, here I come!” It attempts to search out the hiders and tag them before they can reach home base. If the hiders reach home base and are not tagged, they are safe; if they are tagged, they are out. Hiders can run for home base without being found first by It. They player who is tagged is It in the next round.

Of course, there are endless variations of the basic form of hide-and-seek. One of my favorites is Capture the Flag, which I played as a child in the dark with 15-20 players on each team at a campsite that was large enough for real hiding—a more sophisticate approach, certainly, but basically hide-and-seek.

Everyone—even the smallest child, such as our granddaughter Joscelyn—can play hide-and-seek. As a two-year-old, Josie called the game “Gotcha!” An adult (or a teen pressed into action as babysitter) hid (in obvious ways), and the little girl went seeking and found her prey. This brought on wild gales of enchanted laughter, delicious toddler gurgles, as she cried out, “Gotcha!”

Go back in memory; play again the game of hide-and-seek. Pretend you are the one who is hiding. Can you recall the favorite places you used to hide? Do you remember those secret spots where no one would think of looking for you? Was it beneath the basement stairs? Or, high up in the apple tree? Under the kitchen sink? On the top shelf of a closet behind storage boxes? In the woods? In the barn? In a city alley?

Now remember what it was like to be so still that not a breath, not a cough, not a movement would reveal your hiding place. Even your lungs, the inhaling and exhaling, seemed to slow. You were keenly aware, every cell of your body watching for the hunter who was hunting you. You were in a suspended state of sustained anticipation.

Now recall what it was like to be the hunter. Every nerve-ending in your body is on alert. Your eyes scan the field of the hunt. Did you see a brief movement? Your ears are pitched to a heightened level of awareness. Did you hear a muffled giggle? Did someone breathe quickly, or bump a shelter? You inch closer and closer, watching for any who might make a dash for home base. You also are in a suspended state of sustained anticipation.

This is what it can be like to hunt for God. The concept of hunting and finding has great power to evoke longing, emotions, particular understandings, even compulsive activity in all of humankind, no matter the age or intelligence. The aptitude for hunting and for finding God is native to every human heart, but as we mature we often lose or neglect the capacity to do so. We only become intent on finding Him when terror is nearby, when sadness insists on keeping company, or when pain becomes a relentless stalker. Let us instead begin the God Hunt as a game of hide-and-seek—in a childlike way, with laughter and delight.

We seek for God’s Presence, as He intersects with our daily lives. When we see Him, we shout with joy, “I spy!”
 
 
 
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Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-061)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 

But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation always say, “Let God be exalted.” (Psalm 70:4)

In 1998 the French archeologist Franck Goddio mounted an expedition in the Bay of Aboukir, hunting for two Egyptian cities, Menouthis and Heraklion, which ancient writings show used to exist at the mouth of the Nile. Employing a nuclear resonance magnetometer, an x-ray-like instrument dangling from the back of the boat, Goddio and his exploration team scanned the harbor, back and forth, back and forth, making a map of the sea floor.

To their delight, the magnetometer patterned two wide areas that eventually yielded the sites of submerged buildings, temples, large fallen columns, sphinxes and clay jugs that once stored wine. In addition, stele fragments, written records, sculptures and statutes were located along with abandoned gold coins and jewelry. All this archeological booty lies buried beneath two feet of sand and 21 feet of Mediterranean waters.

None of the coins found in Menouthis were minted after A.D. 740, which leads to speculations that whatever disaster destroyed the two cities occurred sometime soon after this date. Whatever catastrophe swamped the cities—earthquakes or flooding or a combination of both—the archeological records of those civilizations has been preserved for a later generation of historical specialists to uncover and analyze.

Consequently, scavengers scour the oceans looking for ancient shipwrecks with unplundered treasures. The sea hides plenty of submerged sailing vessels with much of their cargo intact. The Encyclopedia of Australian Shipwrecks contains over 10,000 entries. The hunt for drowned treasure is so intense. “The Abandoned Shipwreck Act of 1987” clarifies to which states boats discovered in which waters belong and how their archeological, historic and monetary values should be distributed and managed.

No matter what is being scavenged, an endemic hunting instinct dwells in each human. There is a thrill to finding something we have been seeking. Everyone loves to find that something special. The younger generations boast about what they have bought or sold on eBay. Financiers brag about “beating the stock market.” Three high school teachers I know devote many Saturdays and vacation days scanning beaches with radar devices, looking for treasure. And, when we have been hunting for something in particular (a new dress or a new car), and we finally purchase it for a good price, we just have to tell somebody.

The thrill of the hunt can drive us to spend hours searching for that special find, as my oldest son, Randall, does when bird-watching. One September morning he invited me to go with him on a bird walk with the DuPage Birding Club. Along the way we heard the cry of a yellow-billed cuckoo and sighted many other species—two roosting black-crowned night herons, lots of cat-birds, a few red-eyed vireos, a handful of warblers and dozens of cedar waxwings sunning in the trees.

No matter what it is you are seeking—treasures on the ocean’s floor, designer labels in a resale shop, rare birds in the lofty treetops, pennies in the grass, the contents of a list for a teenager’s scavenger hunt, wildflowers in a spring woods or first editions in a used book store—there is a thrill when you find it. That same delicious anticipation, that same excitement should be present when we hunt for God.

Are you excited about what you might find? Let me ask this another way: Are you staying awake to God? “But we who would be born again indeed,” writes George MacDonald, “must wake our souls unnumbered times a day.”

Let us discover again the thrill of hunting for God, a most profitable activity with eternal consequences. Let us face our lives in the right direction. Let us look for Him in the four ways that we have discovered are so helpful in the finding, the first of which is any obvious answer to prayer.

We ask, God answers. And, once again, we spy God!
 
 
 
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Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-060)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 
I recently decided to research the etymology of the phrase “ollie ollie oxen free.” Do you recognize that phrase? It’s the signal given at the end of hide-and-seek that the hunt is over or the main player has given up hope of winning.

