Luther

Martin Luther was a very brave man who changed the direction that the Roman Catholic Church was taking everyone in the 1500s. He was a reformist who stood up against the Catholic Church in hopes of sharing the truth to the people.
 Martin Luther was born in Eisleben, November 10,1483 and died there on February 18, 1546.  He did not have a very good home life.  His father beat  his mom and him severely. He admitted that it was him home life that made him pursue the monastery life style. This was a big part of his life because without his father being hard on him and his mother, he may have not ended up where he did. I think this shows that God had bigger plans for him and He used hard times in his life to bring GREAT things out of it.  Many times God does this to us and we just have to trust Him like Martin Luther did. The movie did show the relationship he had with his father while he was in the monastery.
Not long later Marting Luther began his lectures.  They started off already criticizing the theology around him. I think this is very brave of him.  He is not worried about what others think of him, or if people like him.  He just tells them what he feels lead to tell them.  The movie makes it seem like he was really focused on reaching the peasants with his messages.  He would walk around the villages talking to them and introducing himself to them.  I thought it was interesting to see everyone that came to his church and the vast variety of types of people there were.  It looked like there were rich people and very poor people.  The movie kept showing him with this woman and her mentally handicapped daughter.  It made it seem like not very many of the priests would go around talking with the peasants and that Marting Luther was a very kind man and knew what was the right thing to do. Another time I saw this character of him was when he was walking through town and there was a teenage boy that hung himself and Luther climbed up there himself and got the boy down.  And not only that but then he went against the church's belief that the boy could not be buried in there because he had committed suicide and had the boy buried in the cemetery. Since the grave person wouldn't dig the grave for boy Martin Luther went and dug the grave himself. Whether these stories are really true or not, they would not just make him look that way for no reason. He had to be caring and loving.
One thing that he really stood up against was indulgences.  Indulgences were a Roman Catholic Church invention to earn money.  What better way to earn money from people without a riot than to guilt them into it? And what is the best way to guilt them into giving money? By telling them that they can save their dead family members from spending more time in purgatory.  The person who came up with this was a genius.... a very bad genius.  But Martin Luther did not stand for this.  He wrote a list of things that the church was doing wrong with indulgences and posted it on the door of the church and sent one to the archbishop. These were the Ninety-Five Theses. In the movie someone got ahold of one and made alot of copies of it and handed it out to people.  People began to love Luther and what he stood for. 
God used Martin Luther in a BIG way. I think that he was so brave. He risked his life for God and did not even try to do it in secret. He didn't go around whispering to people that indulgences were wrong. No he went and marched up to the church doors and nailed a critique of them... (not a pleasant one) on the door. That is brave.
(www.newadvent.org & www.ccel.org) And the "Luther" the movie.

Don't Waste Your Life

      Chapter 8 talks about the idea of being in the world but not of it.  Many times people take this the wrong way and say that we should not be in the world at all (or the secular world).  We need to understand that God is not telling people to quit their secular job, just to be careful with how we act and to work with God in secular jobs.  John Piper gives many goals to strive for when you are working in a secular world.  A few of them are:

• "We can make much of God in our secular job through the fellowship that we enjoy with him throughout the day in all our work."  This means that throughout the day we should thank God continuously for everything He does for us, and to have Him there with you at all times.  He is always with you, but you need to acknowledge His prescence.
• "We make much of Christ in our secular work by the joyful, trusting, God-exalting design of our creativity and industry."  John Piper talks about how animals are very hard workers and they can do amazing things just like humans.  But the difference is animals are not working for God. But is there really a difference? Or... are we just like animals, working for ourselves to get food, clothing, and shelter? We need to have a better purpose.  We need to work for God.
• "We make much of Christ in our secular work whe it confirms and enhances the portrait of Christ's glory that people hear in the spoken Gospel."  We need to be lights in our secular work, sharing through our actions and our hard work the glory of God just as well as the Gospel.  What are we doing for Christ if we go to work just to get what needs to be done done.  We need to strive for more.  We can not be mediocre. We have to be examples.

   In conclusion, it is not wrong to have a secular job.  It is not wrong to be in the world.  It IS WRONG if we do not do anything different than the non-Christians.  We need to be examples to those around us. We need to stand out and be deliberately different. 

