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Friday, March 4, 2016

Top Posts of 2015

In the words of my grand-daughter, Sharing is Caring. If anything you read here touches you in some way, I encourage you to share it. It is the way this blog grows. I do not advertise, this is as close to doing so as I get. Having over 40,000 hits in over 80 countries it must be touching some lives. I have made 246 posts and 46 of those have over a 100 hits. I admit most of those are in the last couple years. There are diamonds in my early ones that have not been read much, but they are just as good as my new ones. However there are also some that need reworked and edited. Hopefully those posts will allow you to see how my writing has grown. I am definitely not a Hemingway, tho he is my favorite, but I am trying to grow. Thanks for reading and thanks again for sharing.



                     Learning the Meaning of First Timothy 5:8


                                  The day I discovered the family name used to be spelled
                                    Ryon instead of the Ryan as it now is, at the grave of my
                                  Great-Grandfather Asahel Ryon, It inspired my last post
                                              Are You Who You Think You Are

      When things go well, extremely well, I sometimes get the feeling I should not rock the boat.  My last post was very personal and made me start thinking and wondering who am I to write on the topics I do. It is certainly not because of an abundance of writing skills, but I do write out of sincerity and in a hope that something I say may turn on a light or open a door of understanding for the person who stumbles on what I have written. After I posted that last post my blog just took off.  I had a couple of really neat experiences when I had more readers in South Korea, Russia and China than I had in the United States for a few days at a time. When you have a dozen readers in places like Mongolia and Morocco it humbles you to know that the message is getting out to the whole world.  Especially in places that the Christian message is being oppressed.

        South Korea is the exception. From the Christian Koreans I have known it is truly a nation with a heart for God and the truth of The Word.  As I have no books out and only write posts on my blog, I truly value each reader, it is through their sharing that my readership grows.  Not for me, but that the message gets out to those who need it.

        This is my fifth year of writing my post and it has taken me this long to really get my feet on the ground.  Understanding the who and why of those who read your posts is not as easy as one might think  My first couple of years dealt mainly with economic advice as that was what I was dealing with in my life. Usually I did it from a faith based perspective. In 2015 it became pretty clear to me though that the main readers of my posts were reading because they had a heart for God.  Based on that understanding, it is my pleasure to break my posts into four categories.  Some posts are in more than one category, I left them in, in case someone only reads the one category.

     In the United States one of my biggest following groups are truck drivers. Mainly by Christian truck drivers who share with their friends.  It is also humbling to admit that my most read posts are How-to posts.  After the post listings is a brief explanation of why I haven’t been writing for awhile.

 2015’s Top Ten, This link brings up the referenced post with a simple click. I understand many people do not have the time to go digging around and finding posts.  Hopefully this will make it easier for any who would like to read them.
While the number of posts I have written each year has gone down, I pray the quality of the posts has gone up.

Coming Full Circle         6/7/2015     This is my most popular and read post.  It is only out read by some of my How-to Posts

How- To posts
The posts with the small star (*) are really craft or how-to posts. The others just fall in that category based on my experiences.


Trucking Posts
To All the truckers who read and share my posts, I truly appreciate your help in spreading my stories around and hope to have a book out in the next couple years based on my experiences, Lord Willing.

Trucker Logic       5/28/2012   Funny, shows what rational thinking can do. LOL
How Too Not Go Down A Hill         1/5/2015  A must read for new drivers, learn from my mistakes. It may save your life
Driving On Prayer         7/4/2013     One of my personal favorites as it taught me a lot.


Faith Posts
The following posts are ones I gleaned from my first five years of writings.  Ones that did not get that much attention, because I did not have the readership I have now, but hopefully they will appeal to those looking for additional reading.  The ones with the ** are ones I personally am proud of and think have a good message.

**A Meal with the Least of These     12/25/2014 Sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways to give us understanding in life.
Sign of Jonah, The only Sign given   5/27/2014   Where we are at in time Biblically. Having had a relationship much like Jonah’s with God, I get where we are at. It took me over fifty years of studying the Bible to figure it out, but the light finally cane on, just as it did for Jonah.
**When God Says, April Fool!!       4/11/2014   This explains why I get Jonah.
A Little Further Down the Path (Meat Only)       11/4/2014  Fifty year Bible Study the shortened  version.       
A Wannabe Sky God     2/13/2014    Short version of my life story.        
**Putting Your Hand to the Plow     12/15/2013 Personal favorite and most read.
Three Thing's God Can’t Do   7/8/2013        You might read it before you dismiss it.
Is America Dysfunctional? Or Reprobate   2/22/2013   Where is America at Biblically?



     Apologies are not my strong suit. When I was in the Army we used to say, “The maximum effective range of an excuse is zero meters.”  That applies the same when it comes to writing.  Yet I feel obligated to all those who read my blogs on a regular basis

    Since October I have taken a new and deeper understanding of the Word of God and have come to see it as literal, which in many cases before I had taken figuratively.  First Timothy 5:8 says that those who do not take care of their own are worse than an “infidel” an infidel is one who does not believe in God, certainly not a place a Christian wants to find themselves.  So after taking a hard look at my life it moved me to start reaching out to those I know who are in need especially, to those in my own family.  I tried to help people in ways I hadn’t before. Not to pat myself on the back, but my twin great grand- daughters Mom has to be at work at 5:00 AM and it was hard for her to find a babysitter.  So I helped her get out of government housing and started babysitting for her on the days she works.  I go to her house at 4:30 AM and sleep on her bed till the twins wake up and then we come to my house till their Mom gets off work at 2PM.  Believe me being almost 70 and taking care of two four year old's is a challenge. Fortunately my wife helps when she is here. Being retired she travels a lot, just as I used to do, till I started taking care of the girls.
 
     I also found time to roof my daughter’s garage, rewire her house and upgrade the wiring after it almost burnt down.

















 Been trying to keep my niece in firewood and her Dad in a place to live. My brother recovered the yard from its abandoned state.












Also that nieces oldest son lives with me and is attending high school and graduates next May (2017) I pray.  The same daughter(I have four) had lived with us for almost three years after a tree fell on her car and just a couple of months later a tree fell on her house trailer.  As an answer to prayer she found a house for her and her son last year, but it needs a lot of work. I can’t do the work anymore myself, but I can supervise and teach others to do it.  She found and managed to move into the house in spite of a very poor credit score.  It is only five blocks from where she works and eliminated the fifteen mile drive every working day from my house.

     The reason I am sharing all this is not to show that I am such a good person, but to show that when God in Malachi 3:10 challenges us to follow His Word, He Will Honor His Word to us. Psalm 37:23 says the steps of the righteous man are ordered of God. He will open the doors when there seems no way possible, it is what he does.  It is just that many are too busy to see it.  They need to let go and let God be in charge.

     My blog post is not really set up to make it easy for people to follow me or send me a message, but I truly value every comment, both good and bad. If you would like to contact me my e-mail address is sclaus2u (at) hotmail.com. Thanks for taking the time to read and especially for sharing. Especially stories where you have seen God working in your life.

    Besides all the other things I am doing.  I am trying to finish my new shop so I can start fixing and repairing broken furniture that I can sell cheaply to those who have a need for such items. It is something I did to make ends meet when I lost my commercial driver’s license after having a heart attack back in 2004. The post that tells that story is in the How-to section under the title From Trash to Treasures.




























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