I just saw a scene that made me think the Apocalypse might be coming sooner than we think.
Was it footage from Iraq? No.
Was it news of the pending nuclear crisis with Iran? No.
Was it (insert crisis situation looming in the world today here)? No.
It was Ellen DeGeneres leading a choir (on Sunday night of all nights) in a hallelujah chorus praising this year’s Oscar-nominated actors and actresses.
If that doesn’t signal the end of the world, I’m not sure what else does.
So, we finally got our Winter Wonderland this week. Not on time for Christmas, but nice nonetheless. I hope to have some pictures up later this evening.
I believe the snow began late afternoon on Tuesday and continued right on until Wednesday night. It’s the most snow I remember getting at one time in a while.
I spent some quality time with Dad taking turns running the snow blower up and down our driveways. During one of my sweeps, my dad said something that seemed insignificant but struck me as pretty deep.
“Let the tool do the work for you.”
Like I said, simple enough, but also quite profound. As I sat there trying to get the snow blower unstuck and trying to lift it out of the snow, my dad grabbed the handle, let the blower run a bit, wiggled the machine, and next thing you know it was ready to go again.
I couldn’t help but think that this is not unlike our relationship with God. So many times we (I) think we have to fix things on our own. We struggle, we moan and complain, we try to do it our way. All the while, God is waiting for us to, in a sense, “let the tool do the work for you.” God wants us to acknowledge that we need His help, and then turn over whatever the situation is to Him.
How much easier our lives would be sometimes if we would only do that. I know I always feel like I have to fight certain battles on my own - that I should know how to fight and win those battles by now. However, there is no harm, and it will turn out much better in the end, if we hand those situations over to God and let Him deal with them the way He wants.
Just like that snow blower easily cutting its way through the newly-fallen snow, it’s amazing how God can work in our lives to deal with situations we thought were impossible.
“Let the tool do the work for you.”
My wife, Danielle, caused a little bit of a stir with her latest MySpace blog post having to do with Texas offering the HPV vaccine to 6th graders.
I won’t comment too much about the post here. I already did so in the comments on Danielle’s page. I must digress and state that sometimes when I get writing about a topic, especially if I feel passionate about said topic, I feel like I have to fight the urge to wander in my writing. But I digress.
I find it strange that they feel the need to vaccinate school children for a disease that can only be caught through sex. Some people say the girls might get raped and would thus need the vaccine, but you can’t vaccinate a the whole population do to the chance that a horrible tragedy will happen to a few members of that population.
It definitely seems to be one of those moral choice issues. I believe strongly that choices have consequences. “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, ” etc. etc. That’s how God operates. He is a loving God, but He won’t be mocked. He gives us choice, but also warns that the choice may have unwanted consequences. That goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. God gave both Adam and Eve plenty of fair warning, but in the end the choice was theirs’.
The debate seems like a dialogue between two people.
Person 1: “We’ll treat your burn you got from playin with the fire.”
Person 2: “Why not just not play with fire in the first place?”
Person 1: “I can’t believe you would suggest that this person not play with fire. Everyone plays with fire. It’s inevitable. Don’t you want to treat people burned by fire?”
Person 2: “Yes, I want to treat them, but if they hadn’t messed with the fire in the first place, they wouldn’t have gotten burned.”
I know it’s a little more complex and emotional than that, but there is some truth, I believe, to that exchange.
That’s the great thing about the ‘Net, free speech, and blogs. I can have my opinion and express it, Danielle can have her’s, and you, beloved reader, can have yours.
Well, Super Bowl XLI is going to be Colts - Bears. Not the matchup I would have liked at the beginning of the season, but it should be interesting nonetheless.
I didn’t catch much of the Bears - Saints game. We were too busy bowling and trading forehand shots on the Wii. However, I did catch almost the entire Colts game. I’m not really a huge Colts fan, but I was rooting for them today, because they were playing the Patriots. I really can’t stand them, for some reason.
It looked like the Patriots were going to go to yet another Super Bowl during the first half. They went into the locker room with a 21-6 advantage. However, the Colts made quick work of chipping away at the lead during the third quarter. The Colts eventually took the lead in the last minute of the game and never looked back.