Secret Millionare

This show was very moving.  It shows people with millions of dollars giving a portion of their time and money to help people in need.  But something that I found more meaningful than the millionaire giving a little of his money and time, were the people who had their ministries already.  Like the Alexandria house, the basketball courts, and Amine.  These people do not have millions of dollars.  The lady from the Alexandria house and the men at the basketball courts live on skid row. EVERY day they are there. EVERY day they are possibly risking their lives for their communities.  EVERY day they are sacrificing their time and efforts to pour out their hearts to people.  Yeah its great of this guy to come in and give so much money, but I think the true heroes are the people living there. This reminds me of the story of the pharisees and the poor woman who were tithing.  A millionaire comes in and gives 100,000 dollars and is there for a week and gets a whole show about him, while the people living in Skid Row hardly get recognized for giving their whole lives.  Don't get me wrong I think that there needs to be both of these types of people and I can't judge either of them.   However it seems to me that love goes farther than money in the long run.  I imagine and hope that John continues to work with the homeless and help with their needs.  I do NOT think that we NEED to be recognized for what we do for Christ, but it shows what the world thinks of this topic.  To God goes ALL the glory!!

DWYL 6&7

In chapter 6 John Piper talks about forgiveness alot and how God has forgiven us.  And how forgiveness from God, gives us God.  Without forgiveness of our sins, we could never have God.  Our ultimate reward of forgiveness is getting God.  Not being able to live for eternity in heaven and not having to go to hell.  Not because it makes us feel less guilty.  HE is our treausure.  When we have sin in our lives a wall goes between God and you. Causing your relationship to not be as good as it could be.  When we repent and are forgiven the wall comes down.  In chapter 7 he talks about how we need to live to prove that He is more precious than our earthly goods.  This means that if people looked at me, what would they think was important to me. I believe that the person would think that I am consumed with worldly stuff. How i look, what I have, what people think of me, the grades I get, if I am good at sports, and many others.  I think that if people looked at how much I watched tv and was on the computer and then how much I was in the Word they wouldn't think i was different than the rest of the world.   I hate this because God tells us that we should feel like aliens in the world.  I know that I do not feel like an alien in Enid.  Maybe somewhere far away, but we should feel like an alien in our home town.  I feel like if we are going to feel like an alien we need to be different. Not necesairly strange to where no one wants to listen to us, but they need to know we are different.  I think a way we can do this is to change our influences.  We are influenced from things all around us of the world.  Such as tv and internet, or even the music we listen to. I think that is the biggest problem with tv.  It is influencing our thoughts without even knowing it is doing it.  It affects me in many ways.  I want to look like the girls on tv. Skinny, pretty, and rich.  It makes us want worldly goods and not the riches of heaven. We want tangible things that we can touch.  It also distracts us from what we need.  We want to watch a show, so we put off our homework. Then when it is time to do our homework and after that it is way to late to do anything else so we sleep. We need to have time for God.  HE is our treasure. Not worldy junk. 

Lord Save Us from Your Followers

We watched a movie in Bible class called Lord Save Us from Your Followers.  It was all about evangelism in America and how we do it wrong as Christian's.  It shows this guy walking around in a white suite thing with some sort of religious/ anti religious bumper stickers all over it.  It caught people's attention really fast. The guy would walk through a town and ask random people questions about what they believed about Jesus and which bumper sticker was their favorite.  It was surprising about how many people didn't know that much about Jesus. A lot of them knew He saved us, but that was about it.  Growing up in the Bible belt, I really don't notice how many people there are that do not know anything about God.  I am not saying that everyone is a Christian in the Bible belt, but most people do know some things about Jesus.  Also in the movie a group of teenage evangelists went to a place very close to homosexuals hearts and protested against them.  My personal opinion gathered from reactions of people to protesting is that is does not really work.  I think one of the main things it causes is more anger and resentment toward the church.  People who are protested against cannot feel loved.  They probably feel somewhat humiliated and for sure mad.   I think the best way to get your point across to them is to start a relationship with them and minister to them through what you do, say, and how you treat them.  The movie also showed the guy in the bumper sticker suite go to a homosexual parade and gathering and set up a confessional building for those who wanted to confess their sins.  That was not the only reason that they put a confessional there.  Through the confessional, the man was able to talk to these homosexuals and tell them that he was truly sorry for what the Church has done to them, and what even he himself had done to them.  I thought this was a very good idea.  Way more people were probably touched by his loving manner of evangelising compared to the method of protesting where it just made everyone want to fight.  I think people should watch this movie to see some effective and maybe some not so effective ways to evangelise.  Think about it this way... if someone was very rude to you and hurt your feelings, would you want to be like them? Would you think oh man, I wish I had what they have? NO! You would probably be pushed away from them with your unappealing attitude.  But if someone came up to you humbly and started having a genuine conversation with you, you are much more likely to want to be like them than the other person.  This movie was a very good movie and it really opened my eyes to the feelings of others.

