The battle for Christmas

Hey anyone who wants to help out with the cause especailly the Speaker of the House should go ahead and do it.

Thanks Drudge.

Is that what it is...

Lutheran Carnival XI

Check out the new Lutheran Carnival. Dan did a great job with it.

This is my life... and I miss the small stuff

As I sit down to write this post I am first wondering why I am not sleeping yet and second this idea has been running through my mind for a couple of days. Hopefully it makes some sense as it comes out.

I have come to the realization that this time that I am here at college really is part of life. Sometimes it is easy to forget that while being within the confines of the campus things really are going on around me. That even though I am "trapped" in the dorms I am part of the world. It seems that it is often that I trudge through my life right now not realizing that I am not only preparing for the future but that there is also a present right now.

It is to easy to live in the future. And frankly I think that when this happens I lose sight of what is going around me. In a sense I lose the purpose that God has planned for me right now. Now don't get me wrong I haven't been reading Rick Warren or anything but I think that sometimes I miss the small opportunities I have to share Jesus with people all the time because I find myself to focused on the future.

I guess what I am trying to say is the age old adage that sometimes we just need to "stop and smell the roses". Either that or we need to think about the small opportunities that we have around us everyday to share the Gospel that was so graciously granted to us so that we may spread it to everyone.

I'm not sure if this is really where I meant to go with this post but there it is. Also I haven't really tried to find a good Bible passage to put this next to yet. If anyone can give me a suggestion that would be nice. Plus I get extremely excited when people post comments and give me new things to think about.

It's time to go to sleep so I can be awake for those "moments" tomorrow. With the help of the Spirit I can put my faith in knowing that if I take advantage of the moments I will have the words ready to share.

Is there better things to argue about?

So now we have the "under God guy" Michael Newdow fighting to get In God We Trust off of United States currency. Apparently this statement is very offensive to him and should be of great important to a religously free country. Read about it here.

Common Struggles

Last night at our weekly bible study we did something called a faith walk. Basically the idea is you go around in a circle and share how your faith has developed across your whole life. The rest of the group listens and can also ask questions if they might want to know further about something that is mentioned. This was the first time that I have really ever done something like this. As it turned out we barely got through half the people there before we decided it would be better to continue on later.

What I guess I noticed was that many of the people that were talking had dealt with a lot of the same problems that I had. This is something that people always talk about the idea that everyone goes through a lot of the same stuff you just never really think about it. Anyways it was comforting to find out some of the people that have also experienced the same types of problems I have had in dealing with my faith instead of just assuming that everyone else has them too.

What really is ours?

My pastor gave a sermon this week which focused a lot on stewardship. Not the idea that we should be giving more money than we are but realizing that all that we have been given was given in a way that it might glorify God.

He told a story about a couple of guys Jim and George. George had a rake that one year he loaned to Jim so that he could rake his leaves. Jim raked his leaves but never remembered to give the rake back to George. Each year Jim would use the rake for his leaves in the fall, grass clippings in the summer, and various other times throughout the year. See since he used it every year he just kept forgetting it belonged to George. The problem was not that Jim ever broke the rake and was afraid to give it back. In fact he took very good care of it like it was his own rake. Over time he had completely forgotten George loaned it to him and he now thought it was his own. George did get the rake back though a few years later when Jim died. His family was going through the shed and came across a rake that had the name George on it. They then returned the rake to its rightful owner. See the fact that Jim used that rake for so long never meant that he owned it. Ownership is not transferred by use as my pastor stated.

Then where does this leave us. Well in the same way God loans us all the we have including the body that we inhabit on Earth. He gives us these things and expects us to take care of them, but no matter how long we use them they are never truly ours. They have always been God's. So do we really own anything? The answer would be no, we are only using our gifts from God for our purposes here on Earth. "Ownership is not transferred by use."

Which is more important?

So I started thinking this morning which of these holidays can be considered the most important. Christmas the day our savior was born or Easter the day that he rose again proving that he was the savior? Any thoughts would be appreciated.