A couple of firsts/records were made today. This will be the first Super Bowl to feature an African-American head coach (actually, now it will feature two). Also, the Colts made the biggest comeback ever in a conference championship game.
Something that impressed me as a I was starting to write this blog was that the very first thing the Colts owner wanted to do was give glory to God for this victory - very impressive. Once Tony Dungy got his chance to speak, he also gave glory and thanks to God. Something you don’t see very often, except when rappers accept awards for songs containing all sorts of profanity and then thank, “their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Something never seems quite write with those acceptance speeches.
I’ll definitely be pulling for the Colts in the Super Bowl. Here’s hoping that it’s a good one with some great commercials.
Apparently some scientists have discovered a potential cure for cancer. However, there may be a roadblock to future funding.
According to this article a, “…molecule known as DCA was shown to shrink lung, breast and brain tumours in both animal and human tissue experiments.”
This sounds like a treatment that could have huge potential. However, the article goes on to state that pharmaceutical companies might be hesitant in offering funds for continued research, because the treatment doesn’t have a patent. Apparently no patent = no profit.
It’s sad to think that there could be a cure, or at least a help, for cancer and that it wouldn’t be pursued due a lack of profitability.
Really, what’s more important - curing a terrible disease for possibly thousands of people or making a buck?
I just got locked out of my MySpace account for 15 minutes, due to, “excessive login failures.”
What’s funny is that my login failed once, and that was because the connection got reset, since I was logging in from a dial-up connection. So, I guess one login failure is excessive.
I was just talking with my friend Dennis the other night about whether or not MySpace has hit its peak. I think it probably has. Don’t get me wrong, I love to use it to keep in touch with people, but it just seems so commercialized. I can’t really blame Rupert Murdoch for trying to monetize the ridiculous amount of traffic that comes to the site, but as I’ve said before, they should put a little programming intelligence behind their ads.
Who will be the next MySpace? It will definitely be interesting to see.
Today we did some Christmas shopping the Elmira, NY area. The following is my story of how not to sell a product.
As we went to the different stores in the Arnot Mall and Target and Best Buy, we were mostly looking at tech items - TVs, video game systems, etc. It shocked me when I saw how some of the next generation video game systems were displayed.
I first noticed this phenomenon at EB Games. They had a PS 3 and XBOX 360 on display that you could actually play. Quite a concept. They also had the new Nintendo Wii on display. The Wii is unique in its size and its innovative remote that you actually swing when you’re playing tennis or baseball. It offers a unique game playing experience, but I digress.
You would think with such a unique selling point for a next generation system that you would want to give your customers a chance to play the system. This must not be the case, however, as the system sat there in the case, complete with a black screen. There were even instructions on how to play the demo game, but there was no demo game to be played.
Target was even better. There you could play the PS 3, the Wii was on, but it was just showing the same demo video over and over again. When it came to the XBOX 360, that was where the fun started. It actually had an error message on the screen. The bad one. The one where you have to send the system back and hope Microsoft will replace it for you.
Now if you were an employee and saw this, wouldn’t you turn the system off, or replace it with a functioning system? Instead this 360 says, “Hey come drop your $300-400 on me and you too might be fortunate enough to see this error.”
Best Buy was a similar experience. The PS 3 couldn’t be played, and the Wii was once again showing the demo video.
It just seems to me that if you want to be moving these systems, you should let the customer who is probably going to drop $300-700 on one of these things if they are available as much opportunity to interact with the product as possible.
But hey, what do I know?
Tonight I heard an interesting point of view while I was listening to the radio after Monday night basketball. It had to do with the problems and hardships we go through in life.
The particular comment had to do with the life of Joseph, who was left in a pit by his brothers and later sold into slavery. His is a fascinating tale in the book of Genesis. Give it a read sometime. Joseph’s older brother, Ruben, was planning on coming back to get Joseph and bring him back home. He simply wanted to scare Joseph. However, Joseph ended up getting sold and eventually ended up in Egypt.
The commentator mentioned that if Ruben had been successful and brought Joseph back home, he would never have experienced the plan God had for his life. He would never have become second in command of all of Egypt, and he would not have been able to help out his family when famine struck in the land of Israel.
