Dear Family and Friends,

When I retired from the church, I made a promise to God and myself – that I would write two books. The first book would be to young pastors, which I did. The second would be about following Christ, meant for all others.

Well, after much thought, consultations with friends, and prayers, I decided to not publish that second book.

Instead of releasing a book, I am pleased to announce the launch of my website – pastordale.church.

(A special thanks to Pastor Alex Cheng for making this possible.) 

You will continue to receive these email devotionals, but now all the devotionals I’ve written to date are available for your perusal.

When I restarted writing two years ago, very few folks were going to church. Friends asked me to teach God’s word, to fill a gap not being met by churches.

But now we are in a new season. The pandemic is over and many are returning to church.

A wise king once wrote: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”  Ecclesiastes 3:1 KJV

As such, I have a second announcement.

After much thought and prayer, the purpose behind my devotionals will subtly change. My hope is to spend more time on Living Life with Jesus.

That was the purpose behind the short emails sent in my years at the church, and this will be my purpose for now.

Oh, and you may occasionally see stories from my old church emails, freshened up of course, like today’s message below.

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A few years ago, before our granddaughter was born, Aileen and I traveled to Los Angeles to spend time with our three year old grandson.

We had not seen him in half a year. So when our daughter picked us up at the airport, my heart melted as he greeted me with a huge smile and Hi Papa!

It was sweet. But not nearly as sweet as what would happen a few minutes later.

As we headed home, Luke was preoccupied with today’s baby sitter of choice for young parents – The iPad.

Meanwhile, as I sat with him in the backseat, I couldn’t take my eyes off of him, and think of how quickly they grow up. Our grand baby was now a little boy.

And then the unexpected happened. As we sped down the freeway, he stopped, looked up at me with his big brown eyes, and said, “I love you Papa.” 

Oh that made my week, no that made my whole month!

I still can’t stop thinking about the moment. It’s been burned into my permanent memory. It’s hard to adequately describe the rush of emotions that shot through me. The joy was so great I almost wept.

Later, in the quiet of the evening, I thought to myself, this must be how God feels when we tell Him that we love Him.

He loves us so much that He gave us free will. We can choose to love Him, or reject Him. We can choose to tell Him how we feel about Him, or focus just on ourselves – our needs, and our desires.

And we can choose to stop for a moment and simply tell God that we love Him – with all our heart, soul and strength. (From Deuteronomy 6:5 NIV)

Go on, do it, make His day. It won’t take long plus you’ll feel good inside.

Allow me to close by sharing why telling God we love Him is so worthwhile:

You will melt God’s heart and leave a huge smile on His face!

In love always,