Water.

This weekend my sister and I watched a foreign film called Water.
Very sad, but I really liked it. It was a film from India (with english subtitles) set in 1938, when Ghandi was stirring up change in the country. It is a film that puts a picture to James 1:27 (...widows in their distress).

The coffee I am drinking right now is excellent. It is Fratello's Ethiopian Sidamo Regular Roast brewed in a french press, (the best way to brew coffee I think). I shouldn't be blogging right now. I should be working on a huge paper that is due monday that I have not started writing. Of course, I've been thinking about it lots though...
Coffee has been on my mind lately. It seems to me that North American society has gone bananas over coffee. In my town newspaper a couple weeks ago, there was an article about a traffic problem that has arisen because of the extremely long car line ups stretching from the drive through onto the road and down the street to where is plugs up the corner. At my university campus, there are a number of coffee shops with a varity of delicious brews, some even fair trade, however, the line up still flows all the way across the cafeteria in front of one particular franchise. One of the reasons I think I have been thinking about this lately is because of the frequency in which I hear someone say, "I NEED MY COFFEE!" or "What would I do without this?" I thoroughly, and I mean thoroughly enjoy a freshly brewed pot of dark brown caffinated goodness but I have been wondering, should we be so dependent on this stuff and should we be so zealous about it. (At this point my sister pipes up, and shouldn't you be working on your paper. Yeah, actually I should.) I just want to be conscious of where my coffee comes from, (who is harvesting them, selling them, who is supported) and make sure that it is not the priority of my morning. I have a feeling the time that I spend making coffee should be balanced by time spend with the One who grows those beans and cares deeply about everyone who has anything to do with those beans from harvest till when my cup is warm.

Why is the gospel so often advertised as a religion that will make your life better?

I have been encouraged lately. I recently started listening to lectures from Hans Peter Royer, director of Tauernhof, a Torchbearers school.
Hans Peter reminded me, through this lecture, that the gospel is NOT meant to be a life IMPROVER, but instead, a life SAVER. The gospel does not promise to make our lives easier or happier, but it does promise to save us from death, give us hope of salvation.
A person will not hold onto Christ if when they accept Christ, they think they are going to gain a happier, more comfortable life. A person such as this will abandon the faith when they discover that life with Christ will not always be comfortable and will actually be hard and challenging at times.
In contrast, if an individual accepts Christ knowing that he or she NEEDS a Savior, they WILL hold onto their faith, because they know their life depends on it.

Wow.
My LIFE DEPENDS on it.