The Fruit of the Spirit is...Patience

Patience.

Impatience.

I can't endure this anymore. It should have happened already.

When?

Impetuous. Rash. Now!

Quick tempers. Intolerant minds. Irritability.

Hey you cut me off, jerk!

Nervous.

Will I ever be noticed?

Short.

I was cheated. I was elbowed. I was overlooked.

I can't just sit here. I won't. I can't wait.

Now!

Is God going to help?

Is God going to do something?

Is He going to answer?

When?

Annoyed. Bothered. Stewing.

Stop it!

You're on my last nerve.

I've had it up to here.

Leave me alone.

The Fruit of the Spirit is...Peace

Peace.

Distress.

Anxiety. Fear. Turmoil.

Tossing. Turning. Insomnia.

Anxiety attacks. Psych wards. Medication.

Pressure. Stress. Tension.

What if it does? What if it doesn't? Is my savings enough?

Worry. Dread. Doubt.

Everyone is against me.

Anguish. Alarm. Run!

Incertitude. Instability. Insecurity.

Wide eyes. Shallow breaths. Shaking hands.

It's coming.

The Fruit of the Spirit is...Joy

Joy.

Shuffled feet. Slumped shoulders. Defeat.

Trials. Failure. Despair.

Why me, Lord? Why this? Why now?

Moping. Whining. Discontent.

Depression. Prozac. Sleep.

Tired. Weary. Worn.

It thrills my soul? The joy of the Lord is my strength? Stone faces.

I wasn't encouraged this morning.

I wasn't fed this morning.

Crystalized. Systematized. Sterilized.

I didn't feel it.

Factoring Probability: A Conversation

Francis: Let's say you are a scientist.
Franky: OK, I am a scientist.
Francis: Good. Now let's say that you have 5 theories.
Franky: I have 5 theories. [Giggle]
Francis: Let's give these theories a collective identity.
Franky: A name?
Francis: Yeah. Let's call it, "The H.I.A.S. Theory."
Franky: Hias?
Francis: Bear with me. Now these 5 theories are accurate. Let's say they are accurate within 90%.
Franky: 9 out of 10 is good.
Francis: Pretty good. Now the first theory is accurate to within 90%...
Franky: I'm following you...
Francis: Each successive theory is based on the success of the theory before it. Understand?
Franky: Yes. If A succeeds then B. If B succeeds then C and so on.
Francis: Exactly. Now assuming that the 5th theory is accurate to within 90% what is the likelihood that the 5th theory will work?
Franky: 90%?
Francis: Nope. 54%. It has nearly as good a chance to fail as to succeed.
Franky: Marginally interesting.
Francis: Now if you have 10 theories with a 90% probability rate, all based on the success of the one prior, the 10th theory will have less than a 1/10 chance of working.
Franky: Not too good.
Francis: Nope.
Franky: Can't go with the hias theory then. [giggle]
Francis: But then again, that is How It All Started. And there are thousands of theories, each dependant on the one prior.
Franky: [giggle]
Francis: Let's pretend we're not scientists.

The Fruit of the Spirit is...Love

Love.

Irreconcilable differences. Divorce. Separation.

My time. My stuff. My money. My needs.

Can't stop. Can't wait. Don't have to endure this.

Undisciplined children. Despondent children. Lonesome children.

Workaholics. Alcoholics. Shopoholics.

Rising late. Quitting early. Laziness.

Hatred. Just don't like her. Its just a difference in personality.

That's my choice. That's your choice.

He got himself into it. He can can himself out.

Racism. Sexism. Nationalism. Denominationalism.

Individuality. Power. Position.

Be warmed and filled.

Deadbeat dads. Deadbeat moms.

Indifference.

I know this for certain

Today I was reading a story on MSNBC.com. With a title like "Did chimp and human ancestors interbreed?," who wouldn't want to read it? What struck me in the article was not the stupidity of their speculation, but the sheer quantity of speculation. Consider some of these sentences. How can this be considered seriously?


The earliest known ancestors of modern humans might have reproduced with early chimpanzees…

…a new genetic analysis suggests.

…the scientists believe the split between the human and chimpanzee lines occurred much more recently than previously thought

… no more than 6.3 million years ago and perhaps as recently as 5.4 million years ago.

…Human and chimpanzee ancestors began branching apart on the primate evolutionary tree about 9 million years ago, scientists say, but there are significant gaps in the fossil record.

The new analysis suggests…

…nearly 4 million years and might have occurred twice….

…Based on an estimated relative mutation rate,

… around 6.3 million years ago. From start to finish, complete speciation spanned a much longer time range than in any other modern apes.

There are regions of the genome that don't appear to be much more than 5 million years old, and there are regions that appear to be 4 million years older than that.

…This suggests that after the first speciation 6.3 million years ago,

…early human ancestors may have lived and reproduced with ancestral chimps to produce hybrid primates.