The website World Wide Words explains the meaning behind the words:

One guess is that the original was something like “all in free” for “all who are out can come in free” to indicate that the person who is “it” in the game of hide-and-seek has caught somebody to become the new “it,” so everybody else can come out of hiding without the risk of being caught.

Supposedly oral transmission has garbled the words, with “all in” becoming “ollie” and “outs in free” becoming “oxen free.”

Are you far from home base? Listen, listen: perhaps you are not nearly as far away as you think. “It” is shouting the signal, “All in free! All in free!”

Yes, you may have to run for a while. You may be a bit breathless and frantic when you return to the game. You will have to promise not to cheat again, not to wonder so far. You will have to apologize for causing such concern (and you will have to mean it).

But look! There is time. There is still a lingering glow in the western sky. The fireflies are beginning to blink. The evening air is warm and inviting, and the game will not be called for the night until you are returned safely to the waiting arms of your laughing Father who is crazy in love over you.

Hear Him call, “Ollie Ollie Oxen Free.” I spy God!
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-059)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 
One summer David and I spoke at Camp Meeting in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, area. Since we were driving from Chicago, we decided to take our nine-year-old granddaughter with us, and Caitlyn and I explored the Amish countryside. One delightful morning was spent at the Cherry-Crest Farm Amazing Maize Maze, five acres of corn over your head that take an estimated hour to work your way through, if you don’t get lost.

At age nine, Caitlyn much preferred petting all the animals in the farm zoo and holding the newly hatched chicks, so that was the way we spent a delightful morning. At one point we stood on a bridge high above the corn maze where we could look down on families and groups starting to work together to uncover the clues that would lead them through the maze to the exit. Each team was given a flag to wave high if they needed help so that the Maze Master, sitting on a lifeguard-like tower, could steer them through the paths.

I kept thinking about how frequently when we are wandering through life’s mazes, we take the wrong turns, get lost, forget to read the clues, sit down in a pout, get angry, get tired, howl so constantly we can’t hear anyone answer, conclude no one is there to help us, tear up the rules, throw down our emergency flag, stomp on it, sit down in frustration, wail and whine, go into a panic attack, hyperventilate, then turn to despair.

A devious voice on our left shoulder insinuates, You’re never going to get out of here, you know. No one cares about coming to find you, got it? Nothing is going to change. This will never end. What did you think you were doing, taking on a life maze after all? Plenty of people are still lost in here. Never going to hear about them again.

Wait. Wait! Quiet! Whether you know it or not, choose to see it or not, believe it or not, there is a Maze Master who can guide us out of wrong turns, silence ventilation sessions, calm our child-like rebellions and get us safely home before night, which is coming on fast. He’s just a little above the eye-line, but He has not left the field because we are lost. It all depends upon how we choose to read the emergency signs.

If we just look up, we’ll surely see Him. I spy God!
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-058)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 
Liz McFadzean, from La Canada, California, is a practiced God Hunter. She dipped into an ordinary day to find this divine intervention:

“Today is my tennis day. I play every Friday with a couple of friends. On Tuesday I saw my doctor about a little tendonitis in my right thumb. She asked me not to play tennis for a week in order to let it rest. Not to be waylaid in my plans, I whined and said, ‘But I want to play.’ My doctor relented, but strongly recommended that I put ice on it after my game.

“Last night one of my tennis pals cancelled because of a conflict. The other called this morning with a stuffy nose. My Friday game is off! Do you think God did that for me to take care of me when I wouldn’t take care of myself? I am thanking Him today, because my God cares more about my welfare than I do. What a great, kind loving God we have.”

Along with Liz, I spy God!
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-057)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 
Linda Richardson from Wheaton, Illinois, is a speech therapist, specializing in work with autistic children in the public school system. She tells of assisting a new five-year-old student, Wendy, to adjust to the unfamiliar environment of the classroom. How was this to be done since the child was without language? Linda and her colleagues devised a visual schedule that would lead Wendy through her day using pictures and symbols placed strategically on a chart. With this tool, Wendy seemed to settle comfortably into the routine—that is, until her father came to pick her up at the end of the class.

At this time the little girl went into a frantic panic reaction. She kicked and screamed, and it took three adults to carry and place her in the family car. Through years of working with autistic children, Linda has learned to follow the rule: Don’t just do something; stand there. This is the opposite of the natural helping instinct: Don’t just stand there, do something. The quick reaction is often the wrong reaction for children with autism.

What had caused this extreme behavior, and how could the child be helped? The teachers needed to stop, think empathetically, then get inside the child’s mind and emotions.

Linda, a devout Christian, and her professional team of colleagues devised one further symbol to cue the child about the end of class. On the visual schedule they pasted a picture of her father. When he pulled up outside the school to pick up his daughter, Wendy was shown the picture. Not only was there no kicking and screaming, Wendy would cry out, “Papa!” when her father arrived (despite the fact that most children with autism do not greet spontaneously). Then she walked to the car quietly and got in.

The God Hunt helps us become familiar with God’s “face” as He interacts with our everyday world. Once we begin to say to ourselves—“Oh, yes that is the way God is. That is how He acts.”—once He becomes a familiar face, we don’t find ourselves kicking and screaming when we look into the unknown. The Divine Papa is near (He is always near); we don’t need to be afraid.

I spy God!
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-056)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 
Orthopraxy, right living, is as important as and a complement to orthodoxy, right doctrine. Most of the time, it is our heresy regarding our practice that is criticized by outsiders. Orthodoxy, right doctrine, is important mostly to insiders.

How we act is a validation of what we believe, and what we truly believe informs everything we think, do or say. Are you in love with the One who loves you passionately? Do your actions reveal that you believe He loves you and that you return His ardor? Did you practice anything in this day that was proof that you really believe God is love and that He is crazy in love with you?

Are you rushing forth into the days anticipating eagerly the ways you are going to meet, to playfully cry, “Gotcha!”? Or was two weeks ago, or two months ago (whenever you were last in church), the last time you had a concentrated focus on things spiritual, before you stepped outside, and the sermon-sucking black hole that exists somewhere between the front door and the parking lot swooshed all remembrance of worship into its vortex? Truthfully you haven’t looked into the Word since, and you really haven’t thought much about God.

