Currently Reading The Power of Integrity: Building a Life Without Compromise By John MacArthur see related

In reading my friend Jaewon's post yesterday (May23) about her thinking and feeling thankful to God, and how great God is - it made me wish I could be consistently upbeat as she seems to be. Unfortunately I am moody and sensitive, both towards others, and in my own feelings.  I have my ups and downs and sometimes it affects my moods more that it should.  I guess it helps me to see that my life, especially my walk with Christ, which is to be the center of all the rest of my life, is not built upon a foundation of my feelings, emotions, moods, or the situations and postions I find myself in in life, wheter they be good, happy, sad, difficult, postive, or negative. Whatever mood I am in, whatever feelings I have, happy-sad, good - bad,  the foundation of my life is to be built upon my faith in Christ and who I am in him; that God is on the eternal throne that He has always been seated upon and always will and He not my feeling, or the situations in my life, are in control and He not them, or myself, is the sovereign God, my God, my Heavenly Father; that Christ is my Lord and my Savior.  Sometimes I think perhaps I will one day find the "secret" of being a consistently upbeat Christian, such as others I know, but then again, perhaps there really is no secret, or I already know it.

Heb 12:1Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Whatever the case my be - that I have not yet found the "secret" or that I already know it - I desire to be a better man today than I was yesterday and an even better man tomorrow than I hope to be today. This is I must do regardless of my feelings, or failures ( even sin ) or whatever situation I have. As the above states, I must fix my eyes on one greater than myself or anything else - Jesus Chrsit, and I must throw off anything that hinders me from doing so or causes me to fumble around and loose my step. Perhaps the Apostle Paul summed things up best:

Phil. 3:12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Hearbroken

Heartbroken

You know, like many, I think Barrack Obama is interesting and likable, and at one time I even thought of supporting him for President, but I cannot do so.  I like the idea of change, as long as it is good change.  But he differs from me on certain issues that I feel are important, and some of those I cannot with a clear concience compromise on.  I usually vote for Republicans, but to be honest, I am not supporting any of the cadidates (McCain, H Clinton, or Obama) as I am not too excited about the prospects of any of them as President no matter what party they are in .  But I say all of that to get to this:  Regardless of whether I support Obama or not, I am proud that we have come to a place in our country when a person of color can run for the highest office in the land, is taken serious and is a serious candidate (not a Bozo like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton), and is supported by people of all races, and could actually win.  For that I am proud.  We have come a long way from the days of my childhood in the 60's and 70's.  Whoever wins, I will give them respect due the office and pray for them as I should as the leader of my nation. 

In response to my friend Steve's post regarding the pathetic cover on Time Magazine depicting the Marines at Iwoa (that's not Iowa, a midwestern palins state, but an island in the Pacific) and the famous picture of them hoisting the USA flag upon a hilltop in WWII, replacing the flag with a large tree, and talking about going green and such; I have this to say in agreement with Steve: For one thing, while some of global warming may be true,  the extreme extent that those gullible (excuse my laziness to walk across the room and get the dictionary to check the spelling of it) enough to hail Al Gore as a genius and believe his diatribe about it, well have fun going green amd enjoy eating tofu and reprocessed dog manure. If Al is right, no matter what we do we will all be swallowed up by the melting polar ice caps anyway.  I don't think being concened about the enviornment is a bad thing, it is a good thing.  And as a Christian, (yes I am not ashamed to say I am one, a "real" one, and no I am not narrow minded and intolerant of those who are not) while our main focus is on proclaiming the Gospel, we are expected, as Adam was in the garden, to take care of the world God has created for us to enjoy and use, as well as be concerned about all social ills.  That doesn't mean that I can't chop down a tree to make paper or to clear land to build on or to use the lumber to build with. But I also need to leave some of it, maybe a lot of it, and replace what I have torn down. It doesn't mean I can't raise cattle and then eat them in the form of a juicy hamburger, ribeye, or filet minon.  If you want to eat nothing but veggies and such, fine, I have no problem with that, I do so myself on occassion, but don't yell  "Meat is Murder" at me because I ate half of Foghorn Leghorn at KFC today for lunch.  BTW- the bacon wrapped in my fillet minion came from Proky Pig!  Biddee Biddee Bideee ThThThaaats all folks!  If I had a big fat, disgusting, disease carrying rat lurking around my house, I would set a mouse trap. Now I will admit, I might try to find one that is somewhat humane, but nontheless if I happen to kill Mickey Mouse...well, he should hav kept his butt at Disney World instead of walkling out on poor Minnie to go pimpin' around on her.  Now I LOVE animals, and I HATE cruelty or inhuamane things done to them, and I will fight with you against such. But I will still eat meat!  The Meat as Murder crowd, for the most part, not all, will shout at me and tell me to go to hell for eating a Big Mac or Filet-O-Fish sandwish, but will also go to a clinic to get rid of an inconvenience in their womb.  Save the whales,  but to hell with a baby because he/she is really just an "it" and an "inconvenience" or an "accident."  Yes, I realize there can be, arguably, a few instances where abortion is appropriate. But how ironic it is that we live in such a strange world today - we want to save the rain forest and animal kingdom from extinction, but kill our unborn babies and feel it is okay tp do so? How odd.

I also LOVE nature, and I will fight with you to save the enviornment and make it better. Going Green is a good thing in many ways, and man has, in some ways, made a mess of the enviornment and  we need to correct this and be more careful, and less selfish/materialistic.  But there is more to this big push by people like Stengal, and yes, even Al (I have nothing to do anymore so I am bored and have to come up with an idea to keep myself in the news)  Gore...or is it Bore?  They are pushing an agenda that is more than meets the eye about just taking better care of the environment.  TIME magazine, like I fear many in our country either do or are on their way to doing,  have absoultely no sense of true patriotism or appreciation for what America really is and stands for, not to mention the just scarifice that many since 1776 have made for it to be so.  They gave their blood so people like Al Gore, Stengal, Bill Mahrer, Michael Moor, the Clinton's, etc could have the freedom to openly be dumb asses if they choose.  

I don't mind going green to some extent, it is a good thing. And I also belive we are seeing some climate change, yet nothing that is not a normal cycle that the earth goes thru, and while we need to have some concern, we do not have to be exageratedly alarmed over it, much like some were over the new milenium (again forgive my laziness to reach for the dictionary) scare a few years ago I DO believe we have some problems with the environment, and we nedd to address them, but don't get too carried away.  We need to do a better job of caring for the planet God created for us to live on.  But let's not worship the creation before the Creator. Lets keep our priroties in the proper order and we will naturally take care of all the other things in this world we have made a mess of by not doing so.  Ultimately it is God who controls the universe, not man, but we are expected by HIm to take care of and respect it, but first and foremost, we are expected to honor Him, the Creator - GOD.