Resolved, to think much on all occasions of my own dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death.
I am not quite sure what this resolution means. My guess has to do with James 4:14.
If you have an idea, go ahead and make a remark.
For those of you who attend Metropolitan Baptist Church in Fargo, I have found what Pastor Steve did before joining staff.
Everyone is throwing in their two cents on Sarah Palin and I am beginning to feel left out. So I will join the I'm-gonna-throw-my-two-cents-in-on-Sarah-Palin party.
Sarah Palin has been a success as a vice-presidential pick. Why? Because she has distracted the media from Barack Obama. I think that's why John McCain picked her. And it was brilliant.
Resident Thorns poet, Jordan, recently pointed me to a free download of Phil Wickham's album, Singalong. I have really enjoyed the album in its entirety, but this song has stuck out to me, especially the final stanza.
"Beautiful"
I see Your face in every sunrise,
The colors of the morning are inside Your eyes,
The world awakens in the light of the day,
I look up to the sky and say,
You’re beautiful.
I see Your power in the moonlit night,
Where planets are in motion and galaxies are bright,
We are amazed in the light of the stars,
It’s all proclaiming who You are,
You’re beautiful.
I see you there hanging on a tree,
You bled and then you died and then you rose again for me,
Now you are sitting on Your heavenly throne,
Soon we will be coming home,
You’re beautiful.
When we arrive at eternity’s shore,
Where death is just a memory and tears are no more,
We’ll enter in as the wedding bells ring,
Your bride will come together and we’ll sing,
You’re beautiful.
Often times when people are asked what they value most, they answer "faith and family." That's a cute cliche, but should we really put faith and family on the same level?
Don't get me wrong here. I think family is very important. I love my wife, someday kids (Lord willing), my parents, and my sister. That's not to mention my in-laws and my extended family. However, the reason I think that family is important is because it is a means to an end.
So, don't equate faith and family.
Faith represents a connecting agent; the God-granted allotment that allows us to be right with God. When we are justified by faith we are adopted as sons and daughters into a much larger, much more important family.
Take Jesus' words in Matthew 12:
While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”And in Mark 10:
Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”Maybe when people say that "faith and family" are the most important things to them, they actually mean that faith is a far superior number one and family is a distant second. Maybe. But somehow the proximity seems unwarrented.
While driving home from the Twin Cities, Rebekah made a phone call to inquire about a job that had been offered her in the recent past.
"Would you like my name as it appears on the application?" she asked since she had applied before we were married.
"Yes."
"First name Rebekah," she answered fervently, "last name Reeves..." and then with a little less fervor, "...like Keanu Reeves."
Or
