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As another year closes out, I look back on my journey of faith and thought that is captured in this blog. The blog doesn’t capture all of my journey. Some things remain private, and some things remain undeveloped and unpublished. Of the things I have put out into the sunlight of the blogosphere, though, I hope they have been helpful, encouraging, and challenging, if not interesting.

I usually launch right into the top ten articles (or so) of the year in review, but I want to take a moment to review where I have been and where I am going. The numbers tell a surprising story (to me), but I realize the numbers might be boring to you, so I will try to keep that part brief.

I expect that the substance of the journey may be more intriguing to the reader, but the substance is also more difficult to capture and to summarize. I will do my best.

By the Numbers

I started this blog in September of 2012 with 20 articles that garnered under 500 views. The top article on attributes of success had just over 100 views, 5 likes, and 3 comments. About 180 of the readers came through Facebook. Those early attempts at writing are somewhat embarrassing to me (so no links are provided).

I wrote over 100 articles each year from 2017 through 2021, with the high water mark being 149 articles in 2017. My writing has slowed in the number of articles I have written over the last 4 years as the words per article have increased (peaking at an average of 1908 words per article in 2025)

In 2025, I have published only 57 articles all year, but viewership for the blog is projected to top out around 110,000. That is nearly as many readers as the blog had from 2012 through 2021 combined.

The top article this year was viewed over 23 times more than all the articles published in 2012. In the fact, the top article in 2025 was viewed more times (11,790) than all the articles in any year prior to 2020 (11,016 in 2020).

The climb from 500 views to 110,000 views was not a sudden thing. Readership increased with jumps and plateaus through 2019, with a peak of just over 11,000 in 2018. In 2020, readership jumped over 20,000 views, which I attribute to the pandemic. People were limited in their activities. They stayed inside, and they read more. Perhaps, people were more contemplative because of the psycho-emotional impact of COVID.

I was excited about the increase in readership in 2020 and the increase again to 30,000+ in 2021 as the world began to emerge from the clutches of COVID. With the world getting back to “normal” in the following two years, readership settled around 30,000 views each year for several year.

Just last year, in 2024, the views skyrocketed over 61,000. The upward trajectory has continued in 2025 with projected views on pace to top 110,000.

The sudden increase in readership has taken me totally by surprise. I have not done anything differently than I was doing before, as far as I know. Perhaps, my writing is developing in ways that I do not realize. I do tackle more difficult subject matter and get into greater depth, but I would assume that might turn some people away.

I began writing out of a sense of obedience to God. I felt compelled to make use of the gifting He has given me. My main goal was to be faithful, and that focus continues to be a driving force.

I have tried to stay true to the theme of the blog, which is “navigating by faith.” I try to write out of my own experience, to write in keeping with my own thought and faith journey, and to write as I sense God is leading me.

My Faith Journey

In 2012, I was coming out of a long, slow regression in my faith. Perhaps, others might call what went through a deconstruction. That long, difficult segment of my like journey of my life set the stage.

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My priorities had shifted from a spiritual focus to career and providing for my family. The cares and concerns of the world overtook me as I pulled back from spiritual seeking and devotion to God. I moved with my family back to the area where I grew up, and I found myself attracted to and tempted by former ways of thinking and way of life.

As I look back, I can say that I had accumulated baggage that was holding me back and stifling my spiritual growth. I had accumulated theological structures that God needed to strip away. That “deconstruction” was long and painful as I languished in spiritual ruts for over 20 years.

I came to a point at which I had nothing to cling to but God and His mercy. I didn’t even know if He would “take me back” when I came face to face with the realization that the spiritual life within me was in danger of petering out completely, like a pilot light flickering in a cold windy place. I turned to God, and I said, “Where else will I go? Only you have the words of life.”

In that moment of surrender, God had mercy on me. With no illusions of grandeur that characterized my early Christian walk, I sought God and embraced faithfulness. Around that time, I began to sense that God wanted me to write. He didn’t overwhelm me, with it but it was persistent, like the nudging of a gentle wind.

I noticed, and I flirted with the idea for many months before I finally relented in my heart to do it. I set up an account in WordPress, and I began to write in September of 2012. The summary of the last 13 years tells the rest of the story.

My Writing

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Many of the insights I had as a nonbeliever reading the Bible for the first time in college have been rehashed over the years in my writing. Much of my writing from the beginning through the present includes my personal discoveries in reading Scripture and working them out in the writing process.

I have always had an evangelical bent. I have always paid homage in my thinking to the Great Commission. I am always sensitive to the way in which a person who doubts or does not believe in God might encounter my writing. I assumed that doubters and nonbelievers should be the “audience” of my writing when I started, but my assumptions have shifted as I have felt compelled to go in a different direction.

