Archives by: Gary Hoag

Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away. Genesis 5:24

“Nobody is wholly satisfied with himself. Our lives are made up of lights and shadows, of some good days and many unsatisfactory days. We have learned that the good days and hours come when we are very close to Christ, and that the poor days come whenever we push Him out of our thoughts. Clearly, then, the way to a more consistent high level is to take Him into everything we do or say or think.

Experience has told us that good resolutions are not enough. We need to discipline our lives to an ordered regime. The ‘Game with Minutes’ is a rather lighthearted name for such a regime in the realm of the spirit. Many of us have found it to be enormously helpful. It is a new name for something as old as Enoch, who ‘walked with God.’ It is a way of living which nearly everybody knows and nearly everybody had ignored. Students will at once recognize it as a fresh approach to Brother Lawrence’s ‘Practicing the Presence of God.’

We call this a ‘game’ because it is a delightful experience and an exhilarating spiritual exercise; but we soon discover that it is far more than a game. Perhaps a better name for it would be ‘an exploratory expedition,’ because it opens out into what seems at first like a beautiful garden; then the garden widens into a country; and at last we realize that we are exploring a new world. This may sound like poetry, but it is not overstating what experience has shown us.

Some people have compared it to getting out of a dark prison and beginning to LIVE. We still see the same world, yet it is not the same, for it has a new glorious color and a far deeper meaning. Thank God, this adventure is free for everybody, rich or poor, wise or ignorant, famous or unknown, with a good past or a bad — ‘Whosoever will, may come.’ The greatest thing in the world is for everybody!”

Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “How We Win The Game With Minutes.”

I got to attend the Colorado Prayer Luncheon yesterday. It was a huge gathering that included the governor, the mayor, and many familiar faces.

I sat at the table of a patriarch who like Enoch has “walked faithfully with God.” He is still with us because God still does great work through him.

What I appreciate most about this brother who will remain unnamed is what he says whenever we meet up. “I just want to be found faithful” or something like that.

Life it a “game” for him. It’s exhilarating and he enjoys every minute. He’s a keen businessman who does deals to generate resources to expand God’s kingdom.

Why cite his example today? Think about someone you know who has shown you how to really LIVE, someone who plays this game with minutes focused only on faithfulness.

Thank them for their influence in your life. Thank them for their example and commitment. Thank them for helping you win the game with minutes while you still have time.

And He said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:3

“How can a man or woman take this course with Christ today? The answer is so simple a child can understand it. Indeed unless we ‘turn and become like children’’ we shall not succeed.

1. We have a study hour. We read and reread the life of Jesus recorded in the Gospels thoughtfully and prayerfully at least an hour a day. We find fresh ways and new translations, so that this reading will never be dull, but always stimulating and inspiring. Thus we walk with Jesus through Galilee by walking with Him through the pages of His earthly history.

2. We make Him our inseparable chum. We try to call Him to mind at least one second of each minute. We do not need to forget other things nor stop our work, but we invite Him to share everything we do or say or think. Hundreds of people have experimented until they have found ways to let Him share every minute that they are awake. In fact, it is no harder to learn this new habit than to learn the touch system in typing, and in time one can win a high percentage of his minutes with as little effort as an expert needs to write a letter.

While these two practices take all our time, yet they do not take it away from any good enterprise. They take Christ into that enterprise and make more result full. They also keep a man’s religion steady. If the temperature of a sick man rises and falls daily the doctor regards him as seriously ill. This is the case with religion. Not spiritual chills and fevers, but an abiding faith which gently presses the will toward Christ all day, is a sign of a healthy religion.

Practicing the presence of God is not on trial. It has already been proven by countless thousands of people. Indeed, the spiritual giants of all ages have known it. Christians who do it today become more fervent and beautiful and are tireless witnesses.”

Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “Christ Is The Only Hope Of The World.”

I enjoyed the better part of an hour in the play area at Chick-Fil-A on Monday evening with my wife and two granddaughters. We played peek-a-boo, watched them climb and slide, and had a blast.

They learned to turn wheels, flip spinners, and navigate tunnels. After gaining confidence, their faces said they wanted to do it again and again.

I pondered how this might relate to God’s kingdom.

God wants us to enter the proverbial play area with Him for an hour a day. If we give Him an hour, we will actually not lose but gain. We will find ourselves enriched and experience joy.

As little Ellie, our one-year-old granddaughter was getting tired, she hugged Jenni like her inseparable chum. It was sweet.

