What Was I Thinking?

I am hoping that this year is really a time of thanksgiving and not thankstaking. I have been reading for weeks now from the major and minor prophets in the Old Testament, and there is a common theme that runs through all these books: God blessed his children, the children took the blessing, and then the children forgot about God. We live in a country where we have so much of everything - clothing, food, all sorts of material possessions, a place to live (some folks have more than one), cars (many have more than one), money, and good education and healthcare. Sometimes we forget how fortunate, how blessed, we are to have a place to live, clothes to wear, something to eat, clean water to drink, a school to attend and get an education, medicine to take to when we get sick, and a country with decent laws and peace. There are billions of people who do not have what we all take for granted, who go to bed hungry every night and live in fear without their basic needs being met.   About th...

I decided to title today's blog "Taco Salad Friday" because that is what I have on my mind and I thought it sounded sort of interesting. I have been looking forward to eating the Fellowship Hall's taco salad all week. It is reaaaaaaaallllly good! I bought my meal card on Monday and I have just one more unpunched space on my card that I have been saving expressly for the purpose of getting a taco salad. I also have my free drink space to use up, so I hope they have root beer today too. It is fun to make plans and to have something to look forward to. It is not so fun when plans fall through and wishes go unfulfilled. Sad to say, but this happens more than I would like. I can plan, plan, plan, hope, hope, hope, wish, wish, wish all I want, but there's always a pretty good chance that things won't come out the way I'd like them to. ((Sigh.)) Life is uncertain. We make plans to go on a vacation only to wake up the day of the trip with the flu and have to stay ...

Over the years, an number of songs have been written with this title, asking, "Where is the love?" This musical question is one that I sometimes find myself thinking about as I hear about problems that exist between students in our school. Where is the love? I can see where the world is wondering where the love is, because the world lives in denial of God who is love and therefore does not know true love. But we are Christians, right? Followers of Christ? You know - the man who was love incarnate? God with skin on? The one who loved and valued us enough to be glad to die for us? The one who was rejected, despised, spit upon, lied about, mocked, beaten, bruised, hated, tortured, and brutally executed in our place? Yeah, that guy. Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, the Redeemer, the one and only Son of God, the Lamb of God that took away the sins of the world. The one who cared enough to step in and save me from the eternal agonies of hell. I think we all know who I am talking ...

I have been thinking a little bit about understanding lately, because I have spent a few weekends at educational conferences since school began, and understanding has come up more than once. In the 28th chapter of the book of Job, this question is asked twice: "Where does wisdom come from? And where is the place of understanding?" Knowledge is not understanding. We all know people who know a lot of things and can pass tests on those things they know, but they don't necessarily understand the knowledge they have and therefore can't explain it to someone else - all they know is a lot of answers to test questions. If you know how to spell a lot of words and can define them too, but never use them in your writing or speaking, and can't use that knowledge of words to help you comprehend what you are reading, do you really have understanding? "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding." (Proverbs 3:13) My challenge to all of ...