Making the switch

Well, I think I'm ready to throw the switch over to my own domain. I've owned dimlylit.org for a couple of years now but never really decided if I wanted to do anything with it. Now, over the past 2 to 3 months or so, I've installed Wordpress, tweaked some stuff,imported all of my posts, etc. and am taking the whole thing live!

Please move stuff over to and check out, http://dimlylit.org.

And yes, this also means that I intend to post more... again.

Running

I've started to run. I'm tired of feeling lethargic all the time. I'm tired of being winded from going up and down stairs in my house. I want to always be able to keep up with my boys. And I want to be healthy.

I've started before and usually fizzle out with excuses of bad weather, illness, time, something. Now I'm trying to remove and and all excuses and, as a certain shoe company says, just do it. If I can't get up early enough in the morning, I run on a treadmill at the Y during lunch. If I can't get away for lunch, I want to try to run in the evening. I want to feel good physically and this is one way I know to accomplish that.

Wish me luck, pray for me, whatever - I need it all.

Joe Thorn just posted about this,his 365th day of running. I plan to have my own post up like that in about a year.

For the record, I'm 6'0" and weigh in at 190 Lbs. Not terrible, but I could stand to lose a few. According to Runner's World's BMI calculator that just barely puts me in the "overweight" category. Let's see where I am next year.

Burma 'to let in all aid workers'

Let's hope this proves true.

Paying Attention in a Digital Age

Dr. Al Mohler has a very interesting post regarding the disturbing trend of college students being unable to focus and pay attention during class because of all the opportunities for digital distraction. Hes' writing about an article found in The American Prospect which highlights the return of a 2003 graduate to one of his classes where he observes a large number of students surfing the internet during the lecture. The entire article is definitely worth a read, but I'd like to call out the letter that this former student wrote to the current students he observed:

I understand that your minds move quickly and we are all impacted by a
fast paced culture, but do you realize the horror of shopping online
while Dalton describes…mothers throwing their children into a well to
avoid a barrage of bullets? What are you doing? There comes a day when
we must become accountable for our own learning process…Take it on.
This is your life. What is the point of neurotically skipping along the
surface when all the beauty lies below? Please seize the moment and
listen deeply to Dalton's final lectures. Close the computers. Stop
typing madly and soak in the themes he develops…Learning is an act of
creativity, not mind-numbing, tv watching passive receptivity.

In Dr. Mohler's post, he follows this with an interesting tie in to our ability to know and be with God.

People who cannot maintain mental attention cannot know the intimacy of
prayer, and God does not maintain a Facebook page. Our ability to focus
attention is not just about the mind, for it is also a reflection of
the soul. Our Christian discipleship demands that we give attention to
our attention.

China's Earthquake

Don't forget to pray for the people as this story and the disaster in Myanmar begin to drop off of the front pages.

Here are the latest numbers from China. Devastating.

Dead: 51,151

Missing: 29,328
Homeless: 5 million

A Right View of God

This morning I pulled A.W. Tozer's Knowledge of the Holy off of the shelf and began reading (by the way, I just found that the entire text is available online). This is a book I first encountered almost 20 years ago when I was in high school and re-read several times over the next few years. It had a profound impact on me, as it has had on so many others.

I haven't read it in probably 10 years, but was prompted to pull it down after reading a few reviews of "A Passion for God: The Spiritual Journey of A.W. Tozer". I'm glad I did - just reading the first chapter reminded me of the powerful truth this very slim book contains.

One sentence in particular jumped out at me:

Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them.

How we view God has everything to do with how we understand the Gospel. Years ago, I went through a sort of faith crises. I was overwhelmed by, what seemed to me at the time, the wrathfulness of God. It seemed to me at the time that I was really seeing God as a just God, and I was afraid. My view of God was too small, but beyond that it was inaccurate. As a result, for quite some time, the gospel did not reach me. I was captive to fear and trembling rather than free in the grace and mercy of Jesus.

Let us strive to have a true, high, view of God so that the gospel can be alive and vibrant in our lives.

Giving Credit

(HT Instapundit)

Thank you Janet Albrechtsen of The Australian, for pointing this out so very well. When it comes to disaster relief efforts, the United States is willing to offer whatever it can, no matter the country, no matter our relations with the country.

Just a quick excerpt:

THERE is a certain familiarity to the concomitant series of actions and reactions when disaster strikes in the world. The US stands ready, willing and able to offer assistance. It is often the first country to send in millions of dollars, navy strike groups loaded with food and medical supplies, and transport planes, helicopters and floating hospitals to help those devastated by natural disaster.

Then, just as swift and with equal predictability, those wedded to the Great Satan view of the US begin to carp, drawing on a potent mixture of cynicism and conspiracy theories to criticise the last remaining superpower. When the US keeps doing so much of the heavy lifting to alleviate suffering, you'd figure that the anti-Americans might eventually revise their view of the US. But they never do. And coming under constant attack even when helping others, you'd figure that Americans would eventually draw the curtains on world crises. But they haven't. At least not yet.

Now, go read the whole thing.

Wars and rumors of wars

"We know that the whole creation has been groaning"
Romans 8:22

"You will hear of wars and rumors of wars"
Matthew 24:6

I am struck now, more than I think ever before, by these passages and the brokenness of this world. It wasn't meant to be this way. Tens of thousands dead Myanmar with more coming due to illness and starvation, tens of thousands dead in China after a 7.9 magnitude earthquake, dozens dead as tornadoes swept across Missouri, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Alabama. And there is so much more.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. War in Iraq, civil war(?) in Lebanon, political corruption and intimidation in Zimbabwe,constant fighting and death in Sudan/Darfur, Palestine and Israel, Afghanistan, Tibet, Kenya, and the list could go on.

My heart breaks for this world. And the lists above focus on the global scale. They don't touch on the divorce, abortion, domestic violence, drug use and more that destroys individuals and families around the world. This world is desparate for a savior, desparate for healing.

"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[m] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."Romans 8:37-39

The question that Francis Schaeffer posed years ago is still so relevant today. How shall we then live if we truly believe the passage above? In light of the pain that this world suffers, in light of the groaning that we see and hear daily all around us and every evening on the news, how shall we then live?

"Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming." 2 Peter 3:11

The living of holy and godly live, of course, is precisely the question. What does that mean? Love your neighbor as yourself. How do we do that if our neighbors are anyone and everyone. It would mean giving up all dreams, all hopes - it would mean giving up our lives, wouldn't it?

Burma as seen from Space

Click here to see satellite pictures of the effected areas in Burma to get a feel for the scope of the flooding.

More Bad News in Burma

Unbelievable. The military junta has now confiscated all of the food and equipment aid that the UN managed to get into the country. The UN, as a result, has suspended all shipments.

May God have mercy on the people of Burma.

The junta said in a statement Friday it was grateful to the
international community for its assistance — which has included 11
chartered planes loaded with aid supplies — but the best way to help
was just to send in material rather than personnel.

Of course the problem is that the government there has absolutely no hope of distributing the food on it's own, not to mention the need to take care of the corpses, try to provide clean water, try to prevent disease from spreading, try to begin the process of building shelters, and so much more.