The Barna Research Group has been tracking America’s religious beliefs and practices since 1984, and over that time has given us an alarming picture of the state of the church (or to say it another way, of the state of the Christians who make up the church). Of those who meet the requirements for being classified as born-again, the data confirms there are more than ten million who are unchurched. Now, we can love God without going to church, but we can’t love Him as well. The community of faith is one of the primary places where we have the best opportunities to be confronted with both our orthopraxy of our orthodoxy.

What begins to be even more disturbing is when The Barna Group measures nine religious beliefs that have also been tracked for the past decade. These include the self-reported importance of faith, levels of personal commitment to Christianity and to Jesus Christ, beliefs about God, Satan, and the Bible, and perspectives on eternal salvation. These beliefs dip into some core values of orthodox doctrine and many are disquietingly diluted.

For instance, one of the most disturbing revelations concerns the nature of Christ. Described in Barna’s book. State of the Church 2002. is the large number of born-again, non-evangelicals (measured according to established criteria) who believe that Jesus sinned. One out of five strongly agree that He sinned, an additional one out of eight agreed less vehemently, and 6 percent disagreed somewhat, with 5 percent not sure what to believe. This means that nearly half of the non-evangelical born-again segment, 46 percent, did not strongly disagree with the notion that Christ sinned.

Barna concludes:

America certainly did not experience the spiritual revival that many Christians hoped would emerge as the new millennium began. In fact, Americans seem to have become almost inoculated to spiritual events, to outreach efforts and the quest for personal spiritual development...Our research continues to point out the need for behavioral modeling strategic ministry and a more urgent reliance upon God to change people’s lives.

How are you going to resuscitate or energize your spiritual passion? Going on the God Hunt can restore practical Christianity and help you renew and freshen the reality of the Lover who is always there, waiting to laughingly play. As quickly as any of the spiritual practices that I have used in my life and that have been traditionally undertaken by Christians through the centuries, the God Hunt can restore delight and wonder again to our understanding of a life of faith. It is a much-needed exercise for Christians who seem to be mired in spiritual complacency. It is daily evidence of how much God loves to be with us and of how constantly we are on his mind.

Go on the God Hunt. Match your orthopraxy with your orthodoxy.
 
 
 
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Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-055)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 
Brunelleschi’s Dome, by Ross King, is a fascinating account of one of the great structural engineering feats of the Renaissance. In 1418, Filippo Brunelleschi, a goldsmith and clockmaker, not a master builder, undertook the huge task (28 years’ worth of work) of solving how to raise a dome over Florence’s new cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore. The story of how Brunelleschi contrived to move an estimated 70 pounds of brick, stone and wood scaffolding some hundreds of feet into the air is the story of a genius reinventing the architecture of his time.

During the construction of the dome, in 1420, a manuscript was discovered that told the story of an aqueduct that was built through the mountains above the town of Saldae, Algeria, in A.D. 148. Nonius Datus, a Roman hydraulic engineer, was sent to survey the terrain, draw up cross-sections of the mountain, calculate the axis of the tunnel, then oversee the teams of excavators who began digging opposite each other at different sides. Four years later Nonius was frantically called back. The teams had each committed minor deviations and were not going to meet in the middle as planned. Managing to rectify the errors, Nonius observed that if he had arrived a little later, there would have been two tunnels in the mountain!

At the time, working on the dome in Florence, the discovery of this old record must have caused concern to the eight teams of masons, each constructing a separate wall of the octagonal dome. Since they too were laying brick and mortar on opposite sides, how could they ensure that their work would converge at the top?

“One of the keys to raising the dome,” writes King, “was the precise calculation and measurement of each horizontal layer of brick or stone as it was added in a gradually contracting sequence. But how would these measurements be taken? How could the curvature of the eight individual walls be controlled during the process of construction? The difficulty was made even more acute by the fact that each wall had to incorporate two shells rising in tandem, as well as their supporting ribs. A deviation of only one several inches in one of these ribs—each of which was over one hundred feet in length—meant that the connection, like that at Saldae, would not be achieved.” No one, even today, is quite sure how Brunelleschi succeeded, but the dome has stood in place now for over 500 years and is still the highest in the world at 143 feet in diameter.

The Christian life could be compared to the building of Brunelleschi’s dome or the tunnel at Saldae. A small deviation, taken at some point in the direction of our lives, can result in a yawning cataclysm later on. We become secular Christians without knowing it. Our loyalties are divided, but we will argue hotly if challenged. Christ pegged us well: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men” (Matthew 15:8-9). We are Christians in name, living out a kind of theological schizophrenia.

Sometimes we do not develop the long-term intimacy that allows us to recognize God’s daily intervention in our lives because we are moving away from familiarity, traveling along a trajectory that is hastening us far from the heart of the Father. At other times we have chosen to act in a way that closes us up in a room without a door. Now, all the work of our hands cannot atone for what has been done. It is not in our power to make things right. The divine chase has been abandoned. We are not seeking, only running away.

A plaque hung in my hallway reminds me Vacatus atque not vocatus, Deus aderit. “Bidden or unbidden, God is present.” His nature is not dependent on my acknowledgment of it. His imminence and transcendence do not exist only when I recognize these qualities. I may be going in the wrong direction, but His is always the right way. I may have destroyed my own future, but God is always the perfect past, perfect present and perfect future.

He still desires to restore childlikeness to my battered, aged soul. “Let’s play,” He calls. “Hide-and-seek. Where are you?” He wants me to seek Him in my everyday life.
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-054)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 
As you pursue a spiritual walk—particularly as you look for evidence of God’s presence in your everyday life—sometimes the smallest variable from the plotted route can cause almost immeasurable lostness. So stop. Take a look at the map of your soul. Ask yourself, How did I get to where I am? Where did I make the wrong turn that has brought me to this unintended destination?

