In God’s Country

Today's piece by Charles Krauthammer  in the Washington Post is too eloquent and succinct to try to rephrase it. Here is the sentence that describes what I have been feeling for months:  "a country whose crude oil production has dropped 32 percent in the last 25 years but which will not drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for fear of disturbing the mating habits of caribou" – and Krauthammer wrote this ten years ago!  

In those ten years, Congress has attempted to open up ANWR for oil exploration at least a dozen times.  But enviro wacko Democrats and squish Republicans consistently defeat this common sense move towards energy stability and independence.  

Now that I am living in Enviro Wacko and regulation central (read California) I am even more incensed.  Why would people deliberately vote to make life harder and more costly?  Because of incredibly misplaced priorities. 

I wonder if folks at the Sierra Club, EarthFirst and the Democrat electeds of California are finally smiling?  Are they revelling in the pain of the majority of Americans who are struggling to keep their cars filled w/ gas and afford other inelastic goods like milk, bread, heat, and health care?  This is the utter hypocracy of the politics of the Left.  They vote to make our lives more expensive and difficult through regulatory and tax policies based on liberal economics and priorities then they blame Republicans for the mess the Liberals enacted.   

Today my wife and I put an offer on a house in Carlsbad, California. We are trusting in God to 1) sell our house in Virginia so we can pay for this new house, and 2) grant us favor with the seller so that she would accept our offer.

Here is a couple of pictures of the house. Would you please pray that the will of the Lord be done regarding this matter?

Today the Wall Street Journal has an amazing article on the fact that most of the world has its' head in the sand regarding Iran and its possession of and willingness to use nuclear weapons. Mark Steyen portrays the desire of Islamic world power assertion as a re-configuring of the 'headliners' of world power.  Steyen compares the western world's response to Iran to its response to communism in the later half of the last century. 

I think the more salient point, however, is Steyen's painstaking demonstration of the super high fidelity between Islamic leadership out of Iran and Islam as a whole.  What the Imams and Ayatollahs say, Islam does. And they will do what they say regarding their use of nukes. 

With Islam's pronouncements against Isreal, should not all those of us of faith become agitated?  Not just concerned, not just worried – but agitated – like the illegals in the streets protesting their treatment as illegals?  ("I might be illegal but I'm no criminal!")  

Steyen gets to the point, "A quarter-century ago, there was a minor British pop hit called "Ayatollah, Don't Khomeini Closer." If you're a U.S. diplomat or a British novelist, a Croat Christian or an Argentine Jew, he's already come way too close. How much closer do you want him to get?"  I would suggest anyone regardless of their profession or locality, whose belief stems from the Old and New Testaments, should be on their feet.

Why?  Because the Bible empahtically demonstrates that God will do what He says He will do.  The Old Testament paints a grim portrait of those who challenge God's kingdom – and particularly Isreal.

Steyn correctly points out that the world is moving toward a clash of authorities.  That between the God I serve and the god you serve.  

"What, after all, is the issue underpinning every little goofy incident in the news, from those Danish cartoons of Mohammed to recommendations for polygamy by official commissions in Canada to the banning of the English flag in English prisons because it's an insensitive "crusader" emblem to the introduction of gender-segregated swimming sessions in municipal pools in Puget Sound? In a word, sovereignty. There is no god but Allah, and thus there is no jurisdiction but Allah's. Ayatollah Khomeini saw himself not as the leader of a geographical polity but as a leader of a communal one: Islam. Once those urbane socialist émigrés were either dead or on the plane back to Paris, Iran's nominally "temporal" government took the same view, too: its role is not merely to run national highway departments and education ministries but to advance the cause of Islam worldwide."

Sovereignty.  We New Testament Christians are supposed to know something of this.  By faith we have become citizens of His kingdom.  How will we, who are called by His name, respond to the encrouchment of Islam on the sovereignty of Christ?  

This has been a great week.  My wife and daughter were out from Northern Virginia looking for houses.  We found some awesome houses, but I think we fell into the trap of our eyes being bigger than an affordable mortgage.  

Here are some pictures of a couple of decorations of a house we may actually make an offer on.  This house is crammed every inch with Catholic icons.  Kinda weird but kinda cool.  

Cate got a kick out of the sign twirlers that hang out on the corners  here in So Cal.  Yes, these are people who get paid to hold a sign and twirl it around to attract attention.  I understand that you can take sign twirling lessons and that the good ones make some OK dough. 

Friday we caught some time in the morning to hang out at Tamarac Beach in Carlsbad.  I gave Cate a surfing 101 class.

OK, what's a meme? I have no idea. But my buddy Randy said that he "tagged" me with this thing and I guess it is intersting to me and it gets me out of my unblogging funk.

Really, my life has been a whirlwind lately w/ little time to be creative on the old writing thing. So here goes w/ the Bible…meme…whatever…

1. How many Bibles are in your home?

Hmmm…my old home that is for sale in VA or my new home (my parent's home in SD) or the home I am house-sitting in Carlsbad? I'd have to say about twelve to fifteen in Fairfax – it's a very holy home, maybe five in SD – the three in regular use are all the ones I brought, and probably about ten in Carlsbad because the people for who I am house-sitting are Christ-followers and have some good reading. And, of course, I must include the Bible that is loaded on this very comuter!

2. What rooms are they in?

Fairfax – one or two in living room, three or four in bedroom, at least one in year child's room (2) but Chris had a few copies tucked in drawers, two in office and another two or so in the "book section" of our storage room.

San Diego – three in my room and one or two in my dad's study.

Carlsbad – one in kids room, a couple in office, and the rest in the master bedroom.

Computer Bible – everywhere I go!!

3. What Translations Do You Have?

Mostly NIV, a Thompson Chain KJV with the leather cover eaten by mice (kind of appropriate), a NASB from high school, an Open Bible, the Message, an NIV Student "Extreme" Bible, a NIV w/ a camo cover.

4.Do You Have a Preference?

YES. NIV is the most straight forward study Bible and the Message is the best to simply read and consider the greatness of God. I love the Message.

5. Nominate an Interesting Verse

Proverbs 7:22-23 "All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose till an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life."

How often we willingly choose sin, like a stupid animal caught in a trap and, like a stupid animal, with no clue that its end is death!