Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
Psalms 119:105 (KJV)

Isn’t this a great scripture? It reveals so much about how God shows us His will for our lives and does it in just a few words. When you’re walking along a path at night in an unlit area, what do you use for illumination? You don’t set up street lamps and light the entire area, instead you carry a small lantern or flashlight that illuminates your next step and a bit of the path ahead. Similarly, God doesn’t usually use His word to reveal all our surroundings, or even what He has for us around the next bend. Instead, He uses it to illuminate our next step and the path just ahead. We know our ultimate destination, indeed, we can see it shining on the hill above us, but between here and there is a path through the darkness that is this world that we must traverse.

So, why doesn’t God just illuminate the entire path for us? Why just enough to keep us from stumbling or losing the path entirely? I believe that it’s because He knows our limits better than we do. Think back (if you’re old enough!) to when you were in high school or middle school; if you could have known then everything that God had planned for you for the rest of your life, what would you have done? I don’t know about you, but I think I would have rolled up into a fetal position and started sucking my thumb! Even with God, life is scary enough on a day to day basis! Repeatedly in the scripture God tells us to take life one day at a time, this verse is just another way of saying it. His Word illuminates our feet so we don’t stumble and lights the path so that we can find our way. It’s not intended to be a floodlight that banishes all questions from our lives, the Word is a flashlight showing us where to place our next step.

Lonely Road

Originally uploaded by Jim Nutt.

This is my idea of good traffic. A road in the middle of nowhere leading to who knows what. I took this over the Christmas holidays in central Arizona, you just can’t find scenery like this east of the Mississippi.

The Christian Carnival is now up over at Wallo World. As always, plenty of of good entries to spend the week perusing.

Out of the Wilderness (the New Christian Blog Showcase) #2 is now up at NickQueen.com. Give the new guys (and gal!) a visit and let them know you appreciate their efforts.

Ok, knowing that I’ve been around Christian rock nearly forever, I thought it’d be interesting to find out what the oldest Christian rock album people have is. The oldest one I have is “Bootleg” by Larry Norman, circa 1971 (and yes, it’s on vinyl [and yes, I have a turntable I can play it on]). What’s the oldest Christian album you have lying around?

Ok, I can already hear the questions. “Alfred E. Newman? Isn’t that the guy from Mad Magazine? What does he have to do with Christianity?” I am so very glad you asked! It’s really just one aspect of Mr. Newman that I’m concerned with, his most famous quote: “What, me worry?”

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Well, I’ve been using the old WordPress 1.2 default template basically since the inception of the blog lo’ these many months ago. Upgrading to 1.5 broke some stuff in the template and gave me an incentive to polish the appearance a bit. It’s mostly a few font tweaks for improved readability (for example, I prefer serif body text with sans-serif headings) and a new background for the header. The background, by the way, is the sky over the Bradshaw mountains of central Arizona in mid-December. Gorgeous, ain’t it?

Nick Queen of Patriot Paradox has started a new blog showcase featuring three new Christian blogs every week. I’m privileged to be a subject of the first showcase.

The Christian Carnival is now up at Wittenberg Gate. Lots of good stuff to ponder and enjoy.

Well, I’ve successfully upgraded to WordPress 1.5. It seems to be working nicely and the upgrade was quite straightforward. I had to do a bit of work on the template to make things validate again and I had to set up a new theme to make the index page work correctly, but it wasn’t terribly difficult.

Update: After a couple of days of working with the new version, I’m liking it very much. If you’re using WordPress and haven’t upgraded, I recommend doing so. The new “pages” feature is quite handy and it handles plugins better as well.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a doubleminded man, unstable in all he does.
James 1:2-8 NIV

Wait a minute! Who stuck that in my Bible? Isn’t Christianity supposed to be all rainbows and lollipops? What’s this talk about “trials” and “testing your faith”? I don’t want to be tested! Tests aren’t any fun!

Well, contrary to what sometimes seems to be popular belief, Christianity isn’t all rainbows and lollipops. Sometimes it’s hard and occasionally, it’s really hard. We in the United States have been fortunate in that we live in a country where it’s still pretty easy to be a Christian. Oh, we may gripe and complain about it, but we’re not being rounded up and sent off to camps. The problem with this is that it tends to produce weak Christians. We can talk a good game, but if our faith is truly put to the test, do we hold up under the pressure?

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Have you ever wondered what your favorite movie would look like if it had been performed entirely by bunnies? And in 30 seconds? Well, click here and wonder no longer. They’ve such classics as “It’s a Wonderful Life”, “Jaws”, “Titanic” and more. And while you’re there, visit Amy’s Diary for a look back at the angst and anguish of third grade.

Probably the most difficult thing to do as a Christian (or for that matter as a non-Christian) is to forgive. We all want to be forgiven our mistakes, large or small, but it’s so deucedly hard to do for others. And yet it’s essential to our lives as Christians. The Lord’s prayer says Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. God has given us an amazing model of forgiveness, forgiving all our trespasses both large and small, and yet, we often find it hard to forgive the merest perceived slight.

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Dan’s Data reviewed the Firewheel Rubberband Gun back in December, 2004. I saw the review and decided that I really needed a multishot rubber band gun.

Mine came in the mail today:
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