Jesus Camp

At first when I began to watch the movie, I thought these people were crazy! Then I began to realize that much of what they are saying is the same thing I believe, they are just more radical. I do not agree with everything that they think, but in some ways I want to be like them. All the kids are so on fire for God and they seem like they would do anything for Him. Like the little girl who gave the tract to the lady in the bowling alley, or the boy who got up in front of all those kids to preach, or even the lady to devote her whole life to ministering to kids. I would have a hard time doing any of those things. I wish I would get out of my comfort zone like those kids did. But that is too uncomfortable and scary. Which is ridiculous when you think about what all God has done for us and not sharing it. All it is is selfishness. I was really convicted of this while watching this video. I thought if a little 8 year old girl (maybe) could go hand a tract to some stranger, I can talk to a friend about God. There were many good things about this video and the people at Jesus Camp. They were taking a stand for what they believed in. They strongly disagree with abortion, as do we. But they are trying to do something about it. They went to the white house to petition and they committed to pray for the decisions of government. Yeah, somethings they did were kind of crazy and maybe not completely right, but they are doing a lot of things right that I do not.
There are quite a few things that they did that I do not agree on. Like when the little girl was talking about "dead churches" and how if the people at the churches don't stand up and raise their hands during worship time, that God isn't there. I think that what she said is definitely not true. God is omnipresent. He is everywhere. You do not have to stand up and raise your hands to be Christians. Also another thing that I am not sure about is when the kids started talking in tongues. In the Bible in 2 Corinthians, it talks about when someone is speaking in tongues, there needs to be a translator present. In this video and at this camp there was not. There were just a ton of kids speaking in tongues. I don't think tongues is necessarily a bad thing, but I think that people need to be careful doing it. Another thing I am weary of is when the main lady said that Christians have a "spirit-man" living inside of them, and when the read the Bible, pray, or spend time with God, their "spirit-man" gets stronger. I can understand kind of what she meant, maybe that we each have a relationship with God and when we do those things we get closer... I don't know, but I am not sure what she meant by "spirit-man". And in one part of the movie it showed a kid laying on the floor convulsing. It never explained it though and I want to know why. One last thing I disagree on is when the little girl was bowling and told her ball in the name of Jesus to get a strike. This makes me think that the girl heard people throw around that term WAY too much. I hope she doesn't think that you can command something in the name of Jesus and make it happen.
One last thing that we do need to keep in mind is that this was only an hour and a half so movie. And think of much we have not seen. I am pretty sure that if I were the directors of this movie I would have chosen the craziest things I could find possible. We have probably missed a ton of stuff. It could have been different than what the movie portrayed completely. We should not judge them, we should just pray for them and that they will be teaching the correct doctrine and  that we do also.

Don't Waste Your Life. Chapter 3

#1. Boasting in the cross only happens when you are on the cross. This means pratically in my life right now, that I need to look at the world with the cross in mind. If I look at the world with the cross in mind, my whole view point on my life would change. To boast in the cross, we need to sacrifice ourselves, put ourselves on the cross. Until we do that, the only thing we will be boasting in is OURSELVES.

#2. I died, and yet I live. Some people read this and have no idea what it means. It is confusing. But I think it means that when we accept Christ into our heart, we are dying to ourselves. We now are dead to ourselves, but in return we become alive through Christ. He is in us. And since He is in us, we are now alive. Some key words that I think help differentiate the "I's" are in bold. "I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me."
  -Galatians 2:20

#3. Living by faith is really hard for me. I want to trust God, but I find myself worrying. I have faith that God will fulfill every one of His promises. I trust that He will do what He says. I do not live by faith in ALOT of things: school, health, and many others. I really would like to change and have faith in EVERY part of my life.

