Thank you for praying for me on my four week writing leave. It's over today. It was more productive than I thought it would be. Hence my heartfelt thanks. Four projects were more or less completed.

This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence - A book on marriage that exults mainly in its meaning not its emotion. But I do hope it helps people keep their covenant and be happier and make much of Christ. There is no marriage in the resurrection, hence “This Momentary Marriage.” And marriage mainly means: Christ keeps covenant with his church, hence “The Parable of Permanence.”

Finally Alive: What Happens When We are Born Again - A book about the miracle of sovereign, regenerating grace, and how God makes the gospel of Christ the means of raising the spiritually dead. I hope that showing that the new birth is not in our control helps make pastors and other Christians desperate for the supernatural in their ministries.

Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ: The Cost of Bringing Christ to the Nations in the Lives of William Tyndale, John Paton, and Adoniram Judson. (This will be the 5th book in the Swans Are Not Silent series.) I was sobered again by the price of proclaiming Christ to the nations. To finish what Christ has given us to do will require martyrdom. There are about 3,000 peoples where the church is not self-sustainingly planted. Most of these do not want us to come. Since even so-called evangelicals today have lost their nerve, it will be a work of white hot allegiance to Jesus, not public opinion, that listens to love and takes the gospel where it is not wanted.

Velvet Steel: The Joy of Being Married to You, a little gift book to supplement the marriage book. This Momentary Marriage is hard on romance and high on covenant-keeping. So to dispel the notion that I might not believe in romance, and to awaken affections in no-nonsense spouses, I thought I should perhaps publish some overflow from forty years of love poems. We’ll see.

Those were the main outcomes of the leave. So thanks again for your prayers. I am very eager to be back behind the pastoral plow this weekend.