Gotta Surround Your Kids With Love and Teaching

It's pretty hard to surprise me. As a Bible teacher I've taught on some difficult and sensitive topics requiring that I read material and think through matters I'd rather leave alone. I don't promise this link will be an easy or comforting read. It wasn't for me. But I do hope that it reminds you of the absolutely cruciality of making sure your own kids get love at home and that you're intentionally forming their worldview including overt teaching on sexuality.

Before Your Heart Starts Bleeding ...

Okay I don't want to be know as the "death penalty guy" but come on... You can find out some details of the crime Michael Morales was convicted of here. Do you want to honestly tell me that if this man cruelly bludgeoned, raped, stabbed, and dumped the body of a 17 year old girl that he deserves an "absolutely pain free death"?

I don't have time this morning to develop this but this sounds an awful lot like the euthanasia folks and their "right to die". Maybe there is a parallel here to be worked out.

Surely when the Founding Fathers formed the Constitution they didn't mean to say that any form of execution was cruel and unusual. Hanging was the prescribed form of execution in those days and it surely wasn't pain free. If it was pain free, I'd be happy for us to return to it especially since it was public and might have a bit more of a deterrent effect than our sanitized executions today.

Hearts Hungering After the Hugeness of God

It was Pascal who said that every person has a God-shaped vacuum. My read is that all our thrill seeking in life is an attempt to fill that vacuum with anything but God. There's a new way to be thrilled. Take a gander at this link. But where will someone who's been buried for a thrill go next? There's nowhere to go. Nothing in creation can satisfy the hearts of image-bearers except their Creator. Only His character and power and abilities can continue to overwhelm and thrill us every day we ponder them.