God wants us to spend time with Him, to study and learn. He wants to be our inseparable chum with whom we share everything. We don’t lose when we do this, we gain.

The hour I spend reading and doing my daily office every day is not loss but like time in the play area. To practice the presence of God is to find the fountain of life and joy.

The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to Him all they had done and taught. Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” Mark 6:30-31

‘Disillusioned by all our other efforts, we now see that the only hope left for the human race is to become like Christ.’ That is the statement of a famous scientist, and is being repeated among ever more educators, statesmen, and philosophers.

Yet Christ has not saved the world from its present terrifying dilemma. The reason is obvious: few people are getting enough of Christ to save either themselves or the world. Take the United States, for example. Only a third of the population belongs to a Christian church. Less than half of this third attend service regularly. Preachers speak about Christ in perhaps one service in four—thirty minutes a month! Good sermons, many of them excellent, but too infrequent in presenting Christ.

Less than ten minutes a week given to thinking about Christ by one-sixth of the people is not saving our country or our world; for selfishness, greed, and hate are getting a thousand times that much thought. What a nation thinks about, that it is.

We shall not become like Christ until we give Him more time. A teachers’ college requires students to attend classes for twenty-five hours a week for three years. Could it prepare competent teachers or a law school prepare competent lawyers if they studied only ten minutes a week? Neither can Christ, and He never pretended that He could. To His disciples He said: ‘Come with me, walk with me, talk and listen to me, work and rest with me, eat and sleep with me, twenty-four hours a day for three years.’ That was their college course—‘He chose them,’ the Bible says, ‘that they might be with Him,’ 168 hours a week!”

Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “Christ Is The Only Hope Of The World.”

I posted this today for instructional purposes.

Having returned from a very rigorous trip to Poland and Ukraine, people might say, “Get some rest.” Actually many have. But no one said, “Spend some time with Jesus.”

Let that be our practice after a busy season and our exhortation to others.

Think about it. The disciples communicated their trip report, much like I communicate a trip report that shows faithful activities and celebrates fruits from God.

And to find restoration, Jesus wanted time with them in solitude.

That’s my priority the next two weeks. Time with Jesus before my next ministry related travel to four cities in Colombia to celebrate the launching of the new peer accountability group there.

Sure I am helping launch 6 cohorts with 485 stewards this week. And, I will speak at the International Consultation on Enterprise Risk Management. Also, I have a board meeting on Thursday.

All those things will happen. But my priority is solitude with Jesus. Give Him more time. Let that be your generosity this week and see what happens.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

“In school a teacher lays out work for his pupils. I resolve to accept each situation of this year as God’s layout for that hour, and never to lament that it is a very commonplace or disappointing task. One can pour something divine into every situation. One of the mental characteristics against which I have rebelled most is the frequency of my “blank spells” when I cannot think of anything worth writing, and sometimes cannot remember names. Henceforth I resolve to regard these as God’s signal that I am to stop and listen. Sometimes you want to talk to your son, and sometimes you want to hold him tight in silence. God is that way with us, He wants to hold still with us in silence.

Here is something we can share with all of the people in the world: They cannot all be brilliant or rich or beautiful. They cannot all even dream beautiful dreams like God gives some of us. They cannot all enjoy music. Their hearts do not all burn with love: But everybody can learn to hold God by the hand and rest. And when God is ready to speak the fresh thoughts of heaven will flow in like a crystal spring. Everybody rests at the end of the day, what a world gain if everybody, could rest in the waiting arms of the Father, and listen until He whispers.”

Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “Learn to hold God by the hand and rest.”

Happy Monday. I am exhausted, spent, “poured out like a drink offering” (cf. 2 Timothy 4:6).

But I am not posting about holding the hand of God and resting today because I just returned from a long trip. I am doing it because it is the only way to live in perpetual communion with Him.

Let me connect “hold God by the hand and rest” with serving as a CEO. Hang with me.

This week with CIM (India), GTP co-hosts the International Consultation on ERM (Enterprise Risk Management) on 6-9 May 2025. People ask me: What is Enterprise Risk Management?

I tell them that growing a ministry God’s way links not to having a strategic plan but to stewarding risk. Our role is not to determine the future but to steward faithfully in the present.

Think about it. That’s how GTP has grown so rapidly worldwide. It was certainly not my grand idea. And it represents how we help to position churches and ministries to stay connected to God and situate them for healthy growth.

