Greetings bloglings,
I saw The Life Aquatic yesterday w/ Erin, Craig, E-Pac, and Tiffany. It was randomly laughable and I thoroughly enjoyed Willem Dafoe's performance! There was definitely some unnecessary material.....
Moving on....Erin and I are searching for a home in Houston... so the question is: Less expensive home w/ more sq. ft etc. and long commute (40 min or so) or more expensive townhome in downtown area (less sq ft) with very short commute. BTW, I'd like to announce officialy that Jeremy Fuerst is engaged! Congrats to Lutherans everyway.....

As to the question in my last post.... what is God doing in your area...I think this is a really interesting subject, and responses are even more interesting. Not that a response is indicative of that person's perspective on God, I think it has more to do with how the church has conditioned us to respond. So w/o further adieu:

Have you noticed that the answers to this question are most often something to the effect of: God is opening doors, healing our land, preparing for harvest, breakingdown barriers etc. All these things are surely true and glorious characteristics of God, and praise God for extending His mercies in that fashion.....But do you ever hear an answer that has anything to do with God exercising His justice? Would you ever hear, God is raising up a people to visit His justice upon another people? Or God is disciplining us etc.....I was really struck by this at the missions conference......As a church culture we're raised to know and cling to all the "positive"and p.c. aspects of God while overlooking the one who came not to bring peace, but a sword....to turn brother against brother....I've been meditating on Is 42 for the last month or so, and am continually moved by how God is leading prisoners out of their dungeons! Amen Lord,thank you for that mercy, thank you for being our deliverer. But as surely as we are all prisoners in need of rescue, so it must be true that some prisoners are "left behind." And what of it?Where is our consistent theology when there are wars? Where will our theology be when calamity stikes on a personal level.... or what if the geo-political nation of Israel is destroyed?I guess I feel like the church is doing God's Church a disservice by presenting an imbalanced perspective of God that leaves many with shaky faith in times of trouble. Perhaps if we knew more of the entirety of God's attributes, we would find ourselves in a better position to minister in tough times.
grace and peace,
jake