Look again at the map of your soul. You didn’t know it, but you have traveled far from where you want to be. You can’t see God working in your days. You hardly think about Him in the resting moments. A slight mistake (ever so slight, almost unnoticeable) in navigation, a detour despite the warnings—DANGER AHEAD—can cause an irreparable error in destination.

We want to be heading home toward God, instead. We want to be running along beside Him, catching up and getting in step, grabbing His hand, holding onto His elbow. He is the loved One and the loving One. He woos, pursues, seeks you out in a crowd, whispers your name with tenderness, over and over, and waits, endlessly it seems, for you to join Him in the delightful activity of seeking and finding.

Yet you can’t play in the backyard, if you are wandering on the wrong side of town. You can’t journey with Him, if you are hitchhiking by the roadside, going the other direction.

God is always here, in this moment, in this now. You are the one who is going to have to figure out where you went wrong, make the decision to backtrack, apologize for keeping Him waiting, and rush into His waiting arms.

This is the journey for every renegade, dilettante, or prodigal who has journeyed into a far country. Come home. The One who loves you is watching the road. He waits for you to exclaim, I spy You, God!
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-053)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 
Alan Jones writes, “Christianity is a love affair beginning with the gasp of astonishment with which all love affairs begin.” Indeed, God has fallen in love with you and can’t wait until you turn your full attention His way.

Unfortunately, most of us do not regularly reciprocate God’s passion. Instead, we behave like the spouse who dutifully makes love (has to be coaxed into it, actually), then rolls over in bed with a sigh that the exercise is finally over and falls asleep.

Most of us have no idea how far away we have been traveling from the heart of God or for how long. The signposts are all telling us we are journeying in the wrong direction. Preoccupied with our own affairs, we just haven’t been paying attention.

Our neglect and unfaithfulness grieves our Lover. Indeed, many Scripture passages record God weeping over a defiled betrothal covenant, a carelessly discarded engagement ring. “Where are you?” He cries throughout history again and again. Look at this reaction to the tragic betrayals in so many Old Testament passages. We see His actions as pronounced judgments on the two-timing Israelites who sneakily cuckolded the Divine Lover, but they are really the wail of a brokenhearted, jilted lover. Even knowing how Judah and Israel deserve all the awful events that occur in their national history because they have gone whoring, God’s soul waxes between longing and rage. Hosea 11:8-9, set within the context of a prophet married to a whore, captures the painful ambiguity:

How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel?
How can I treat you like Admah?
How can I make you like Zeboiim?
My heart is changed within me;
All my compassion is aroused.
I will not carry out my fierce anger,
Nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim;
For I am God and not man—
The Holy One among you.
I will not come in wrath.

With regularity, given this yearning of God for us, we need to ask, “How far have I wandered from this startling passion? Who has abandoned whom? When it comes to infidelity, who has created the triangle? Who is it I really desire? Whose touch do I long for at the end of the day or whose embrace when circumstances are difficult? Whose breath do I wish for at the back of my neck when I am resting? Who do I think of first thing when I wake? Whom do I call on the minute, on the hour? How much joy swells my being when I hear the sound of the Lover’s voice? Do I make a point of disciplining myself to seek Him whenever my mind has a moment of repose? Better yet, is He always, always, at the back of my consciousness?”

If you find that you are the one who is unfaithful in this relationship, perhaps the following prayer, breathed in variations throughout time, will be helpful:

Lord, I want to want you.
Give me the desire.
Fill me, please, with a longing for you
That only you can satisfy.
Amen.

May you know that gasp of astonishment once again. And, when you do, pause and gratefully exclaim, “I spy God!”
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-052)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 
I drove the wrong way to Buffalo. My husband and I had been visiting close friends in the mountains beside the Appalachian Trail above Charlottesville, Virginia. We were on our way to the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, with a stop at the airport in Buffalo, New York, to pick up a couple from New Orleans who were accompanying us on our-much anticipated theatre extravaganza—five plays in three days. Obviously we needed to leave early in order to meet their flight on time, cross the border, drive west across Canada, check into the bed-and-breakfast, and be ready for the performance that evening.

“I’ll drive,” I volunteered, being most alert in the morning. Before we joined the freeway (Route 81 going north toward Buffalo), we stopped for gas and a newspaper. I turned onto the highway, my mind troubled by our recent visit—my dear friend was fighting what was to become a losing battle with cancer—and David settled down in the passenger’s seat, totally absorbed in his reading.

After about half an hour it suddenly hit me: The road signs were all showing that the mileage to Roanoke was decreasing. Roanoke! I don’t want to go to Roanoke. I want to go to Buffalo. “David,” I said, dreading his reaction. “I hate to say this, but I think I’ve been driving in the wrong direction. That last sign said I’m going to Roanoke, Virginia.”

His head popped up from behind the papers and he twisted around as though he could read through the marker we had just passed. “Roanoke! That’s south! We don’t want to go south. We want to go north. You’re supposed to be driving to Buffalo!”

Now, I knew this. He didn’t have to tell me. Neither did he have to remind me of the arrival time of our friends at the airport. Determined to do it right, I pulled off at the next exit, turned around and proceeded to drive the right way to Buffalo. By pushing the pedal, navigating Route 81 in the correct direction, we made it to the airport just a few minutes before the Louisiana flight landed.

Needless to say, if you go one half-hour the wrong way, even with the right intentions, you still have to go back one half-hour pointed in the correct direction until you get where you started. That’s a total of one hour lost in a tight morning of driving!

Literature is filled with stories of people going in the wrong direction. C.S. Lewis tells of arriving as a young student to study at Oxford and not being able to find the campus. Trudging from the train station with his baggage, he kept looking for the ‘fabled’ Cluster of spires and towers’ so many had mentioned before him. After walking awhile, dismayed by the shabbiness of some of the houses he was passing, he realized he was heading for open country, and it was only when he turned and looked back that he could see the majestic towers. They were on the opposite side of town from where he had stopped. He had been going in the wrong direction.

In The Great Divorce, Lewis writes,

“I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A wrong sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good. Time does not heal it.”

