(An excerpt from the book, 40 Days in the internet wilderness)

As a Christian my spiritual life had come to a season of severe drought. My prayers, Bible studies, and witnessing opportunities were all a mirage in the desert of my dry and thirsty soul. With no relief in sight, I took the desperate measure of leaving my home church family in search of heaven’s spring-fed oasis where my soul could find the needed refreshing, rest, and restoration in the living waters of my Lord Jesus Christ.

During my three-month sabbatical from church life, I found myself being led by the Spirit from the familiar into the unknown. In this wilderness’ experience, I came in contact with other sojourners who like me were on their own solo spiritual quest for purpose and meaning. As a child of God, I couldn’t but help openly share my experiences and love for Jesus. Unfortunately, many of my sojourning companions had little interest or care for me as a Christian, which included among others hedonists, spiritualists, wiccans, new agers, as well as those with a kaleidoscope of eastern religions as a self-defined belief system. As an outcast among most of them, I still found myself encouraged by the Spirit of God to share my Christian beliefs in spite of their verbal jabs, jeers, and jesters to my spirit-filled utterances.

My journey began forty days out from Easter Sunday. During these forty days, I ended up replacing my daily supper meal with a spiritual meal of worshipful Bible study, prayer, and writing.

During my time of physical fasting and spiritual feasting, I often found myself being drawn closer to God and inspired to write poetry, as well as some poetic-styled essays. I can best describe this personal and spiritual experience as being raptured up in the Word of God through the Spirit of God in giving Glory to God!

The other spiritual experience that came from being on this journey was neither uplifting nor inspiring, but somewhat frightening. For I had also entered into a spiritual battle with the unseen forces of wickedness. Yet in all this, I felt God’s presence and providence working in me which not only brought conviction to my heart, but the hearts of those who were listening and making fun of me and my God that I held high and lifted up.

Having traversed the spiritual pathway from Eden’s Garden to Calvary’s Cross, my journey came to an end after sharing in poetic-style my personal testimony. In remembrance of this wilderness journey, I have gathered together for this book most of my poems and writings that I shared with my fellow spiritual sojourners on the community inspiration and spirituality website—Beliefnet. May you find these poems and writings both a blessing and reminder that we are all in need of the Living Water of life—Jesus, whether we know it or not.

”The words of a good book may be profuse, but the words of a good poem are profound!” Gregory John