Lyrical Study

I chose to do a lyrical study on "Just the Way You Are" by Bruno Mars.  I like this song.  I like it because of the singing, the music, and I think that it is cute.  I think it is cool that this song is not inappropriate.  I think that in this time, and in that style of music, it is cool to be inappropriate and suggestive.  But it isn't.  All they are doing is exposing young kids and teenagers to things that aren't right. They are teaching them that it is cool to go to bad stuff.  I like this song because all he does is compliments his girlfriend.  He is telling her she doesn't need to change anything about her, and that she is perfect just the way she is.  Of course she isn't perfect, none of us are.  I think girls should hear this more often. Not always from a boy, but even from media.  This is not what the media is telling us at all. The media is telling us that we need to look a certain way, dress a certain way, be a certain weight, and height. This really causes problems in teens.  Many people get discouraged about themselves. Even going too extreme.  I like this song because it is taking a different stand to the music industry.  It is also probably successful because of all the teenage girls who listen to this song, and want a boy to say that to them.  Which gets me onto a different subject of where someone's fulfillment comes from.  But from a buisiness stand point, the words really do reach the teenage age and girls. 

Come on Down!

Many evangelists use a technique called the altar-call.  This technique is used to get sinners to come to the front of the church to confess their sins and repent.  It also is used to show the preachers how their sermon turned out and how the crowd received it. The more people to the front, the better the sermon. This method has not always been around.  Many great evangelists, such as George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards did not believe in this method. They didn't even know what it was. They believed that private inner change was how it should be done. The question is, which method works?  I think that both methods can work. God can work through anything. I also think that it depends on the person and how they feel lead. Some people are turned off by getting in front of people. Many people have definitely been saved by the altar-call method.  I think some people view going to the front as getting saved, instead of believing in Jesus and confessing their sins.  Of course there are people who are actually saved during altar-calls as well.  We also have to think about how people think by getting baptized they are saved, and in the old times people thought by sacrificing, and getting circumcised saved them.  Any method in evangelizing can be taken in a wrong way. I don't think this method is bad. I just think the pastor should make sure the people understand how they are really saved. God can use any situation to bring people to Him. We just need to listen to Him and determine what way He wants us to do things.

Salt and Light

In Matthew 5:13-16, Jesus is giving the Sermon on the Mount.  In this sermon He talks about many topics.  One of the topics was "Salt and Light".  This topic is very convicting to me.  Jesus talks about how Christians are the salt of the earth, and if we lose our saltiness how can we become salty again.  He also said, what good does unsalted salt do? NOTHING! Jesus said that unsalted salt should be thrown on the ground and trampled on. "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot."  (verse 13) This is very convicting. It makes me think about what I am like. Am I "salty" or not? I really need to work on spreading God's word to people. "You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." (verses 14-16) I need to stop thinking selfishly and all about myself. I need to go out of my comfort zone and share the gospel with people. We as Christians need to get out from under the "bowl" and let our light shine. I think that my "bowl" is, I am too scared about what people will think about me, which is ridiculous. I do NOT want to be unsalty salt to where the only good I am is to be thrown on the ground and trampled on. I want to be used to further the Kingdom and be a tool God can use to show people about Him. I think a way that I can do this is set a good example for younger people. I know that when I was little I would look up to the older kids. I should build relationships with younger kids that others aren't reaching out to. This can be a very humbling thing. It will help me get out of my comfort zone and it will make me stop worrying what other people think about me.

Halloween

I do not think Halloween is a bad thing.  I think it is just fine to dress up in fun outfits and go Trick-or-Treating.  There are many people who view Halloween as a devil holiday, and that there is more demonic activity on Halloween, and that by participating in its activities they are participating in devil worship.  However it was really a Celtic holiday to celebrate the end of summer and the beginning of the harvest season.  During the same time, they would celebrate the "festival of the dead" this is when they believed that the evil spirits came out.  they would wear scary masks and outfits to ward off the spirits.  They would also carve faces in turnips and put candles in them, which is where we get the idea of jack-o-lanterns.  The Celtic children would go from door to door entertaining their neighbors with songs, in exchange for candy or money.  This is where we got trick-or-treating.  If Christian's are going to boycott Halloween because it is a pagan holiday, we need to rethink our other holidays, such as Christmas and Easter.  These holidays were both originally pagan holidays that Christians put a spin on to make it okay to celebrate them.  It is kind of hypocritical to boycott one holiday, and not the other.  Some people really do participate in devil worship on Halloween, and I obviously think this is very wrong, and that people should NOT participate in those activities.  But I still do not think that it is wrong to trick-or-treat. 

