Just returned home from Minneapolis and the Desiring God Conference. I still am processing all that I heard and experienced. This is the second year I have been able to attend, and it is encouraging and uplifting and exhausting all at the same time. It is good to be home, but it was very good to be at the conference.

I wondered how Davies would have responded to such a gathering. He would have been joyful about the great biblical preaching and teaching. His years in Virginia were hard years. He did not have a multitude of ministers to rely upon for fellowship and encouragement. He stood firm in his convictions and committed to his calling. When he traveled to Great Britain with Gilbert Tennent his greatest concern was the work he was leaving behind. When he returned at the beginning of the year in 1755, he immediately immersed himself in the work. He labored another four years in Virginia before reluctantly becoming the successor to Jonathan Edwards at the College of New Jersey.

As I work to get back into my work today, I pray that I will have the enthusiasm and the commitment to stand. It was great to share a room with Nick, and experience the city of Minneapolis. The discussions after the sessions were challenging. I also was able to meet up with one of my DMin colleagues, Dave Nelson and some of his family too.

I have had this post saved for 3 days now. We returned home on Monday evening, and I wrote the beginnings of this post. I awoke Tuesday very early in the morning with a lot of pain, I had an abscessed tooth, and it was crying out for attention. Two dental offices later, I had a prescription for pain, a heavy duty antibiotic and an appointment at the oral surgeon’s for Thursday morning. Now I am trying to recover and get ready for Sunday.

Davies would have loved this conference, but then he would have been a key note speaker! When the courage to stand and be counted faithful to Christ was necessary, men like Samuel Davies, Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and others who forged a gospel proclaiming ministry in the midst of hardship and suffering, stand out as brilliant and shining examples to those of us who follow in their footprints.