Today’s Relevant News

Immeasurable cruelty! Some monster deliberately sets 5-yr-old Youssif on fire in Iraq. Unfathomable. My thoughts? The world has gone worse than whacky and we need to stand up for righteousness. My only consolation is that Youssif and his family are coming to America and I’m praying they hear the Gospel and come to know Christ.

Then we’re reminded of Michael Vick’s victims. He drowned or hung the dogs that didn’t win, after already torturing them their entire lives. My thoughts? He deserves the same treatment. But our God is a God of mercy so let’s pray that Vick gets maximum sentence and that he too comes to know Christ in prison. Maybe he’ll have time to do some good on this earth before meeting his maker.

We also learned that Mother Teresa—someone I’ve admired for years—had serious doubts about her faith. Am I surprised? No, not at all. If she really knew Jesus, she would be vulnerable to doubts as we all are. But more importantly, she did not have sound teaching Let’s face it, her faith was based on an unbalanced system, not solely on the Bible. That would make it shaky. And if she didn’t have true faith (I personally believe she did based on years of studying her life and quotes, but only God really knows), then having doubts would be explained by a lack of Christ’s indwelling life. The Bible and the indwelling Holy Spirit help dissipate doubts. Add to that mix a good assembly of believers to encourage and allow us to hear good teaching and you have a good recipe to build up your faith—although hard situations and trials never fail to test it. Without those essential ingredients, it’s almost impossible to hear God’s voice.

That’s my take (at least, briefly put). What’s yours?

Other news includes that Berlin Zoo has a new baby elephant. I’d so love to see him. I absolutely love elephants. They are incredible animals—and their qualities could put a lot of humans to shame. More on that another time…

Janey L. DeMeo Copyright©2007 August 24th