Thankfully not brutal

After reading this article of the current conflict in the Middle East,
I'm glad that I don't live in the brutal and barbaric Middle Ages. They
were dark and violent.

Aid convoy under fire in Lebanon
*A UN aid convoy which entered the Nahr al-Bared camp in northern
Lebanon has been forced to leave after shells exploded near its vehicles. *

Fighting has resumed between Islamist militants besieged by the Lebanese
army in the Palestinian refugee camp despite a ceasefire declared by the
militants.

Six lorries went into the camp during a lull, carrying food, water,
medical supplies and an electricity generator.

There are reports of injuries and it is not clear if the aid was delivered.

About 31,000 civilians are trapped in the camp in deteriorating
conditions. Dozens have been killed since the violence erupted on Sunday.

An eyewitness told the BBC he had seen the dead and wounded lying in the
streets...

Full article here
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6678941.stm>.

Oh, it sounds like me...

"Absurd!" you cry? "What is she thinking? What planet is she from, and how hard was she hit by that passing train?"

Eva is convinced that her husband is a godly man, called to the ministry. Because of his call to do wonderful things for God, Satan caused Eva's husband to microwave their child the other day. Full Story here.

"Satan saw my husband as a threat. Satan attacked him because he saw (Joshua) as a threat," Eva Mauldin told Houston television station KHOU-TV.

A Galveston County grand jury indicted Joshua Mauldin last week on child injury charges after hearing evidence that he placed his daughter in a motel microwave for 10 to 20 seconds.

The infant, Ana Marie, remains hospitalized...."

My response was the same as I suspect your's was..."crazy!" But, reflection soon proves that all men are just as absurd more or less. When we justify any sin by saying that we are normally better or that we have a high calling, when we place ourselves above the accountability of the Law, we are absurd. Microwaving one's baby and then preaching the next day is no less absurd than placing a campaign-supporter in an office despite that person's incompetency to perform the duties of the new position. Claiming to be a servant of the public after playing such political favours is no less absurd than claiming to be a devout Iman while reading the koran with unclean hands. Absurd!

Absurd...without repentance. There's the key to authority as a man. Repentance and faith in Christ Jesus. Repentance gives authority to preach despite sin because it acknowledges the absurd as absurd. It forsakes the absurd instead of justifying or ignoring it. Faith recognizes the absurdity of all, running to the justification of an alien righteousness instead of trying to evade the guilt and accountability of personal sin by silence or blame. Repentance runs from the absurd. Faith frees from the absurd.

Woe is me if I respond to my life like Eva. How miserable I'll be if I have such a wife. How wonderful if I rather have a wife who calls me absurd and begs God to cause me to run from my absurdities and to despair of my own justification/authority. Who can help a people who follow such a couple as Eva and her husband?

God, grant us repentance and faith towards Christ Jesus, Your Son, by Your Holy Spirit.
Amen.

immigration compromise in the Senate?

from the May 21, 2007 edition

Paperwork: Margarita Medina, a resident alien in Phoenix, gets assistance filling out US citizenship forms. Robert Harbison/Special to the Christian Science Monitor

To immigrants, US reform bill is unrealistic

For the Senate reform plan to work as intended, illegal immigrants would need to embrace its rules – not opt for business as usual.

By Amanda Paulson, Faye Bowers and Daniel B. Wood | Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor

Read the full article here

...hmm...illegals distrusting the system? Yet, the system not recognizing the benefit of the people?

;-) immigration

From a local newspaper in Toledo, La Prensa.

Praise God!

Covenant Students have been serving with these ladies (and men) for years!

sweet gig.

Nehemiah 3

Thoughts after reading “John Darby’s Synopsis of the Bible”

After noting that Nehemiah works by faith despite dreary circumstances and seemingly without others’ prodding or encouragement (and then the people are inspired to work whole-heartedly), Darby states the following. “Let us remark, that in times of difficulty faith does not shew itself in the magnificence of the result, but in love for God's work, however little it may be, and in the perseverance with which it is carried on through all the difficulties belonging to this state of weakness; for that with which faith is occupied, is the city of God and the work of God, and these things have always the same value, whatever may be the circumstances in which they are found.”