Looking at statistics can provide some interesting and helfpul information:

• It means something, for example, that close to 5,000 people have chosen to “follow” this blog (that’s 4,875 as of this morning);
• I’m pleased that, each day, anywhere from 200-1,000 people visit this page;
• I’m disappointed to know that – best guess – only around 30,000 copies of my five books have sold (you can help me with that by visiting Derek Maul’s Amazon Author Page and buying multiple copies of everything you see!)…

Then there’s my writing for All Pro Dad, at AllProDad.com. The site – in fact all three sites that make up FamilyFirst.net (All Pro Dad, iMOM, Family Minute) – generates a considerable volume of activity, reaching literally hundreds of thousands of men. So I was excited when an editor told me that one of my articles recently garnered over 16,000 page views over just seven days.

WHY I DO THIS: Like I said, numbers can be interesting; but what really counts is the potential impact on actual lives, and the encouraging anecdotal evidence that – once in a while – makes its way back to me. Because the reason I write anything it all is to share the life-charged, transformational, love-saturated, good news that we are created both for God’s joy and for our own, and that this joy can be known with remarkable clarity if only we would follow Jesus, and live like we mean it (because God most certainly meant it when each one of us was created).

the reason I write anything it all is to share the life-charged, transformational, love-saturated, good news that we are created both for God’s joy and for our own, and that this joy can be known with remarkable clarity if only we would follow Jesus, and live like we mean it (because God most certainly meant it when each one of us was created).

My post of a couple of days ago – “Welcome is Better Theology than Exclusion” – resulted in more comments, emails, texts, Facebook “shares,” “likes,” and whatever’s than usual, including the following message from fellow-blogger “The Accidental Poet.”

“Derek, this is an incredible post. I especially liked your comment that we need to have a lighthouse mentality, and not a fortress mentality. I reblogged this on The Accidental Poet.”

(The Accidental Poet, by the way, turns out to be a pretty good poet, and I’d recommend investing a couple of minutes to take a look.)

MAKE A DIFFERENCE: My point here is that we touch one-another via the way that we stand witness to the light. We all do. We do this every day inasmuch as we carry the message to our families, our work, our community, our recreation, our church.

The critical question concerns the content of our message. What is the message that we live out loud? Is it good news? Or is it something else?

Let’s make it good – DEREK