In order to get where we want to go, we must point ourselves in the right direction. In order to recognize God working in our everyday lives (every day), we have to remove the activities and reduce the complications that keep us traveling on the wrong roads. In order to know God we must face toward Him. Of course, we won’t see Him if our backs are always turned away from him (unless He hits us on the head with a bat—and sometimes He loves us enough to do so).

As you are journeying through your days, make sure you are not going the wrong way to Buffalo. And if you are, when God shows you the mileage to Roanoke is decreasing, turn around and say a prayer of thanksgiving.

I spy God!
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-051)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 
Because I planted tomatoes (from a nursery greenhouse, not from seed) a month after May 15th, which is the date gardeners mark here in the Chicago area as past the danger of frost, I have plenty of green tomatoes, and I am not sure there will be enough time for them all to ripen.

David and I leave for a ten-day trip overseas in two weeks. September is upon us and even with the slight chance that warm days will continue to October, I am projecting that I may have plenty of green tomatoes still on the vines.

Since I hate waste, I looked up some recipes for green tomatoes. Fried green tomatoes is one, of course, and has been popularized by the book and the film of the same name. My Joy of Gardening Cookbook, however, has some other suggestions as to how to use the not-quite-ripe bounty of tomato vines.

First of all, they can be harvested and stored. “If you don’t want to cook the tomatoes green, ripen them in a warm, dark place,” writes the author. “I put green tomatoes on a shelf in the root cellar and cover with a layer of newspaper. I check just about every day to ‘harvest’ the ripe ones and remove any that are starting to rot.” She also informs me that green tomatoes will not ripen well on a windowsill. The skin turns red but the insides stay green. The only recipes she gives for green tomatoes, apart from these instructions to ripen them, is the one for fried green tomatoes and one for “Andrea’s Green Tomato Chocolate Cake.” Since I am a sad and pathetic baker for the most part, I probably won’t try that last suggestion.

Also, we don’t have a cold cellar. I’ll see, however, if Cirillo will pick whatever green tomatoes are on the vines, store them on the shelves in the dark place in the basement where I keep extra supplies. I have no doubt he will clear away the debris in the vegetable garden before he returns to Oaxaca, Mexico sometime in mid-October.

Maybe when I come home from Europe (and then a side trip to Kenya to consult on our Africa bag project), there will be some bounty from my experimental foray into vegetable gardening that will remind me of the wonder that happens in the growing season right outside my front door.

Actually, as I think about it, nothing is really totally wasted, since everything green goes into compost piles. Sometimes I actually think, We don’t have enough weeds. I don’t have enough greens for the compost mix. Then, I am glad when we fill a wheelbarrow with the weeds I used to hate. I have more places to dump weeds than I have weeds to dump in them—but the month of August with its riot of growth, both planned for and unplanned for, helps.

When a mind is occupied with such necessities—What will we do if we have an abundance of green tomatoes?, or How will we make compost if there are not enough weeds?—there is not much room for mental anxieties. An evening in the garden when the setting sun slants, or an early cool morning of hoeing and transplanting, mostly, being at harmony with the natural world puts us back in a place we humans vacated too long ago and don’t even have the memory of missing. We just know that in some way we are dislocated.

I recommend thoughts about green tomatoes. I recommend soil on the hands. I recommend garden meditation. I am not the only woman in the world who says this is good for the soul.

And, in all of this, I spy God.
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-050)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 
Cirillo, who lives with us, brought home two yellow summer squash from one of the gardens he tends in the estates up the road. So, I spent last evening looking up squash recipes. The challenge of the growing season is that produce must be tended or it will spoil—like the half-bushel of peaches my husband picked up for me at the Wednesday farmer’s market in the nearby town of Winfield.

For the last few summers, I have preserved peaches at the height of their summer flavor. Of all the beautiful fruits in the world, is there anything more beautiful than a ripe peach?
But, this half-bushel of fruit, although beautifully colored, just tasted tart—not the soft smooth sweetness of a perfectly ripe peach that practically melts on the tongue.

I set them aside in the garage, carefully spacing each peach on newspapers, so they would ripen to full perfection, but not spoil their neighbor with any rottenness that might creep into the bunch. Imagine my amazement a couple days later when I went to check out the produce to discover that half the peaches had turned black and fuzzy all on their own. Quickly, I arranged an early-morning salvage effort, dipping what was still usable into hot boiling water, slipping off the skins, then slicing the golden peaches into an orange-juice-and-water bath to keep them from browning up.

Even with this loss, the sliced peaches still tasted tart, so I added some honey, filled a large steel bowl with fresh sliced peaches for the church supper, saved a container for our own use and decided I probably wouldn’t have time to put up peaches this summer given this failed effort, and the fact that it is just now September and they will soon no longer be available in farmers’ markets. Next year I’ll ask for a slice of the peaches I am going to buy.

So, the small gift of two yellow summer squashes sits in the blue and white Talavera bowl on my kitchen counter. It is easy to ignore the small gifts. What are two summer squashes? If I don’t use them soon, they will go to waste. Yes! I will cook them for company dinner tonight. Seeding them, and slicing them and blanching them will capture the summer goodness, then a tomato fennel sauce for a topping—sounds good.

Cirillo will say, “These-those squashes I brought? How you fix these?”

I will use the small gifts he has brought to our table, the excess from someone else’s garden. How easy it is to overlook things carried by hand, the gifts of the land. But, when I pay attention to them, I remember how rare and how sacred the small gifts are. Someone has thought about me in some moment and paid attention to that thought and taken action. This is not trivial. I myself am guilty of neglect. And, since my own squash adventure is turning out to be a failure—not enough sun to grow the large produce—it is a gift given to me that gives me this squashy taste of summer I cannot grow for myself.

I love the principle from Scripture: To those who have little from those who have plenty. “All the believers were of one heart and mind, and they felt that what they owned was not their own; they shared everything they had. ... There was no poverty among them, because people who owned land or houses sold them and brought the money to the apostles to give to others in need.” Acts 3:32, 34.

I need to ask more frequently of myself, Where is the bounty in my life that I can share? On second thought, Cirillo lives in a room in our basement. He lives rent-free and we are his family while he is away from his own in Oaxaca, Mexico. That is not exactly a small thing, but we have room enough, and it requires nothing of us to share.

