Congratulations! We Survived!

Nope, just kidding! Fooled you.

We survived the Mayans' prediction of the end of the world! If you can't read this, I'm wrong.

"Nope, just kidding. Fooled you," said the Mayan priest as he smoked his wacky weed in his pipe. "I just ran out of stone to carve a new calendar. It's not like I can run out to my local market and get some."

Mayan priest smoking

Of course there have been tons of predictions as to where life as we know it will end. All of them have been proved wrong when the next day happens. Isn't that the way false prophets work? They get followers to believe that life as you know it will happen at a certain date and time, but the fact is NOBODY truly knows. This is gospel. It's in the Word. Why should you listen to false prophets? God is perfectly able to speak to you directly with Christ as the liaison, and the Holy Spirit as the real interpreter.

The Bible

Even the bible talks about the end of times, but doesn't give a specific time reference. There will be "signs." The problem with signs is that many things can be misinterpreted as signs. For generations, this calamity or that has been read as signs that the end is nigh. But in reality they were, albeit frightening, were just events that meant nothing. When the true end-is-nigh is about to occur, God will have to put it in bold, neon lights in the sky before I'll believe man's predictions.

Y2K was going to change the world as we know it. But some savvy computer programmer, <cough> like me, figured out that changing two lines of code would save computing as we know it. Financial institutions, the stock markets, and businesses all operated as normal on 1/1/00. For those that couldn't afford services like mine, they simply set their computer's internal clocks back ten or twenty years. Many cults staged mass suicides, and made pacts. But the fact is, Y2K changed virtually nothing. It came and went by.

I've got a secret

NASA assured us, in the face of the financial cliff in our economy, that no asteroid or other planet was going to hit us. There were no warning signs that the Earth was going to up end on its axis. With the technology today, surely someone would have leaked a story somehow. All the conspiracy theorists in the world projecting the end is just that theories. Even my dog can have theories of what is going to happen, and I'd trust my dog better than any stranger. That's not saying much because she will jump in the bathtub at the first rumble of thunder.

Now will bad things continue to happen? Most definitely. Someone with a gun or a knife will continue to kill innocent babies. People will still lie, cheat, and steal. The economy will be shaky, and then rise. People will become homeless, starve to death, and put through the wringer of life. Because that's what it is... life. Be thankful for this life no matter what it brings. Not everything will be sunshine, lollipops, and roses. Just like everything will not be storm clouds, rainy days, and weeds.

All I know for sure is when my Master calls I'm going home. Have a safe and joyous holiday season. See you again next year.

Retrospective and Thankful.

Since my stroke in May, I've had plenty of time to think and read other stroke survivor's blogs. I ran across THIS this week and thought I would share it with you all. It's all about what some has learned in retrospective and rarely as a person do we take time to think about it. This is wisdom born of suffering.

As a pastor, I often look at things in life retrospectively. This month being the anniversary of the birth of our Lord and Savior is a time to be thankful for the life after He assures us. Many of us are rushing around buying gifts that will be broken, used up, gathering dust,  and forgotten in the months to come, that we often forget to slow down and think how important this ultimate gift is. All the blessings we have received throughout the year that we have received.

How many of us would have carried on when we have nothing in life to look forward to than suffering, pain, persecution, and death? Christ did. If we don't value the lessons in life that He taught us along the way, isn't that another way of adding insult to injury, and a wasted life? Would you want to be the one that told Christ that He wasted His life for your salvation for a life ever after?

Not me. I won't live in fear of a wasted life. Everyday counts and even every minute counts or accounts for something. Make your life worth something. During this busy holiday season whether it's Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ashura, or Christmas, take the time to look at the lessons you've learned and be thankful.