I thought this was an interesting take on Joseph’s life. Joseph went through a lot of rough stuff. Sold by his brothers. Taken to a strange land. Worked for a man whose wife falsely accused him of rape. Ended up in jail. Not the kinds of things any of us would probably consider as good or blessings. However, God used these situations to shape Joseph into the person He wanted him to be.
We’ve been going through a hard time with Danielle’s jaw. It doesn’t seem to want to cooperate, but we are trusting for God to completely heal it. I took this little minute or so of what I heard in the conversation as a real encouragement in our situation. I hope it is in whatever you’re going through also.
I hate, hate, hate it when people refer to Thanksgiving as Turkey Day.
I’m not 100% sure why this phrase elicits such a negative reaction from me, but it just bothers me. It feels that so often in this country when their is a holiday that might have even remotely religious undertones, we try to divert the holidy away from its true meaning/purpose.
So, Thanksgiving becomes Turkey Day. Christmas becomes all about Santa, elves, and gimme gimme gimme whatever I want. Easter becomes about eating as much candy as possible and about cute little bunnies.
Don’t get me wrong, I love all the aspects of these holidays. I’m not on an anti-Santa campaign or anything like that here. I just wish that we wouldn’t forget the meanings of these holidays.
Thanksgiving - be thankful for the blessings in your life, whether or not you believe in the same God I do. Be thankful for health, family, friends, your job, your house, etc. etc. We as Americans have many things to be thankful for.
Christmas - take time to realize the true meaning of the holiday. It is about the birth of Jesus Christ - plain and simple. Even we as Christians tend to materialize the holiday more than it is supposed to be sometimes. Without Jesus, we have no hope as people in this world. If you don’t believe that, that’s ok, but it’s my job to share that with you.
Easter - although the birth of Christ is important, His death on the cross and subsequent resurrection is even more so. Without Christ’s death and resurrection we have no atonement for our sins. We have No One to bare our punishment for us. We have no hope. Period.
I love that these 3 major holidays come pretty much right in a row. And even though the Christian overtones of these holidays may have diminished over time, it does not mean that they are any less true.
I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I hope that this holiday season finds you well. It if doesn’t, look up. Look up to the God who is our one and only hope in this world. You won’t regret it.
I was reading my latest copy of Newsweek tonight, and I stumbled across some responses to the editor that caught my attention.
The first response include the quote from Scripture, “Render to Caesar that things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
I have no problem with that statement at all. After all it is Scripture. However I do take issue with the conclusion the author came to. They go on to say, “I take that to mean separation of church and state.” Woah now, that’s drawing quite the conclusion on that one.
If you look at the context of the Scripture quote, found in Matthew 22:15-22, the religious leaders of the day were again trying to trap Jesus into responding to a situation in a manner they deemed inappropriate. They asked Jesus whether or not he believed it was right to pay taxes to Caesar. Jesus asked whose picture was on the coin (Caesar’s), and then responded telling the leaders that they should give to Caesar what is Caesar’s (the taxes) and give to God what is God’s.
How this has anything to do with the separation of church and state is far beyond me. Never mind the fact that separation of church and state, as it has been come to be known today, has nothing to do with what the 1st Amendment says - “Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion OR (emphasis mine) the prohibition thereof.” In my opinion, that amendment has been abused and misused in all sorts of ways to the point where people are afraid to say the name God or Jesus in any sort of public place, for fear that they are violating this mythical idea of the separation of church and state.
As I understand it, the founding fathers did not want a state run religion or church. I completely agree with them. I DO NOT want the government, as well intentioned as it might be, running my church in any way shape or form.
Many of the founding fathers knew the importance of seeking God’s guidance as they went about their governmental duties. I believe that is extremely important. I believe in a God who is actively involved in our lives. A God who wants us to come to Him and ask Him what He would have us do.
I’ve heard many times from politicians that faith should be kept as a private matter and shouldn’t have an effect on their job. Well, I believe that your faith and beliefs should permeate every area of your life. Every decision we make should be based on what are faith tells us. The way you conduct yourself in your job should be a reflection of your moral character. Like it or not, if you are a liar in your personal life, it seems to me that you would be likely to be a liar in your professional life, and vice versa, no matter how much society wants to tell us that the two are completely separate.
That’s all for tonight.