For example, on 9 May 2025, I will deliver a paper on “Stewardship of the Mission and Risk: Policy Development and Protocol Establishment with Standards to Foster a Culture of Integrity before God and Man.”

To get free access to view or download my paper and 11 other papers like it, register for the consultation here.

Now let me circle back and explain the connection to “hold God by the hand and rest.”

Serving as a steward over a church as a pastor or over a ministry as an administrator or board member is a big job. How will you do it? I advise workers to steward risk which appears as putting up guardrails to stay on track.

When you put up those guardrails, God takes care of the rest. Don’t believe me? Hold His hand and find out. See for yourself.

And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. Hebrews 13:16

“Sometimes one feels that there is a discord between the cross and beauty. But there really cannot be, for God is found best through those two doorways. This grey-blue rolling water tinged with whitecaps, hemmed with distant green hills and crowned with colored clouds and baby-blue sky reveals God’s love of beauty – and God is so lavish with his paintbrush in the tropics. He is lavish everywhere if one only has eyes to see Him at work.

But when one comes to personality, one demands more than a pretty face or even a soul that sings for joy. There is in the universe a higher kind of beauty. It is the beauty of sacrifice, of giving up for others, of suffering for others. A woman has not reached her highest beauty until she lays down her ease and chooses pain for bearing and nursing her child. A man has not found his highest beauty until his brow is tinged with care for some cause he loves more than himself. The beauty of sacrifice is the final word in beauty.”

Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “The beauty of sacrifice is the final word in beauty.”

I read this and started to draft this post on the train from Lviv, Ukraine, to Przemyśl, at the border of Poland.

Then I shot this new header photo while walking through the peaceful apartment complex in Warsaw on the way to dinner with my wife, GTP Financial Controller and soon-to-be CFO, Dr. Olena Hetman, and her mother.

Imagine yourself after running a long race or finishing a huge project, you collapse. You left, as the saying goes, nothing in your tank. You drop with exhaustion from your sacrifice.

That’s how I feel today, and this reading from Laubach affirmed that there is nothing more beautiful.

The world says not to go to dangerous places, not to put yourself in harm’s way, and not to move toward broken people. You have to take care of yourself, they reason.

What if God wants something different from us? I think He does.

He wants us to taste the beauty of sacrifice. To have our brow tinged with care for some cause beyond ourselves. It does not leave us empty, though we might fee physically exhausted, we have been enriched by God.

Click here to read my trip report from Ukraine. When you read this I will be on my flight home.

Thanks for your prayers for recovery from this trip. And thanks to all of you who emailed me in response to Laubach posts from Ukraine. He has provided inspiration for my service. I pray also for you. Many have testified to tinged brows.

I praise God for this news. I will respond to your messages in time. I have had limited wifi to respond to emails.

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.” Lamentations 3:22-23

“It is that spirit of greed which Jesus said God hated more than any other. It is so diametrically opposite to the spirit of God. For God forever lavishes his gifts upon the good and bad alike, and finds all his joy in endless giving… You see, I feel deeply about us all. Beside Jesus the whole lot us are so contemptible. I do not see how God stomachs us at all. But God is like Jesus, and like Jesus, He will not give up until we, too, are like Jesus.”

Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “Joy in endless giving.”

The Russians mixed things up yesterday.

The drone strikes in Kyiv did not come until just before dawn. At least that made for good sleep. They woke me with similar shock as the 5:00am Muslim call to prayer in Pakistan.

And while I am wide awake by 5am on normal days, I am a bit sleep deprived this week. But no complaints. It was a great night of sleep.

Again, I turn to Laubach and find a strong connection. I saw the endless giving God from the window of the train yesterday.
The sun lavished light on the earth. The sky was bright blue. The life in the fields burst forth in color, green everywhere, yellow canola, and flowers of many colors.

It marked my last full day with Dr. Milan Hluchý, one of the most brilliant people I have ever met, he quoted Albert Einstein as we gazed on the beauty of a forest.

“There are two types of people. Those who see miracles everywhere and those who never see any miracles.”

Despite the ravages of war and death, this land produces life because of the endless giving of God. His miracles are new every day and we see them every minute if we look.

That same endless givign is directed to us, filled with grace, truth, hope, and love. Departing Ukraine today. Bring peace Lord. Though none of us deserves your love, pour our your mercy on this land

When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever he entered the Lord’s presence to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the Lord. Exodus 34:33-35

“We have got to saturate ourselves with the rainbows and the sunset marvels in order to radiate them. It is as much our duty to live in the beauty of the presence of God on some mount of transfiguration until we become white with Christ as it is for us to go down where they grope, and grovel, and groan, and lift them to new life. After all the deepest truth is that the Christlike life is glorious, undefeatably glorious. There is no defeat unless one loses God, and then all is defeat though it be housed in castles and buried in fortunes.”

Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “There is no defeat unless one loses God.”

It would be cool if the faces of people who spent time with Jesus glowed like Moses. Would yours glow?

As I spend time with people in Ukraine during the war, I see a lot of glowing faces. The war has them praying often and fervently. But Milan and I have had a concern as we talk on the long drives and train rides.

We think there’s a good possibility that people will forget about God if peace comes.

They will want to go back to aiming at enjoying life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There’s no worse place they could go. Imagine putting themselves in castles and stockpiling fortunes. Sadly, that’s my country, America.

But honestly, I know many people who have lost God in chasing worldly dreams.

So as I spend my last few days in Ukraine, I do it with a prayer for peace coupled with a prayer for perseverance. I pray the revival of faith will not die, lest the loses of life on the part of soldiers be in vain.

What about you? Do you glow, or have you lost God while housing yourself in a castle with a fortune.

And if you want my most recent devotional, REFUGE, to drip daily to your WhatsApp, click here.

I am a God who is everywhere and not in one place only. Jeremiah 23:23

“Our search for God through narrow straits has brought a sudden revelation, like an explorer who has just come out upon a limitless sea. It is not any particularly new idea but a new feeling, which came almost of itself.

Today God seems to me to be just behind everything. I feel Him there. He is just under my hand, just under the typewriter, just behind this desk, just inside the file, just inside the camera. One of these Moro fairy tales has the fairies standing behind every rock looking at the hero. That is how I feel about God today.

Of course this is only a way of symbolizing the truth that God is invisible and that He is everywhere. I cannot imagine seeing the invisible, but I can imagine God hiding himself behind everything in sight. For a lonesome man there is something infinitely homey and comforting in feeling God so close, so everywhere! Nowhere one turns is away from friendship, for God is smiling there.

It is difficult to convey to another the joy of having broken into the new sea of realizing God’s “here-ness.” This morning our theme was “Jesus’ view of prayer.” It seemed so wonderfully true that just the privilege of fellowship with God is infinitely more than any thing that God could give. When He gives Himself He is giving more than anything else in the universe.”

Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “Symbolizing the truth.”

Yesterday evening, from Lviv, my wife sent a message to our “Forever Family” chat (to our grown children and their spouses): “Could really use some prayer covering!”

We are experiencing God through our service while feeling exhausted by the realities of war. We got little sleep Tuesday night because of the air raids. It’s so hard. Again, I could not fall asleep last night.

Air raid sirens coupled with the sounds of explosions in Kyiv kept me awake. My phone alerted me to find a bomb shelter. I just got away from windows. It was my second hard night in a row.

I was talking to a chaplain who visits the frontlines yesterday. He said he goes every month and has to remind everyone that God has not forgotten them. I understand how they feel this way.

I recall vividly speaking in the church in Chornomorsk on Tuesday night. I counted about 40 women and 4 men. Most were much older than me. You see very few young people anywhere, except Sophia, displaced from occupied Khersonska.

After my sermon, this sweet, young 18 year old girl came up to me. She started to speak and could not say anything. Eventually, I learned that her dad stayed behind in occupied territory to care for his aged in-laws.

That was over 3 years ago. She and her mom have not seen him since. One of millions of separation stories. And they are lucky to get one message a month. So hard. God is everywhere but for Sophia, but it seems like He is nowhere.

The Ukrainian people are against the wall but their gratitude has touched me. In a way, I don’t want to leave. God is everywhere holding them together, and yet they feel like He is nowhere. Pray with me for them to not lose heart.

Pray with me that God will give His loving presence to every person in this war-torn nation in some mystical and abundant way. That’s the generosity I am praying for today.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18

“Never did I so feel the need of a silent typewriter as at this moment, for every stroke clashes with the marvelous silence of the hills tonight. I am still under the spell of that hush and of that sunset. In all my life I have never seen a sight so beautiful as Lanao tonight…

I suppose there have been equally beautiful scenes since the world was created, but not more beautiful for me. For it adequately reflected the passion of love which I feel toward the Lanao people as I look and pray from the hill. And as I talked and tasted the sweetness of the luscious light, and told God that this was for me the masterpiece of his creation, he told me through my own voice:

“Ah, child, this is but the symbol of beauties, and wonders which I mean to give you when you are willing and ready. I must give them, I will give them, if only you will climb your spiritual hill and open your soul, eyes and look. This is what all life can have if you are willing. I ache with longings which poor little people cannot even suspect, to open up wider and ever wider universes of glory to you all.”

Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “This is what all life can have if you are willing.”

I am awake early. Traveling from Chornomorsk (near Odessa) to Kyiv today. I could say I am glad to get out of here because I heard five explosions last night and then the roar of ambulances. I said a prayer for those impacted but it was hard to sleep.

Now all is silent. With Laubach, I cherish the peace of silence.

But I saw something yesterday. I saw the faces of people who lit up because someone came to visit them. “No one visits us.” They said. “People leave here. No one comes here.” I saw agony behind their words.

I wish everyone reading this could see what I have seen and hear what I heard.

It changes you. When you have seen Jesus in the eyes of the brokenhearted, you want to gaze at nothing else because you have seen the salvation of the Lord. In a way, I don’t want to leave this place.

“It’s your third visit during the war?” People ask. “Are you crazy?” They continue. “We would leave if we could.”

I want you to think about the most unfortunate person in your world and move toward them today. Tell me what happens. Do it if you are willing. Then email me. I think you might be surprised (spoiler alert: you will see Jesus there).

Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know. Jeremiah 33:3

“I have just returned from a walk alone, a walk so wonderful that I feel like reducing it to a universal rule, that all people ought to take a walk every evening all alone where they can talk aloud without being heard by anyone, and that during this entire walk they all ought to talk with God, allowing him to use their tongues to talk back-and letting God do most of the talking. For this seems to be the very thing for which I have been feeling all these weeks. You have followed my experiment and have seen many confessions of daily failure, as I tried to keep God in mind in the second person.

Well, today has not been a failure. The thought of God has drifted out occasionally but not for long. But this day has been a different day from any other of my life, for I have not tried to pray in the sense of talking to God but I have let God do the talking with my tongue or in my inner life when my tongue was silent. It has been as simple as opening and closing a swinging door. And without any of the old strain the whole day passed beautifully with God saying wonderful things to me.

Frank C. Laubach (1884-1970) in Letters By A Modern Mystic (Feedbooks: 2009) letter entitled, “As simple as opening and closing a swinging door.”

I loved this reading because when I am at home, I love to walk alone, mostly listen, and sometimes speak audibly to God.

When I travel, I rarely turn on the TV. I love solitude to listen and talk with God out loud. Often I cannot walk unless there is a hotel treadmill because in many cases it is not safe to go outside, like tonight in Mykoliav.

I am in a tiny hotel crammed with American Red Cross emergency workers. Why? Most of the hotels in this city have been bombed, including the one I stayed at last year. No kidding, it was bombed just 2 hours after we left. No kidding.

The threat of danger is real but the presence of God is powerful. If I were to sum up my first two days it would be that people seem to have lost all hope. No one visits. Aid has largely ceased. Most feel forgotten.

The response to the REFUGE devotional has been huge! For example, today in the Kherson Oblast we visited a church that had been blown to pieces. While they continue to meet in a tent, we ministered tonight to a group from Chernivtsi.

They came with a team of ten to help rebuild the church. We saw them lay the concrete foundation. I shared remarks after dinner and they shared a song. And the pastor just messaged me.

“Thanks for REFUGE! I want to read it to our team as our morning devotion time. I was glad to meet you! May God bless you for your kind heart for our people!” I was not sure what to say to them. God gave me the words.

It looked simple, like Laubach says. When they asked me to speak to this team spontaneously, I whispered a prayer and God took care of the rest. He gave me just what they needed. I know that’s the case because I actually got a couple laughs out of them.

Before I visit another war-torn area under shelling at the moment, Odessa and Chornomorsk, I must comment on the header photo. God whispered to me on the long drive today. Stop the car. Snap a photo. I shot it as we traveled across Ukraine.

I saw abundant life. I saw it bursting forth from the ground. It reminded me that God had not forgotten these people and would supply what they needed. If you look at the header photo next to the Ukrainian flag, you will understand my joy.

Anyway, everywhere I go, I am proclaiming peace in Ukraine. I remind everyone that peace is not the absence of war, for war will always be with us. Peace is abiding in the presence of God.

Abide with me in perpetual surrender. It’s simple.