We’re all heard the hype about the Mayan Calendar ending on December 21, 2012. Did they just run out of rock? Or did they know something? (Then again, we may have the date wrong—see this article on the Discovery News site.)
Of course, most sensible people don’t believe the Mayans predicted the end of the world. Plus, being Bible-believing Christians, we prefer to take God’s word over that of an ancient pagan mesoamerican people group.
Still, the end of the world is coming.
Can you describe God’s perfect plan for marriage—or any relationship, for that matter? What is really important?
A quick Google search for “marriage compatibility quiz” turned up over a half-million hits. Many of the quizzes were quite silly, such as the “Love Calculator” that promises to predict how well your relationship will work based on your birth dates.
While I firmly believe that making decisions based on astrology is sinful (see my post on this topic), I don’t believe God has a problem with our poking a bit of fun, so I entered our birthdays and clicked the button. The results? Pete and I are “93% compatible.” (After 32 years of marriage, I could have guessed that.)
Are you planning a short-term mission trip this year? Perhaps you’re heading to Mexico or Honduras or the Dominican Republic. Maybe your destination is India, or Ethiopia.
Or maybe you want to welcome your new neighbors who don’t speak your language or share your customs—but you don’t know how.
Do you want to learn more about other cultures, to be more able to relate to people from other nations?
You can visit China—or Mexico, or India—for the price of a few gallons of gas.
As I write this, tiny snowflakes are falling from pearl-white clouds, adding to the 15 inches we’re already received. I hear the hum of the computer and the whoosh of air coming from the heating vent by my feet, but otherwise it’s totally silent. Even the hungry finches gobbling down sunflower seeds on my bird feeder are strangely quiet.
By the time you read this, the snow will be mostly gone. Living in the rain shadow of the Rockies, we don’t keep clouds around for long. Even now, we aren’t really snowed in. The roads are mostly plowed, and Pete shoveled a couple of wheel tracks down the long driveway so we can get our cars out. But I can pretend.
While the rest of you have been taking it easy over the weekend, Pete (providing technical expertise) and I (providing “motivation”) have been busy. You’ll notice that a number of things have changed here.
Most obvious is the new look, courtesy of a new WordPress theme. (No, I’m not savvy enough to create this sort of thing for myself. Yet.) My Compost blog finally has a look in keeping with its name! We’re still working out some bugs—for example, my “Unreached People of the Day” feature is currently missing, and if you dig into my archives, you might notice blanks where photos should be—but things should be up to speed very soon.
I bet you can immediately think of at least one Christian leader who is either raising lots of eyebrows or has made a wreck of their ministry. I fact, I bet you can think of several.
They may have started out strong in their faith, building the kingdom, aiming for heaven. But as they gained fame and followers and the pressure began to mount, they veered off course. Sadly, they then either fall into sin or heresy, or both. They end up in the headlines and the church takes another bad rap.
Since my sweetie, Pete, works in full-time ministry, we’ve watched this trail of destruction with holy fear. We take seriously warnings such as in Galatians 6:1—“Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted” (italics mine).
Today I’m taking a break to share some things I’ve learned lately. I thought they were interesting. Perhaps you will too.
The World’s Population
We’ve all heard the statement, “Of all the people who ever lived, most are alive today.” It has just enough authority to it, just enough sense of “Huh, that’s interesting” that we all take it at face value. Well, I learned from a short article in the June 2011 issue of National Geographic Magazine that this is not true. As of this year, approximately 103 billion people have ever lived. And only 6.4% of them are alive today. Doesn’t that make more sense?
I read a lot of books—probably about one a week. I usually have several going at the same time. It’s a good thing public libraries don’t charge!
I’ll pick out a nonfiction book on a subject I’m interested in at the moment and at least one book about God and faith and the church. (Our library has a remarkably good selection for a secular institution.) And then I like to have something just for fun—usually an adventure or science fiction story, the more exciting, the better.
Picking out the nonfiction books is relatively easy. If I want a book on birding, I simply head to the shelves numbered 598.07234 and start browsing. My friends and pastors often recommend books about our faith, soI have an endless list of ones I want to read. But the fiction poses a real challenge.
“There are places in the world many fear to tread, places of darkness where most have given up hope of ever trying to make a difference.”
The young man was standing in front of our Sunday school class, showing photos and telling hair-raising stories about smuggling food and Bibles into North Korea. Finding families for children orphaned by genocide in Myanmar. Even extracting persecuted believers from these and other nations that have targeted them for execution.
The U.S. military has special forces teams that engage in high-risk missions. Alpha Relief is one of God’s special forces teams.
I sat listening to my friend pour out her sorrow and concern for her son. He had been a vibrant believer, praying with authority, intimate with Jesus, a successful evangelist who was planning to go overseas as a missionary. And now he had just proclaimed himself an atheist.
How could someone that close to God suddenly decide that He doesn’t exist? It’s a long story which I won’t elaborate on here, but as best as his parents could piece together, the problem stems from unanswered prayer. He prayed that God would step in and set him free from an addiction—and God didn’t obey him.
Compost 