Special Olympics Bowling

Today our sophomore class went to volunteer with Special Olympics bowling.  It was a great experience.  At first I was very nervous because they were all adults. Which is a little bit intimidating. I learned that you really just have to talk to them and encourage them and they love it.  I had one of the guys say to me "I just came to have fun;  it doesn't matter what my score is."  This is a great attitude to have.  I watched and a lot of them would do really good, and they wouldn't even care. They seemed to have a great perspective on what was really important, not the score, but meeting new people and having fun. I never have really had the desire to go help with special needs people, but this experience has given me a desire to help more.  Most of the time when people see a person with special needs, they tend to try to avoid them, and not talk to them.  But they are people just like us. We need to reach out to these people more and stop migrating away from them. I really admired the coaches that came with the adults.  They were very patient and helpful. One of the guys that was in my group didn't talk. I don't know if he couldn't or he just didn't like to. He finally said "hi" one time after his coach was trying to make him say it.  It was very hard to get any response from him. I wasn't for sure if he understood what I was saying.  It was hard to communicate with him.  He finally began to smile and show emotion. I feel like this is sometimes what I am like with God. He is talking to me but I don't clue in to what He is saying. This was a great experience and it really opened my eyes to the needs of these people, and all the things that I can do to help.

Spiritual Emphasis Week

How do you know the sky is blue? How do you know you are alive? How do you know there is a God? These were a few questions that Andy Braner, our speaker for Spiritual Emphasis week, asked us at the beginning of the week. We all want to answer "I just do", "because", "I have grown up with it", or "my parents told me". But we really need to think about why we believe what we believe. I was gone two of the days for chapel, but the days that I was there, Andy discussed "Believe", and "Behave".
One of the days he talked about the topic "Believe". "Why do I believe what I believe?" was a question he asked. We really need to think about this because when we go into the real world without our parents being there, we need to be able to rely on our beliefs not theirs. There will probably be times when our faith is tried be others and if we don't know why we believe what we believe how are we going to stand strong in our faith. If we don't know why we believe what we believe, we can easily be waivered in our faith. He also talked about objective and subjective truths. If we believed in subjective truth as many people do, we would do whatever we wanted and be fine with it. If there is not a certain truth than what is truth? It would be different for every person. One person may think it is right to punch a guy in the nose, but the guy who got punched would not think it was a right thing for him to do.
Another day he talked about "Behavior". He said that all ideas have consequences. (based on Romans 12:2). A good idea has good consequences, while a bad idea has a bad consequence. He also said that the ideas of the world are in direct conflict with the ideas of God. We need to be in the world, not of it. I really don't want to be in direct conflict with God. We need to work on our ideas and actions and make sure they are not of the world. We need to make sure they are not in direct contact with God. A way we can do this is look into our lives and see what is vile and then to completely take that out of our lives. He gave us a few examples of different things of the world that can influence our dating. Such things are Facebook, different commercials, and secular music. He did not say that we should totally get rid of those things, but that we need to be careful with what we are constantly putting into our minds. Facebook is not a bad thing, but we need to be careful, with what we talk about on there. Not all commercials are bad, but there are many that make us want to change what we look like, our bodies, or what we wear. The give us a false image of what beauty is. In our Bible calss, we watched a dove commercial where they took a picture of this normal lady, not a model by any means, and took a photoshoot of her, and put make up on her to cover all her blemmishes, then they move bones in her face and and cut off her soldiers, redid her hair, and made her eyes better. After this they show a billboard with her face on it. She was gorgeous!!! Now all these women walk by and think I should look like that, I should be that skinny, I should have my face look like that, and they will do anything to achieve that, even if it hurts them alot worse, than it helping them. Also men will walk by and think oh thats what my girlfriend should look like and will try to get a girl that looks like that even if she is not good. He also did not say that all secular songs are bad, in fact he said not all of them are. He showed us examples of sonds thaat could be ok, and then songs that are not good. He showed us a progression of love songs, starting with a "friendly" love, and ending with "obsession". He also said that listening to these types of songs once didn't hurt us but when these seeds are planted and watered, it can grow into something bad.We need to clean the vile out of our lives. We need to find what glorifies God and do it.

Friends!