…This would help explain why divergence on X between humans and chimps is so low

…Mixing and matching genetic information from two species doesn't always work out well,

…Patterson explains one possibility for how this could have happened: The initial split occurred around 6.3 million years ago.

…Sometime after, the descendants of the earliest known human ancestor mated with ancestral chimps and created a hybrid species.

..In this scenario, the earliest known human ancestor, a biped known as "Toumai" that probably didn't look much different than chimpanzee ancestors, would have predated the hybridization. The Toumai fossil, which was unearthed in Chad, has been dated back to somewhere between 6.5 million and 7.5 million years ago.

…Scientists can't say how long the hybridization carried on, but the final speciation occurred around 5.3 million years ago, possibly because the two species' genetic codes were too different to mix, or because the animals were simply physically unappealing to each other.

…If that occurred, they might have been compatible enough on X that it would fix out to one species or another," Patterson said. "As it happened, it fixed to chimps, but it could have gone the other way.

…This is just one possible explanation for the gap in speciation time...

Where's the Beef?

J. Marq Toombs has some good, meaty proclamations gracing his blog. Look at Affirmations and Denials 1 & 2- an excerpt from an evangelical publication.

I'm givin' 'er all she's got, Captain!

What's wrong with this picture?

Who is the Judge?

I read an interesting article on historicity by C.S. Lewis. Lewis loves the Historian but does not hold the same affection for the Historicist. (You will have to read his article entitled "Historicity" to gain a better understanding on how he differentiates the two.)

One of the examples of historicism that Lewis rebukes is the notion that all natural disasters are the "judgments of God" or the "divine wrath."

I remember after the SE Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, there was no small discussion about these disasters being a type of divine judgment. People walked the streets with signs, pastors went live on television and radio and preachers everywhere decried the sinful cities and stated boldly that God was angry. To a lesser degree, I was inclined to agree.

Consider this quote from Lewis:

...we must insist that such an interpretation of history was not the characteristic of ancient Hebrew religion, not the thing which sets it apart and makes it uniquely valuable. On the contrary, this is precisely what it shares with popular Paganism. To attribute calamity to the offended gods and therefore to seek out and punish the offender, is the most natural thing in the world and therefore the world-wide method. Exampes such as the plague in Iliad A and the plague at the opening of the Oedipus Tyrannus come at once to mind... The distinctive thing, the precious peculiarity of Scripture is the divine rebuffs which this naive and spontaneous type of Historicism there receives; in the whole course of Jewish history, in the the Book of Job, In Isaiah's suffering servant, in our Lord's answers about the disaster at Siloam (Luke 13) and the man born blind (John 9). If this sort of Historicism survives, it survives in spite of Christianity...

Lewis goes on to profoundly elaborate on our role of considering history. I will neither plagurize nor comment further on those elaborations except to say that I was reminded that natural disasters may well be divine judgments. And they may not be. We learn several things from the examples mentioned above.

From Job we learn that neither righteousness nor sinfulness are the determining causes of disaster or comfort. We learn that disaster is not always brought upon mankind for judgment's sake.

From Jesus' comments on Siloam, we learn that those who suffer disaster are no more sinful than those who've survived. We learn that the survivors and onlookers need to repent.

From the blind man we learn that God does things for His glory. An apparent disaster or misfortune may be entirely for the glory of God.

From this point, as the "crazies" shout out in the streets,

"Repent! This is the judgment of God!"

we can say

"I don't know if this is the judgment of God, but I agree with the repent part. I don't know if this a demonstration of the divine wrath, but I know we will all face that wrath one day. Thank the Lord that we have one more opportunity to turn to Him. One more opportunity to repent. One more opportunity to know that He is God and to say 'to Him be the glory' whether peace or calamity."

My Sweetheart

Every once in awhile, the kids will say and do things that bring tears to your eyes. Like the time Jalen found the pepper spray. But other times are more emotional.

Yesterday, my 4 year old daughter, Zay, was reading her little children's Bible. She found a picture of Mary washing Jesus' feet. Now, she has read that story at least a dozen times, but yesterday was different. She brought the Bible over, showed me the picture and said "I want to wash your feet, Daddy."

Even as I am typing this, I'm getting a bit misty.

I pray that my children not only continue to read Scripture but also become effectual doers. As it is, I wish I was more like Azeria.

Quotes

I've uploaded a few quotes at my sister site. If you have a few minutes, have at it.

Inferiority

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, 'Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.' This works well for motivational posters, but try that one on Judgement Day.

If John jumped off a bridge....

Well my good friend John Thompson sent me an email the other day...'I have joined the cyber community and started a blog. I am such a conformist. At any rate, I'm passing it along for someone to read besides me.' ...You can check out John's work in the Ghetto.

Then I thought, 'If John has a blog.....'