Christianity 101 | Ain't Complicated

Two Exciting Investment Opportunities

I’m sure that by now most of you have heard of the financial meltdown being faced by the United States economy. It all started with the banking system starting to tremble. No, wait, it all started with people not being able to pay back all the money they had borrowed from the banks. Actually, I think it all started with real estate prices going down. Well, come to think of it, it really started before that, back when real estate prices went up. Or I guess it started before that, back when the banks decided to loan money to anybody who was willing to borrow money, which is what helped make the land prices go up.

Anyway, it started somewhere, sometime. And by all appearances, getting it started was a lot simpler than getting it stopped is going to be. You see, just this evening President Bush got on the radio, TV, and just about everything else he could get on and told Americans in general that there is going to be a widespread financial disaster. In other words, the average person would lose his house, his job, his retirement, his savings, his insurance, his sanity, and perhaps an arm and a leg. Unless, of course, we allow the government to step in and bail us out. Bail us out, mind you, to the tune of seven hundred billion dollars. For those of you who don’t know how much money that is, it is a 7 with a whole wagon load of zeros.

Anyway, in the midst of a world full of financial turmoil and uncertainty, I thought you would all be excited about a couple of wonderful investment opportunities I recently learned about. These are both guaranteed not to lose any of their value, and will not be affected by moth, rust, thieves, or financial market melt-downs. You have no need to fear when you invest in these securities, because they are backed by a pool of wealth far in excess of a measly 700 billion greenbacks. Read it all

Headlines…and Perspective

Before the headlines, something to give you perspective: It’s What Disciples Do

The Poster

That’s the title of Andrée Seu’s latest piece over at WorldMagBlog:

There is an area in my house that, if you had a handheld radioactivity detector for spiritual intensity, would start ticking wildly as you approached. It is my daughter’s bedroom, and ground zero is a poster on her wall.

One day I had decided to go through all six rooms and dedicate them to God, asking Him to remove any defilement. (This is either madness or the creativity of the Holy Spirit.) I was inspired in part by shame over a wooden key rack in the kitchen that reads, “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” It has been a lie.

As I lifted my head from a prostrate position, I spotted the poster, a darkly beautiful woodland scene that seems to call to ancient legends and distant flute sounds, and whose colors and mood blend seamlessly into the forest décor of the bedroom. One hardly notices at first the two mythical female faces locked in a kiss, and then, if you look closer still, a trickle of blood leaking from the corner of their mouths.

You really ought to read the rest of it (the above excerpt is more than half of the entire article).

As a husband and father, I am challenged by her thoughts.

What music do I allow in my home?

What literature?

What radio stations?

What Web sites?

What language?

What “stuff”?

And why or why not?

And how shall I teach about it?

Many questions; few answers. 🙁

Do You Add to the Gloom?

From Barbara Johnson’s I Don’t Suffer From Insanity…I enjoy every minute of it calendar, something far less than insane:

What kind of perspective do you bring to unpleasant situations?

Do you add to the gloom or introduce joy?

Do you join in the grumbling or find something to laugh about?

Do you follow our Lord’s example and lift the spirits of “those bent beneath their loads”?

The Lord lifts the fallen and those bent beneath their loads.
Psalm 145:14 TLB

And two other verses I thought of on the subject of adding light rather than gloom:

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

“For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8).

I am both challenged and convicted.

Keeping a Pledge

Dobson Rebuked for Breaking His Pledge Before God

On April 28, 1990 at the Washington D.C. Rally for Life on video and to hundreds of thousands of Christians, Dr. Dobson stated, “I want to give a pledge to you on a political level… I have determined that for the rest of my life, however long God lets me live on this earth, I will never cast one vote for any man or woman who would kill one innocent baby.”

But now he’s planning to vote for McCain-Palin. Despite the fact McCain fails the above test.

Maybe a pledge “on a political level” is different that a pledge on a Christian’s level.

Whatever the case, here are a few sentences from a letter supposedly under the Focus on the Family letterhead:

As Mr. Enyart stated, it is true that Dr. Dobson has said on previous occasions that he would never cast a vote for any politician who supports abortion. Recently, however, there have been times that he felt he was faced with the necessity of making a difficult but inescapable choice between two or more major candidates.

[…]

Please know that Dr. Dobson didn’t arrive at this decision without giving it much thought and consideration. Rightly or wrongly, he chose to compromise his own standard, which he rarely does, in order to protect everything that matters most. Although Dr. Dobson realizes this decision carries with it the potential for criticism and disagreement, he believes God has led him in this direction.

Oh my!

Surely that doesn’t mean that he did arrive at his previous Nope-Won’t-Vote-For-Him decision without much thought and consideration. 😯

And he’s going to vote for McCain after all (never isn’t as long a time span as it used to be) to protect everything that matters most. So killing a baby here and there is in a different category? 😯

Dr. Dobson, a bit of unsolicited advice: Leave politics to the politicians.

And an observation: You don’t have to choose between two candidates — don’t vote at all.

Now, regarding pledges and vows and promises and commitments and oaths, the Bible:

“Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay” (Ecclesiastes 5:5).

“But above all things, my brethren…let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation” (James 5:12).

So…what should Dr. Dobson do?

(And “rightly or wrongly”?!? Wow!)

When You’re Depressed

How do you handle discouragement?

Better yet — how do you beat it?

(I fear too many of us — well, I, anyway — enjoy too much wallowing in it.)

Andrée Seu wrote in WorldMagBlog:

For what ails you

The best thing to do when you’re depressed is to live as though you’re not depressed. (That advice applies to fear and other suffering as well.)

[…]

And then I pray God’s promises over it—“I will never leave you or forsake you”; “My power is made perfect in weakness”; that sort of thing. It helps, also, to make a list of what you need to do that day, and just start doing it. Press into life and live it.

I simply have to remember that.

And this:

Psalm 139:10

“Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.”

Where Does the Time Go?

Where does the time go, Jesus?

We can’t seem to get everything done in one day.

Maybe we are trying to do too many things.

No matter how busy it gets, Jesus, help us to spend time with You every single day.

If we don’t, slow us down so we can.

Thank You, Jesus.

Amen.

I don’t know who said that. I think it may have been Marilyn Jansen.