“Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.”
Proverbs 30:5 (NIV)
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Welcome to Canon City
From Substack
- Reflecting on God’s gracious direction of our lives.
- A meditation on Proverbs 25:2
- Rule One
- Pastoral Reflections on Proverbs 24:13-14
- A sanctification arc — From crying out to singing aloud
Welcome to Canon City, the new homepage of Edward Ruiz. Since God has called me to full-time pastoral ministry, I wasn’t sure what to do with about 77 articles and blogs I’ve written.
When I was about to close down the site, I discovered some encouraging statistical information: There were 39.7K views and 29.9K visitors, with steady growth from 2020–2024.
Views peaked in 2024 at a little over 9,000, with almost 7,000 visitors, even though I added only four new pieces of content.
The part that really shocked me (in a good way) was that, according to the WordPress Stats page, this content was viewed in 178 countries around the world. This means that this little counseling website literally reached about nine out of ten countries in the world. Someone from Russia, Nigeria, Brazil, Burma, South Korea, China and many more read something I wrote. Now, I am not impressed that they read something I wrote, but that God was pleased to use something I wrote to (hopefully) reach someone from somewhere in the world.
This is where Canon City, in part, comes in. All of us are building something with our lives. It’s not whether you are building something; it’s what you are building. And as my first spiritual parents might ask, which kingdom are you building—yours or God’s?
So, all in all, I felt compelled to keep this material online—to keep reaching as many as God is pleased to reach with this material. But now, I am inspired to build more deliberately, focus more sharply on what I am building and bring to bear resources and content that serve the singular purpose of building God’s kingdom.
Canon City is about living our lives according to God’s Word because God’s Word dictates how we live. As we submit ourselves to the authority of God’s Word, not only does his kingdom advance on earth as it is in heaven, but the glories of God advance with every inch where God’s Word is proclaimed, testified to, honored and obeyed.
May those who find this material through a gracious sovereign providence be pointed to the one and only Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who redeems a people for himself from every nation, every tribe and every tongue.
Edward Ruiz