"Let's be friends like Jonathan and David, they show us how friendly friends can be. They share everything, and talk about everything, and promise to be, they knew that they'd be friends forever..." When I think of friends and their personalities, this song that I learned in elementary school comes into my mind. I think it gives a lot of characteristics of what a friendship should be like. The story of Jonathan and David is a great example that God gave us as what friends should be like. The story is found in 1 Samuel 18. The story is about a King Saul wanting to David because he is more popular than him. Jonathan is the son of King Saul and the best friend of the David. This would be a very hard position to be in. Would you be on your dad's side or on your best friends? It would be very difficult to choose. Even if your father is VERY wrong, it would still be very hard to go against him. Yet Jonathan chose his best friend, he helped him get away from his father. Jonathan put himself in a very bad position for the safety of his best friend. I think this is an important thing to do. We as friends should risk getting hurt, not particularly physically, but we should stand up for our friends even if it could embarrass us. Samuel 18:1 says that Jonathan loved his friend's soul as much as his own. This is crazy to think about. You may like your friend but I think it would be very hard to love their soul just as much as your own. I think I really need to work on treating my friends exactly how I would want to be treated. I say things some times that I would probably be hurt by. I need to think about if I would want them to say that to me. I have a lot of friends that don't go to OBA that I know from youth group, volleyball, basketball, and church camp. One of my good friends that don't go to OBA is KayDee Stafford. I met her at church camp a few years ago. She is very fun to talk to, and to see at different sporting events. I am so glad that we have kept in touch through the years and I hope is continues.

Racism

Racism is a big problem in the church. The basis of racism is evolution. Charles Darwin has made a huge impact in the Church. If we believe what the Bible says, we should believe that there is only one race in the world. There are not multiple races. Only one. The only difference is the amount of melinen in our skin. It is very sad that people would rather their child to marry a non Christian of the same color, than a great Christian of another color. It is also awful that people do ethnical cleansing through the name of Christianity. There beliefs are so scewed and it is sad that they are hiding behind the name Christianity. Think about what people will think of us Christians. Im sure they think that we believe that the Bible teaches us that there are many races. I am sure that there are people who have turned away from the faith because of the people who misuse the name of Christianity. The Ku Klux Klan leader was the son of a preacher. Who in the name of Christianity murdered a ton of people just because of their color of skin. Hitler murdered thousands of people because of their "race", in the name of Christianity. Another really sad thing is, is that these people thought that they were doing the right thing. They thought that they were making the world a better place by making their "race" better than the others. The Church really needs to work on this as a whole. We are not very good at accepting people of different color into the church. If we are Christians we need to act like it.

Slow Dancing in a Burning Room

I think this song is all about a relationship that is falling apart. The whole time he talks about how they just keep getting worse, and how their relationship used to be a lot better but it is dying. I think that it is so sad that people's love can die. I think the song is depressing. He says something like this isn't the storm before the calm. This makes me think that he isn't even trying to make it work. It makes me feel as though he has given up. Which I think many people do in relationships, even marriages. It should not be like that. I think that divorce is wrong in almost every situation, especially if they don't try to make it better. I know of people who have done both, try to make it work and those who don't try. And sometimes, it just doesn't work out. But this song, it makes me think that he doesn't even want to try to make it work. He has given up. When he says "we're slow dancing in a burning room" it makes me think that he knows it going to end but maybe they want to play it off that they are doing fine but really it going aweful, and they know it will end soon. John Mayer makes it sound like it is her fault, but we only see one side of the story, so we don't know fully what is going on. I don't think this song is bad, but I don't think that we should constantly be listening to sad music like this all the time.
I am so thankful that God does not give up on us. He is always there for us and will always want a relationship with us no matter what we do. All we have to do is seek to know Him better.

My Future Spouse

A quality that I want in my future husband, other than being a Christian, is faithfulness. To have a good relationship one thing that both of you need is to be faithful to eachother and to your relationship with Christ. My future husband needs to be faithful to God, our family, and myself. If spouses are not faithful to eachother, a lot of times it ends up in divorce. I also think that if you are not faithful parents, your children will not be able to trust you and grow up in a way that is not right. Children need parents who they can trust so that when they grow up they will also be parents that their children can trust. In conclusion, I think that faithfulness is very important in your relationship with your spouse.  

Gendercide

I chose to write about gendercide because it is a topic that I found very disturbing and something that needs to be prayed for. I can't even imagine any parent doing what these people do to their children. The parents in many nations throughout the world kill there baby girls because they want sons. There is an estimated 100 million baby girls missing in the world. This happens a lot in China and Northern India where having a daughter is a bad thing to have happened to you. There is a Hindu saying "Raising a daughter is like watering your neighbor's garden." In China a baby girl was born and the father said "useless thing" and next thing you know, you see a babies foot sticking out of a slop pail. This is DISGUSTING! It is very hard to even think about! It is interesting to realize that if I were born into a family in China that could have been me! I am so blessed to be born into the family I have and where I am. We often take advantage of where we are and the blessings God has given us. We need to think and pray about the purposes for our lives and be open to what God has planned for us.