Small gifts left in the blue-and-white bowl on the counter (a small gift of thanks) must be noticed, prepared with care. Gratitude must be expressed. We do not recognize it often enough, but God is in these exchanges. And now that I have thought about it, I will say, “Oh, Cirillo, thank you for the yellow summer squash.”

God is here. I spy Him.
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-049)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 
To friends who admire the garden (not the vegetable garden, which is too new and experimental, but the perennial gardens both in the back and in the front), I find myself saying:

“Yes, after 30 years of a thousand false starts.” Suddenly, it seems as though the plants are saying to one another—Hey, buddy! Here’s a good place to grow. You’ll like it here. Most everyone puts out. The lady waters us pretty regularly. Birds fly by, dropping seeds and shells. A family of chipmunks scurries. We have friends. God is blessing the ground (even with its clay bed). I think you’d better try us out.

After years (decades) of killing more plants than I encouraged to life, after weeks of summer travel/speaking where my transplants faded and died from lack of attention, I finally began to plant where the green things grew and flourished, rather than insisting that I would like a pink blooming flowering plant here no matter how much sun it did not receive. I wept tears of frustration and just decided that flowers were a byproduct; I would have to learn to love shade gardening. I would have to learn to allow plants to stay where they were happy.

A gardening friend taught me a great lesson: Plant by leaf contrast and color variation. So I did. A spiky plant (shade-tolerant) would become neighbor to a round leaf plant. I discovered the variants of green—smoky grey-blue green, bright cerise green, etc., etc.

Now I positively swear that the plants wave at me as I pass by. Hey, lady! Looka us! Looka us! Don’ we look good together—him and me. We’ve become great friends. Like your yard, lady. Great place for the little seedlings too.

I know that it takes a good three years for the perennials to put their roots deeply down in order to grow lush verdant leaves (and sometimes even flowers!). I know finally that clay in the soil is not all bad (though I will never stop digging in kitchen garbage, throwing pulled weeds in the compost, and turning over the mulch in my effort to cut the impermeability of the clay bed beneath the topsoil). Finally, I understand that clay holds the moisture longer than friable loam; it also gloms onto nutrients.

My patient learning process is now paying off. I cannot keep up with reproduction: the Canadian ginger, the anemone (windflower), the ligularia, the filipendula, the monarda, or the Artemisia lactiflora. I have divided and transplanted them all over the yard. I am beginning to give divisions to friends, and I am in the enviable position of needing to hold an end-of-the-year “last chance to plant” sale.

How did this happen? I guess I just did not give up.

The morning light slanting from the east is beautiful in my garden, and the late summer sunset casts magical shadows of contrasting hues. The birds (and the squirrels and the chipmunks) satisfy themselves at the birdfeeders. I can hear the gathering songs as chickadees, nuthatches, yellow goldfinches and cardinals fly from branch to branch in the treetops.

We are at peace here—even with my novitiate vegetable garden attempting valiantly to grow as it is coded to do ... without sun.

This is called amity, garden geniality; this harmony, for however long or short it lasts, is a sign of God’s favor, of His presence, of the exterior formulation of His invisible being. All the Old Testament prophets knew that a sign of the Almighty’s blessing resulted in verdure, in abundance.

Haggai reminds the people of Israel that when they disobey and do not walk in God’s ways, there is blight on the land. But, when they return to Him, a sign of His approval and blessing is full barns, ripe and plentiful harvest, and God’s favor. The people began to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem (which they had neglected to do) and when just the foundation was laid, Haggai speaks forth this word from God: “I am giving you a promise now while the seed is still in the barn (before sowing), before you have harvested your grain, and before the grapevine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have produced their crops. From this day onward, I will bless you.” Haggai 2:19.

The world in my yard on Hawthorne Lane, West Chicago, for this moment, is good; it mediates between the noisy abundance of the created thing and the sublime silence of the Creator. There is a whisper of His blessing in the breeze, in the harmony of the growing things, in the small creatures that visit us, and among the people who live here or who stay awhile to visit.

I spy God!
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-048)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 
The cucumber vines, which I planted by the edge of the driveway, between alternating ever-blooming rosebushes, have produced just enough cucumbers to slice for salads or make into cold yogurt soup.

“Did those grow in the garden?” asks Cirillo, the Mexican man who lives in our basement and works on the estates on the other side of Indian Trail Road. On those acreages, there are enough sun-dazzled places that don’t lie beneath the constant shadow of overhanging tree limbs. Those vegetable gardens are prolific.

Cirillo felt that I planted the corn seeds too close together in the raised bed. “Farther apart,” he says, and measures the space between his hands.

Cirillo lives with us and I can’t afford to pay him what he needs to earn in order to keep his family together in Oaxaca for the rest of the year. Because he lives with us rent-free, however, he puts in an hour or 90 minutes when he can. He is such a great worker that an hour of his time is worth three hours of the labor of a lesser man.

Nor do we have enough common language for me to explain that I didn’t expect to get a whole lot of produce this first year (particularly since we planted so late), but that I am just experimenting, getting an idea of what will grow (cucumbers hugging the sunny edge of the garden by the driveway, for instance; small to medium-sized tomatoes; beans of all kinds, certainly). I keep construing what the produce in my garden might have been had I been able to plant everything by mid-May.

“You got those beans from this garden?” he asks, insinuating surprise. I have a rather smallish plastic storage-bag full—enough for a side for one meal.

“Yes, Cirillo,” I reply with some satisfaction. “And, the Swiss chard, the yellow beans (which taste just great served in a butter/garlic sauce), and the sorrel (which I chop into salads).”

Cirillo grunts as though to say, “Fancy that. And, in all that shade.”

It seems as though I picked all the cukes four days ago, and this morning there were five more ready to be plucked from the earth. We have a company dinner planned for tomorrow night; I think I will make cold cucumber soup for it this evening.

