What God Will Do by Marcia Lee Laycock

When I read the prompt for this month, asking what ministry opportunities God has provided through my writing, I immediately thought of all the blessings I have seen and heard about over the years because of my small column in a local newspaper.

When my husband took on the senior pastor’s position in his first church one of the things he had to do was write a weekly article for the newspaper. It was due the day after we arrived in the community. Already a bit overwhelmed with his other responsibilities, he asked if I could do it. That was the beginning of my faith column, The Spur. The column ran for about eighteen years and is now still running in a coffee news flyer that is distributed all over the province and beyond.

The title seemed fitting since we were now living in the middle of cowboy country and the verse from which it was taken was also appropriate – “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.” I had no idea, when I chose that verse and that title, how much God was going to do just that.

Since my photo was usually published with the column, people would often stop me on the streets of that small town and talk about what I had written that week. Sometimes they just said thank you. Sometimes they asked for prayer. Sometimes there were tears. Emails arrived in my inbox from all over the province and beyond. I was often awe-struck by how God had used the words I had written to help, to heal, to draw people closer to Himself.

And then they started asking me to put the column into book form. Hesitant at first, when I finally gave in I was again amazed at how far that little book travelled. I received emails from as far away as India and England and was asked by a man in South America if he could translate it into Spanish and give it away to the believers there. At a speaking event a woman rushed to tell me that she had given The Spur of the Moment to her neighbour, a woman she had witnessed to for years. “She called to tell me she had read the book from cover to cover and gave her life to Jesus!”

My other books, too, have used by God. After reading One Smooth Stone a young woman called her mother to tell her that “I know now that in spite of everything, God really does still love me.”

It just doesn’t get any better than that.

The verse often comes to mind that “God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8). And Ephesians 3:20 – “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” 
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Marcia Lee Laycock writes from central Alberta Canada where she is a pastor's wife and mother of three adult daughters. She was the winner of The Best New Canadian Christian Author Award for her novel, One Smooth Stone. The sequel, A Tumbled Stone was short listed in The Word Awards. Marcia also has three devotional books in print and has contributed to several anthologies, including the Hot Apple Cider books. Her work has been endorsed by Sigmund Brouwer, Janette Oke, Phil Callaway and Mark Buchanan.

Abundant Rain, an ebook devotional for writers can be downloaded on Smashwords or on Amazon. It is also now available in Journal format on Amazon. 

Her most recent release is A Traveler’s Advisory, Stories of God’s Grace Along the Way.

Visit Marcia’s Website

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Sluggish Systems - Marcia Laycock

This is a recent edition of my column, The Spur

I had a friend over recently to have a look at my computer because I was having a few annoying problems - nothing that shuts everything down, but annoying things that get in the way of it being able to function the way it should. The whole system was kind of sluggish. Shawn checked for adware and spyware and began to clean things up. He often mumbled, "hmmm... lots of pollution here."

The programs he installed will help to keep that pollution to a minimum and make my system run more efficiently.Our lives are a lot like that - we get polluted by our own sin, the distractions of the world, etc. etc. You've heard it all before. But do we do anything about it? How often do we do a 'virus check' or run spybot on our lives? What have we installed that will help our ‘systems’ run more efficiently? The more often we do it - the more often we take the steps we need to get rid of the junk in our lives - the closer communion we will have with the Lord.

My husband preached a great sermon on Sunday that relates to this. Okay, I'm biased, but it really was.(If you’d like to hear it click here). Sometimes it astounds me how things that we have known since becoming a Christian can suddenly hit you between the eyes and you have an 'epiphany' so to speak. This was one for me - that we can have a relationship with Jesus that is the same as the relationship he has with his Father!! Astounding! Profound! And true.

Look at John 10:14,15 – “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me – just as the Father knows me and I know the Father …”I so look forward to the day when we will be in his presence, face to face, and all the pollution will be gone. But for now we are able to move toward that kind of communion. The challenge is to get all the inhibitors out of the way so that the communion will be whole and clear.

My friend Shawn warned me that the programs he installed on my computer would help but not completely cure the problems. "None of them will catch everything," he said, "but each one has its strengths." It's a combined effort. Kind of like the combined effort of praying, reading the word, attending church, teaching Sunday School, reaching out to our friends and families, writing the words God gives us to glorify Him. Put all of those together and it's a pretty powerful program that leads to communication.

I think maybe it's time I started using the programs God has built into my life to help me reach that place of communion with Him. Some of them have been sitting idle for a while and things have gotten a little sluggish.

Blessings to you all as you strive toward that place of whole, pure, delightful communion with our Father.