I find myself being more prophetic as time goes on. I find myself writing to the people who call themselves “Christian” as much or more than I find myself writing to those outside the Church.

I have found great joy in exploring the themes of faith and science, and archaeology, and philosophy, culture, worldview, so I have written often on the subject of “apologetics”. Over the years, though, my perception of who I am writing for has changed. I am less convinced these subjects are primarily useful for the doubter and unbeliever.

Our apologetics may be less effective in convincing anyone of the truth than how we say what we say and the way we live our lives. What is called apologetics in modern parlance, for me, has become more of a source of devotion, discovery, and appreciation for the wonder of the God of the universe that I enjoy sharing.

At the same time, current events, politics, and cultural tensions have arrested my attention. I am grieved in a prophetic way that the world is so polarized, and I am even more grieved that the Church is as polarized as the world.

The tensions in the Church have gained the focus of my attention, and I have been holding up current events, politics, and cultural tensions to the light of Scripture since 2014. That is when I wrote, Immigration: the Strangers Among Us. Christian ambivalence during the Syrian refugee crisis exposed my own ignorance and the need to understand what the Bible says about immigration. After spending a long time pouring through the Bible on the subject, I wrote the article. Though it only has 222 views, that article was a watershed piece for me.

My personal, devotional time gives me much of the inspiration for my writing. Listening to podcasts and reading provides other food for thought. Politics, current events, and cultural turmoil have increasingly commanded my attention. I write about what I am thinking about and wrestling through.

I would much rather write inspirational pieces, exploring the amazing tapestry of the Bible, and praising the glory of God through science and “apologetic” “proofs” of God and His character than writing about politics, current events, and cultural tensions, but the prophetic burden is a deep impulse that I do not think I should ignore. That is my own personal tension that I wrestle with.

Article Trends

With all of that said, the themes and subjects of my writing have not changed dramatically over the years. I wrote more inspirational, self-help, and personal stories in the beginning. The odd article on current events, like the Boston Marathon bombing in 2012 and the Hobby Lobby case in 2014, were more widely read, however.

The first couple of years reflect me trying to find discipline in my writing, to find my voice, and to experiment with the WordPress platform and get comfortable with it. The articles in those first two years are not much to write home about.

I settled into a writing style and blog appearance in 2014. The article, It is Well with My Soul: The Story (2014), became the key contribution from that time, with 3292 views. It was a top ten article in many years subsequent. Purely bible-based seeker sensitive articles in the next few years, like Women and the Resurrection Story (2015) (1175 views), Tuning into God’s Frequency (2016) (3312 views), and Is God a Hard Taskmaster? (2017) (2541 views), became popular and continue to be read year after year.

The few articles I have written on archaeology and the Bible, like the Ebla Tablets Confirm Biblical Accounts (2015) (2103 views), have also been perennial favorites. Articles on apologetics consistently show up in the most read column each year, but especially in the 2015-2020 time frame. The Ebla Tablets, C.S. Lewis on Individualism, Equality and the Church (2015) (1888) and The Message in the Earliest Creeds in the New Testament (2016) (4320 views) have repeatedly been among the most read articles. CS Lewis on “True Myth” (2018), which is apologetic adjacent is the 5th most read article, with 6358 views.

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That’s when I wrote Donald Trump, Fruit and Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing (2018), which has been among the most read articles for a number of years with 2200 views. The tide changed for me in 2020. I was increasingly troubled by Donald Trump as his presidency wore on. My concerns heightened during the second presidential campaign. They reached critical mass as Trump and a large cohort of the evangelical world became alarmingly unhinged after the election. Even then, I stayed silent until near the end.

The prophetic whirlwind surrounding Trump was peaking as the election loomed. I was at once confronted by my own prophetic sense that Donald Trump is not the man some Christians thought he was, and the hype and cocksureness of a segment of the Church that was becoming fanatic and militant in support of him.

A conversation with my best friend from college, who I respected without question, was the difference maker. His commitment to Trump compelled me to resolve the tension once and for all in my own mind. I spent hours listening to the people he was listening to, and turned to Scripture where they found an anchor in the “sons of Issachar who knew the times.” That’s when I wrote the article, Who Were the Sons of Issachar? And What Might They Mean for Us Today? (2020), that went “viral” (relatively) on the blog.

That one article has far surpassed all other articles as the most viewed piece on the blog with 34,097 views. Though I wrote it in September of 2020, it had the most views in that year. It was viewed over 11,000 times just in 2025, which is the most in any year since it was published, to it still has life.