Cold Cucumber Soup Recipe

Combine 4 cups finely chopped or grated peeled cucumbers
with 2 cups yogurt, 2 cups water, 2 minced garlic cloves,
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin, and 1 teaspoon salt.
Ladle the soup into individual bowls and place 2 ice cubes in each bowl
(with a frozen sprig of mint or parsley) as a garnish.
Serve immediately.

Gardening forces the gardener to consider the goodness of the earth—that is rarely a feeling I get in grocery-store aisles. Here is cause for awe. I hold it in my hand—green and long with a pale underbelly, slightly weighty in my palm. Here is elation, exaltation, ecstasy, transport, exhilaration, here in this slight Cucumis sativus.

“From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature.” –Romans 1:20 NLT

Next year we’ll try a trellis. Next year we’ll plan to put up pickles. But for now, this first year of vegetable gardening, we’ll spy His handiwork and just enjoy the work of God.
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-047)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 
Because it took a month to build four wooden raised garden boxes, and because it then took the whole of that month to also plan and plant our first vegetable garden ever, I didn’t get seeds and transplants actually in the ground until 30 days after the last frost date here in Chicago, May 15th.

Needless to say, given all this (factoring in also the reality that the yard only has hours of sun here and there—not the minimal requisite six full hours per day), the flowers on the squash plants have bloomed exceedingly slowly. This has been disappointing because I really, really wanted summer squash and decorative gourds and an overabundance of zucchini.

But what has been remarkable is that due to slowness, I have been able to closely observe the unfolding of squash blossoms into small, hard shapes that, given another month of growth and a few more hours of sun per day, would have become full-grown hard-shell vegetables. This observation is cause for rapture in me. Even with the languorous rate of growth and the end-of-summer vines beginning to brown and crumble, and with the fact that I probably will not harvest produce, I am breathless at the process.

Is this really how the squash shell forms? Do you mean that the end of the flower nearest to the stem becomes a hard rind that fills tasty squash meat? What a wonder!

If the garden had popped out and rushed to produce, I might just have noticed a finished squash—white or golden or green—and been thrilled by my find. But, I wouldn’t have had the chance to observe the exquisite pattern built into the genetic code of the Cucurbita family—the pepos (pumpkins, summer and winter squash, gourds and ornamental squash), the maximas (Atlantic Giants, Baby Blue Hubbards, butternut squashes, Turk’s Turban ornamentals), the moschatas (Golden Cushaw pumpkins, butternut squash) and the mixtas (everything else!).

The list of offspring from this genus is mind-boggling and unless I can find a friendly nearby neighbor with a large unused space in their yard that has constant sun, I will probably not attempt to grow summer squash again.

But this year, I have watched the slow unfolding of the butternut squash’s flowers, and I have stood amazed by the creative mentality of the One who set the vining, twining, stretching, looping actuality of squash into being.

Abraham Kuyper, the great Dutch statesman and theologian, wrote in his devotional book To Be Near Unto God,

“Even in nature everything is for the sake of religion, to reveal to you the glorious presence of God, and to bring you the warm, fostering sense, that in all this life of nature the living, Almighty God is round about and with you, in order to fill you with the sublime impression of His Almightiness, His Divinity, and His Majesty.”

I spy God! Lift your hands, fall to your knees, and give praise.
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-046)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 
I will be in Africa this October. One of the ways we cut costs on the Africa bags made by the bag-makers who belong to the Global Bag Project, is we “mule” the bags back.

We are a charitable organization. The sales are donations; we give a receipt for funds above the raw costs. Our travel is for humanitarian purposes, so we can take advantage of certain airlines’ generosity and bring back more than the allotted suitcases without extra fees. (Do you have a trip planned to Kenya? Can you bring back an extra duffel with kanga-cloth reusable shopping bags?)

In contrast to our “muling,” one box with 50 bags can cost us over $300 to ship!

Because of all this, I was eager for bags to be ready so I could carry them home for the parties we mount for pre-Christmas sales. However, due to the work our volunteer staff has been doing on the Internet optimization plan, (and our ineffective “National Watermelon Day”), we have not had much time to launch parties. Nor did we have the requisite funds to order new bags (which also means that our seamstresses did not have work). We need $500 to order 50 bags. This is just to buy fabric.

I prayed, Lord, do you think you could provide $1,000 so we could wire money to Kenya and begin to start the bag-making process up again? Carla Boelkens, our Stateside Director had not been paid. Mary Ogalo, our GBP Kenya Project Coordinator, had not been paid, and I had haunting visions of sewing machines standing idle with families going hungry.

“Do you know what,” said Carla. “We have an account for designated gifts that we don’t need right now. It has about $1,400 in it. Can we write a check from that fund and pay it back?”

We decided to borrow $1,000 from that fund (to be paid back by the end of the fiscal year) and begin the process so I could mule kanga-cloth bags back from Africa when I return in mid-October.

Then we sold an unexpected $300 of bags at the backyard party and an unexpected $500 of bags in West Lafayette, IN (and, oh, I forgot—we sold some $500 worth of bags at our 50th Wedding Anniversary Celebration). It was as though God was saying to me, It’s all right. You are not slipping into the “rob Peter to pay Paul” mode. You’re just a little cash poor. Trust me. I will provide all your needs.

One of the ways we teach people to spy God intervening in their every day is in the category: “Help to do God’s work in the world.”

As long as I am faithful in my prayers (and sometimes when I am not), God is ready to help me do His work. A small kindness, an simple conversation, an empty room readied for a houseguest. These all often work more goodness than any of us suspect or know. Money sitting idle.

I spy God.
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-045)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 
Part of the recommendation from Pathmaker Marketing, my son’s Internet marketing group, was to choose special days as marketing initiatives for the Africa bags we sell through the Global Bag Project. His suggested list included:

- May 25—National Wine Day. (Promote wine bags with custom logos.)

- June 5— World Environment Day (Suggestion: Go green when shopping with our reusable Africa bags).

- June 18 – International Picnic Day (You can take all the fixings in our artisan made Africa bags.)

- July 4 – Independence Day (Gain independence from a dirty planet.)

