I’ve always wanted to play the piano. Except I’m tone deaf. And have never had lessons.
I’d love to be fit and strong. Except I hate weight training.
I’d love to speak French fluently. Or Russian. Or even Greek. Only I’ve never taken a class, purchased a foreign-to-American dictionary, or any language learning software.
But to learn through osmosis while nibbling on tootsie rolls dipped in peanut butter, while 
nestled in the corner of my couch with my favorite quilt and novel … ah, that I could do!
Obviously, wishful thinking won’t get us far, whether our goals are concrete, like losing weight or mastering a new skill, or … far more profound and eternal, such as becoming more like Christ.
It was sometime between 63-65 AD, the cruel and tyrannical Nero had been in power for ten years. Recently released from prison, Paul, the great evangelist, left one of his dearest companions, a young man named Timothy, to oversee a church in crisis.
Affronted by opposition within the church and persecution outside of it, there had to be times when Timothy wanted to simply skirt by. To spend his days at home, hiding away, and let the world around him come undone.
Perhaps you can relate?
I imagine he felt quite ill-equipped for the task at hand, but notice, God never expects perfection. He knows we’ll never be superhero Christians (this side of heaven). He does, however, expect us to obey, and to keep moving forward.
2 Timothy 6:11 says, “But you, Timothy, are a man of God; so run from all these evil things. Pursue righteousness and a godly life, along with faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness” (NLT).
Paul wasn’t saying, “Keep going to church and reading your Bible, praying as you have time or happen to think to do so, until your heart and thoughts begin to change–though those are great disciplines that surely lead us in that direction. Paul’s instructions 
were much stronger and indicated a more determined intention. Diōkō, the Greek word translated as pursue, means to “seek after something aggressively, like a hunter pursuing a catch (or prize).” It has the connotation of going after something with “all haste.”
I’ve never been a hunter, and certainly not a first century one, but I have gone hungry, and I know how focused I can become when my stomach starts to cramp.
What if I pursued righteousness with that same, hungry focus? What if I was intentional in regard to my growth. In regard to living as God desires and learning to better reflect Him.
This focus would permeate every part of my day–would impact how I organize my day. My growth would not be an afterthought, something that happens as I casually continue in my Christian walk, but rather, it would be my driving goal for every action and interaction.
I have a feeling, the results would be exponential.
I was born and reared in a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That’s me at the far right sporting a coat my mother had made on her treadle sewing machine. I’m not sure why I was crying, but I’m sure it was because my brother had committed some horrid infraction against me. Shortly before I reached the ripe old age of eighteen, I moved to Kansas and have been here ever since. During those many years that followed, I lived in Junction City and then our family moved to Topeka. After twenty years in Topeka, I recently moved to the Kansas City area to be close to my adult children and granddaughter. I know many of you can relate to the upheaval created by such a move. I still feel like I’m a visitor in someone else’s house. I’m doing my best to make it my own, but it’s going to take some time. I count myself fortunate I’ve found a church that I believe is going to prove a wonderful fit for me, and I can now navigate my way to the grocery store without getting lost. So, I figure I’m on my way to adjusting, right?
While working on our co-authored projects, I also began my solo career for Bethany House and wrote the Freedom’s Path series set in western Kansas which was based upon the settling of an “all colored” town named Nicodemus. The broadside at the left was used to lure unsuspecting freed slaves to a town that didn’t exist.
Unless you’ve living in total isolation for the past few years, you’ve probably heard of the Disney movie Frozen and the hit song that came from the move entitled, “Let It Go”.
And the blurb for Missing:
author Susan Sleeman’s riveting romantic suspense novel.
r must be involved in a wildlife trafficking ring—until someone tries to kill her. Now with Gemma Rollins’s life on the line, it’s clear that more than the wildcats need his help. Gemma’s determined to rebuild the tiger oasis she lost when her family died. But someone wants her out of the way, and she’s starting to wonder if her parents’ and uncle’s deaths were really accidental. Grayson says he’ll do anything to protect Gemma, but she can’t shake the feeling that her alluring new volunteer might not be all that he seems. With a vicious criminal closing in, though, she has to trust Grayson…because she won’t survive without him.