I suppose no one should be surprise that politics and current events took center stage on my blog in 2020 with a global pandemic raging and the tumult of the presidential election. A follow up article written in November, 2020, Postscript to the Sons of Issachar Who Understood the Times (2200 views), has also become a most read article.

The Redemption of Korah: the Sons of Korah, also written in 2020, is far more like the articles I want to write. It is an inspirational reprieve that digs a “hidden” gem out of Scripture that I discovered during my devotional reading. I am more satisfied that The Redemption of Korah has been successful than the Sons of Issachar. It has become the second most read article on the blog with 17,380 views to date.

2021 signals the waning of my interest in apologetics as a tool for convincing people of the truth of God. The article, Apologetics: What It Means for Our Speech to be Seasoned with Salt, was motivated by my sense that what we say is not nearly effective in sharing the truth of God than how we say it and how we live out the message of the Gospel. At 6638 views, it is the 4th most read article on the blog.

Ironically, 2020 marks a change in readership gravitating toward the more bible-based writing and scriptural analysis Though the political angst of the Sons of Issachar went viral, The Redemption of Korah became the second-most read article, and God Meets Us Where We Are, written the same year, has become the third most read article at 12,849 views.

Other recent bible-based articles have quickly become among the top articles on the blog. The Critical Difference between the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and the Fruit of the Holy Spirit (2023) is now the sixth most read article at 5575 views. Is Merely Believing in Jesus Enough? (2024) already has 3240 views and The Significance of Eve’s Seed in the Plan of God (2024) has 2880 views.

Other recent top articles have more of a religion or worldview theme, include Diving for Pearls in the Stories of Dustin Kensrue and Mark Driscoll (2024) (3050 views) and Critical Race Theory from a Christian Perspective (2020) (2031 views). The Bible, inspiration, and music come together in another well-read article, The Borderlines: A Place Called Earth (2021) (1857 views). And, I have managed to mix in a few recent apologetic pieces that have generated traffic, like An Interview with Dr. Bruce Greyson on Near Death Experiences, Part 2 (2022) (2019 views) and St. Augustine on the Literal Meaning of Genesis (2024) (1885 views).

Though the Sons of Issachar is the top article in every year since it was written in 2020 (with the exception of The Redemption of Korah in 2023), and though I have written more and more on politics and current events, the faith and bible-based articles have (by far) been the most read articles in the last 4 years. I take some solace in that to mitigate my forays into the political arena.

A Change in Readership

As I sit here, I don’t know why the blog has grown from 30,000, to 61,000, to 110,000 views in the last three years. I don’t advertise on the blog or monetize it. That isn’t why I write, though I am not opposed to doing that. I don’t really promote it, other than to post on Facebook, Most the Facebook posts are only in my Navigating By Faith Facebook group that has less than 350 members.

“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.”

(Proverbs 16:9)

My intentions are to be true to what God has laid on my heart and to be faithful to write. I work that out as best as I can and plan my way accordingly. I haven’t changed much in my approach to writing since I started. I have attempted from time to time to post on other social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, X, and Tumbler, but I haven’t done that much in the last 3-4 years. The sharp increase in the readership is not the result of me doing anything differently than what I have done from the beginning.

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My curiosity about this led me to query Chat GPT for an answer, and I found an answer that seems to make sense. The traffic previously was driven by the WordPress and Facebook communities, which are engaged readers who tend to respond and comment. Chat GPT says, “As blogs grow, the content often shifts—sometimes unintentionally—to attract search traffic.” Articles that begin to rank on Google, for instance, “bring in more readers but fewer conversational opportunities, so comments decline.”

Articles that rank in Google draw more people who do not know the author. Google draws people doing research and more readers who are not likely to return to the blog to develop a connection. Google also reaches more international readers.

I also learned that WordPress traffic has become more mobile, and mobile readers are less likely to interact as well. Recent changes in the WordPress interface have made engagement more difficult. Many bloggers have reported a decrease in engagement since 2021.

Finally, online habits have changed. Conversations have increasingly moved to social media platforms. People use AI to summarize blog posts. More people are avoiding public conversations to avoid confrontation.

In the final analysis, Navigating By Faith seems to have shifted from a small community readership to a large search-driven readership. Chat GPT says, “This is normal, healthy, and common for high-performing blogs.”

I am certainly not going to sweat it. I will continue to trust God with the blog as I have done since it generated under 500 views in 2012. If you are still reading this, I am especially grateful for you hanging in there with me. I do like the engagement, even if you disagree with me, so leave a comment (whether you leave me a “like” or not). I usually respond, and I appreciate you.