- August 3 – National Watermelon Day (Africa bags are big enough to hold one.)

- Thanksgiving

- Christmas

So, in our weekly Tuesday 11 o’clock Global Bag Project staff meeting (two volunteers and one part-time worker who is paid for one day a week of work), we decided that we would try mounting a “National Watermelon Day” here in our large office complex this past August 3rd.
 

 
We can’t say this was a rousing success, even though we advertised slices of watermelon and iced tea for any who dropped by the Bag Project Office. We e-mailed everyone in the LaGrou building, offered a free watermelon for the first 10 visitors, and put baskets with a watermelon and a sign at each entrance.

The breakdown was this: We spent $187, sold one clutch bag for $5, one canvas for $15, 3 large kanga-cloth bags for $35 each for a total of $125. That meant we were $62 in the deficit.

However, we had some interesting visitors—five in all—took photos of some of them with our bags, which we need for our Internet push, and had plenty of leftover watermelon to serve guests, small groups, and coming dinner parties.

Even though this did not do what we wanted it to do (sell bags), it is still a great idea!

Sometimes even our best of efforts don’t turn out. That doesn’t mean we give up. Instead we refine, and try again. God doesn’t give up on us when we don’t “turn out.” He sees what we really are (a GREAT idea), gives us chance after chance, continues to refine us, and keeps on trying again.

I’ll let you know when and how the “National Watermelon Day” idea works with the next iteration.

I spy God! For even in disappointing events, God is present.
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-044)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 
As I have been writing this week, I’ve been seriously praying (and fasting) once a week for our Global Bag Project in Nairobi, Kenya. There a handful of African women are sewing artisan reusable shopping bags, which we are attempting to market and sell in the States.

Mary Ogalo, Project Coordinator of Global Bag Project Kenya, has a vision to employ some 1,000 women. There is no shortage of women-power, mothers who are desperate to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. The tagline for the Global Bag Project is: Buy a Bag. Feed a Family. Preserve the Planet. In just these few words, our mission is made clear.

Until website sales kick in, we are dependent upon friends and colleagues to hold small home or office parties and help us find markets for these beautiful products, cloth bags made out of East Africa indigenous fabric, the kanga cloth.

In case you’re wondering if these bags are actually well made, two nights ago, a woman came to me and said, “I teach domestic arts at the local college. These bags are beautifully constructed. I’m impressed.”—There you are!

Last month we received an e-vite to a summer backyard party thrown yearly by some friends. A companion phone call from the husband said,” We would like to have a small table for the Global Bag Project. Would you mind setting the table up in our garage?”

So, at an intimate backyard part for neighbors, work colleagues, and friends, without any presentation, we sold about $400 worth of bags! The Africa bags are beautifully made and, given half a chance, sell themselves.

This, however, has made me think of all the people who have stepped forward, never having met our work colleagues in the slums of Nairobi, to help these women help themselves.

The church I spoke at this week is thinking of holding a November meeting with the women’s ministry and presenting the Global Bag Project.

A church in Wheaton, Wheaton Bible Church, has ordered 50 medium-sized bags for a women’s retreat. A church in Vancouver has taken GBP on as a standing ministry and has sold dozens of bags. A college gal from that church took the bags onto her campus and sent us a surprisingly large check from those sales. One woman bought bags to give as gifts to friends; this was a memorial to her sister who died from cancer.

Countless people have held parties in their homes. Individuals have given gifts to buy the dual- power, commercial-grade sewing machines GBP provides for women who have passed their training and need a home machine in order to continue.

All this makes me think of the quote from the anthropologist Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

God works through exceptional AND ordinary individuals. But He really, really loves to work through exceptional AND ordinary groups of people.

I spy God!
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-043)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
 
 
 
Most small-business startups die because they don’t have enough capitalization. I understand this personally, as we struggle to grow the Global Bag Project. Very simply, we don’t have enough money to do what we would like to do. And, we are at that awkward stage where we are still so immature as an organization that we can’t go after money to help us make money.

Imagine my surprise and relief when we were approached by a small foundation that exists to fill this exact gap—helping new startup charities get beyond their first big blockade. “What is it you need to do next that will help you grow?” they asked us.

Our answer was obvious: “We need to optimize the Internet to drive bag sales to and through our website.” We have some website traffic, but this is mostly our friends and acquaintances who are checking us out. We would like to do at least $1,000 a month in online sales, but there is a whole Internet science that exists to help us do that.

So—a $300 loan per month was given toward this goal. Several donors matched part of this loan and my son, Randall, who owns a new Internet marketing group that also works with 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations, made the total sum stretch as far as possible, using overseas staff, cutting his fee, and choosing four major areas in which they would all work.

“This is not going to happen fast, Mom,” my son explained. “Big companies have big money to throw behind this process. It will probably be as much as seven months or so before we see any results. We’re kind of putt-putting along at 30 miles per hour toward our goal.”

After conducting a strategic keyword search that yielded intensive results—pages and pages—we decided that the niche that would give us the most real estate on the Internet was the term, “Africa bags.” Consequently, these blogs I am writing are filled with that term. I’ve done this so the major search engines like Google and Bing will pick up that term and boost our presence on the first pages for people who are searching for Africa bags.

As of now, because of Randall’s team, the loan from the Alive & Well Foundation, and the help of a handful of donors, the Global Bag Project is now on the first page of Google for anyone searching for Africa bags, and on the first page of Yahoo and Bing for anyone searching for Africa reusable bags.

This loan came to us from out of the blue. Randall Mains has become a master at navigating Internet optimization. Not only are we taking over first pages through the search-engine process, Ma. Gladys P. Njudne in the Philippines has become our account manager and is placing us on the top 100 Local Internet Listings Directories, is project directing for the monthly Global Bag Project e-newsletter, and holding us all deadline accountable. She is also researching which online marketplaces would be best to feature our reusable Africa bag product line.

I spy God. This is all way beyond my ken or capabilities. I am grateful for His help to help us help women help themselves!
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, "Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains." In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags: Africa bags. This microfinance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. The are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-042)