Here I sit at t-minus 10 minutes until midnight, and I'm stressing over this mid-term I have in systematic tomorrow. The class is interesting, and I enjoy the lectures but there's a bit more to it than that. The terminology that is used seems to be to think of the biggest words and hardest ways to define something and lets write it out that way. This seems to be the theme of several of the theology classes I've been in. My take on it is as follows:
We already know that we are not going to understand the reason God does things the way he has chosen, and we know that the Bible is suppose to be something we can understand. So why do some people have to make it difficult by putting in man-made formulas and definitions applied to much simpler teachings. I guess this goes along with my struggle with studying the word as hard as I know I should be, but it doesn't take away from the fact that sometimes people lose their initial goal upon their way of becomming a scholar. I don't want to lose my way, unless that be God's will, because I want my words and actions to tell of a Lord that loves them and cares for them in a way they will understand. I can understand the word Trinity being used even though it was never used in scripture, but words like Theophany(which means God appearing in visible form).....I think we can just say God was visible, without ever needing to know that word.
Well...that's just my .02 from a body filled up with Green Tea and popcorn. Listening to some great study music by Deep Forest. Who knows, maybe I'll learn something new tonight.

This is rather disturbing. One of the couples that were killed in the tsunami took digital photos right before it hit. They recovered the pictures from their digital memory card.

Here are the pictures.
CNN (you'll have to look for the gallery on the bottom right.)

It is hump-day, and what a wonderful day it is. Today was so beautiful, but I was stuck inside most of it. Just your typical day, but did have one interesting conversation.

I caught this guy on tv the other day, talking about his book. He was way out there with his reason becomming stronger than religion in today's world, because he supports reasoning over religion.

Chris, Rob and I got into a discussion today about the topic of reason over faith. Which comes first, which is more important, etc.

We didn't get into an argument, but a discussion. I am not big on arguments and probably wouldn't have participated very long if that was the case. Anyway, in my very simplistic approach to things (which I prefer) there were some confusions. Most of it lied within my definition for reason versus their definition. Rob said he pretty much agreed with what I was saying, but that I was using the wrong terms to describe it.

The discussion was over whether reason came before faith, and do we come to faith because of reason. Of course God gave us the ability to reason, but I am not so sure that we come to faith only by reasoning. Rob mentioned the "God shaped hole" in our hearts (not his exact words), and that everyone should know there is some kind of higher power.

For me personally, I am not sure how much it matters whether reason or faith came first. The biggest thing for me is that reason should never trump faith in any decision I make. Reason to me is more of this world, because we've been reasoning for so long with worldly ideals. Where faith is something that has grown as our walk with Christ matures. I'll take my faith over my ability to reason anyday.

It's not a salvation issue so it is not a big issue to me. There are doctrines that divide for some people, such as calvinism, or works based salvation, and even losing your salvation, but this is not one of them. It was good to have a little theological discussion that didn't get ugly. We discussed theological pursuits, and whether it is more important to have a working understanding of the Bible versus a systematic theology. For me, I say the Bible trumps man made systematic theology as well. I know that's too simplistic for some, but that's just me.

In the new testament, it says we are supposed to defend our faith. This is something I have trouble with because I don't think on my toes very fast on hard questions. I learned alot about that while working with youth, sometimes I'd have to say I'll get back to you with the scripture and we'll look at it together.

That's just me. I want it to be ok for me to be wrong, and for me not to know something. I've known too many people that just don't think they can be wrong, and I just don't like that attitude. We can't be right in every discussion, and we have to admit that there's a chance we may not know as much as we think. It's called being humble, and I pray for humble pie often.

really cool lamp
http://www.readymademag.com/feature_12_slidelamp.php

really inspiring to me
http://tinyurl.com/6eln5

After attemping to post using email (which may still work and you will see about 3 posts that say the same thing, I've decided to post regularly.

I wanted to pass along a link I came accross the other day. I'm going to be passing along more pictures and links......i think.

The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time

Pretty cool picture while driving home. 

This was a fun time. They had a starbucks tasting party. 

Here's one of the pictures from the trip to the Museum in Dallas, I'll post a few just for kicks. I don't even know what we are standing by. 

Someone gave this to me yesterday. Seems they snapped this of me at graduation in December. It looks like I wasn't very excited about being there. Maybe I didn't even know they were taking the picture. Who knows, but it's not a very flattering picture.

Friday night was an exciting time for me. A group of us drove over to Dallas to go to the Late Night at the Dallas Museum of Art. Against my better judgement, I took my huge camera bag (along with the digital rebel) inside, and had to check the bag. In retrospect, I'm glad I did because I got a few pictures that helped capture the evening. We went into the family events room and hung out with the children as we drew our own Chinese scroll, of course mine didn't turn out as beautiful as Jennifer's did, but it was fun. The museum was pretty neat, and we are going to go back soon to see the Forbiden City exhibit. It costs about 15 dollars so that one will have to wait a couple of weeks. I hope to have some pictures up in my gallery at www.sufficientgrace.com soon, but i'm having a little bit of trouble with the php app that runs the gallery.

Ok, I think I'm going to give this blogger thing a shot instead of using drupal which I have on my site. The comments section gets hit with spam so bad you have to restrict who can post, and it's just not worth it.

Anyway, onto my life.
For those of you close to me, you know I've been going through a little trouble lately with my neck. They finally did an MRI last night. That was quite the chore. Needless to say my body got a little crazy when they put me in the tunnel so I had to be semi-sedated with 20mg of valium so I wouldn't go crazy. Makes me feel like such a wuss....but it's all subconcious. I wasn't scared of the thing, but being scared of the outcome might be something different. Now it's a waiting game to see what the test results are.

Onto more exciting stuff, well, sort of. I've been presented with a job request from the board that is in a high security area. I'm open to praying about it, just like I should be. Jerry Rankin made a statement a few days ago in his message that made me thing. When you enlist in the armed services, you don't really tell them where you want to go. You don't really have a choice. Maybe we should view overseas work the same way. Of course, I have medical things to think about, but that shouldn't be a something that stops me from being open about praying. Like I told someone at the board today. I have a preference not to go somewhere cold, but that preferrence means squat if God calls me to go somewhere like that. It's not my feelings or desires that matter, and at least I have a firm grasp on that much of it. To say it as softly as I think I can, I wish that being willing and feeling like you are called was enough, but sometimes it isn't. On top of it all, I know that all of this is out of my hands. God's much bigger than me and the idea that it is in His hands makes me feel better than I would if it was just up to me.

sup peeps.
Haven't touched this thing in a long time. Not sure if I'm going to use this or the one on my site at www.sufficientgrace.com.
We'll see where that goes.