Ecclesiastes 12:10

  How we measure time is a funny thing.  I’m not talking about how “ time flies when we are having fun ” or the fact that “ a watched pot never boils ” but how we answer the simple question, what time is it?   All you have to do is go thru daylight savings to know that the clock can be kind of arbitrary.  However, that is nothing compared to the way it used to be. In the past, the time was measured by the sun.  Whenever it was overhead it was noon.  That meant most cities had their own time.  That’s why town clocks were predominate, it told everyone the time for that town.  In fact, to stay with the sun, a watch had to be adjusted 1 minute for every 12.5 miles you traveled!   All that changed with the train. For the first time, we could move faster than the sun.  So in order to get everyone on the same page (or clock), we moved to time zones. Today even that is harrowing since we can fly thru a couple of time zones in a mo...

  We ask the waitress, “What’s good here that I will like”? We ask the politician “What you will do for me if I put you in office”? We ask the clerk “Do you have the item I want”? We ask the employer “What benefits do you offer”? We ask the church “What programs do you have for me and my family”?   We want. Not only do we want, we want it faster, better, cheaper, and more convenient.  Our consumer mentality isn’t just limited to the retail world. It’s in the schools, the home and the even the church   Provide for my needs. I want it. Give me. Now. The leech has two daughters, "Give," "Give." Proverbs 30:15   The call of Jesus is something altogether different. Not to be served but to serve. To be last instead of first.  The least of these not what's best for me.   How can I help? Let me assist. I’ll volunteer. Whenever No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave - Calvin ...

  Ever try to read that EULA you click thru on your new software?  Have you ever tried to read the medical reports published about new drug tests?  Ever sit thru a presentation on education methodology?  Did you understand any of it?   It is not because you're not smart enough, even if that’s how it made you feel.  The reason for the misperception is the jargon and language that are used. The ‘technicaleze” that is spoken make you think that what is being told is so out of your reach that it must be on some higher intellectual plane.  So you just accept it, because if sounds this smart it must be right, right?   This technobabble tendency occurs in many areas of life. The goal of the speech isn’t always to inform but impress, to sound smart, and to woo you with the length of words rather than the content of the message.   That is what is so different about the teachings of Jesus.  Did you know the average Bible...

  Maybe I’m weird but I always dreamed of having a house with a hidden room.  You know one where you go to the bookcase, pull a certain book and the whole things swings away to reveal a secret hideout.  It can’t be that odd since several famous structures have hidden place. There is an apartment in the Eiffel tower, secret tunnels thought Disney World, the Greenbrier Hotel in Virginia has an entire underground complex to take congress in event of nuclear war.     The newer trend, however, is just the opposite. Rather than hiding something in a building, people are hiding things as a building.  As fear of declining property values force eyesore structure out of an area, clever builders have found a way of alleviating concerns by making the outside look like something else.  Pumping stations are surrounded by a normal looking house, cell towers are tucked away in church steeples, high story buildings that are really oil rigs. The outsid...