We return to Proverbs 1 today in our devotional study of the Book of Proverbs this calendar year. If you are following our goal of reading one chapter of Proverbs a day, you are beginning your fourth reading of this great book of wisdom.
In January I chose a non-interactive format for the daily devotionals, but you may wonder how many are reading these daily snippets of “Common Sense Principles” inspired by Proverbs. Our best estimate is there are more than 150 daily readers. That number includes 81 subscribed to receive daily devotionals via direct emails; an additional readership of 60-70 on Facebook and another 20 on Twitter. The number of “Shares” from Twitter and Facebook postings is impossible to know.
The most amazing statistic is the number of countries represented in 
the readership since I began the series in January. To date, 42 nations are among the readers of the series, several closed to the Gospel. A small sampling of foreign nations represented in the readership includes Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Singapore, Egypt, Mongolia, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Namibia, Ethiopia, Trinidad and Tobago.
I am humbled by the opportunity and challenged by the responsibility of encouraging a broad net of readers to read, study and apply these daily devotional thoughts as part of their spiritual diet.
With the Heart of a Shepherd,
Travis D. Smith
Senior Pastor
Hillsdale Baptist Church
Tampa, FL