Amos (it's a book in the bible)

I will be honest, I find it hard sometimes to find convicting and spiritually meaningful things in the Old Testament. In fact I had to look in the Table of Contents to keep from flipping all around the minor prophets to find Amos. I know there are things in there, and there are some really cool stories, but without a Bible scholar explaining it, sometimes it just doesn't make sense to me. I know that there are paralells we can draw on God's feelings on certain issues, and God's love for His people.

I was directed to Amos 6 in the comments section of one of Chris Dowdy's blogs. Which was really good. Madame kohlkoloz or something. Anyway, I talked yesterday about the laziness of many Americans, I neglected to include how lazy I was (most of you reading this know at times I can be a couch magnet), but let Amos 6:1-7 scare you a little bit.

"Woe to you who are complacent in Zion, and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria, you notable men of the foremost nation, to whom the people of Israel come!

Go to Calneh and look at it; go from there to great Hamath, and then go down to Gath in Philistia. Are they better off than your two kingdoms? Is their kingdom larger than yours?

You put off the evil day and bring near a reign of terror. You lie on beds inlaid with ivory and lounge on your couches. You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves. You strum away on your harps like David and improvise on your musical instruments. You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions, but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph. Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile; your feasting and lounging will end."

Admittedly the Old Testament sounds weird to me most of the time, but what this says to me is, Matt, you are too busy worrying about the unnecessary things that you have and the unnecessary things that you want to grieve for and reach out to those who are hurting and those who have nothing. So reach out to someone today. Pray for God's people in Southern Asia to reach out and comfort those who have lost their loved ones. Do something. Reflect God's glory in some way today.

Lazy Americans

I have developed a new pet peeve. I pride myself on being laid back and not letting too many things get to me, but lately I have let this one thing get under my skin. I work in a building with eleven floors, by no means a skyscraper, it has three elevators. I can't tell you the number of times those elevators stop on two. As in the second floor, one flight of stairs. It's not the ten seconds of the doors opening on two and someone getting off or on that makes me mad, it's that someone could be lazy enough to take the elevator up or even down one flight of stairs. In my mind unless you are elderly, or have something wrong with your legs there is no reason to take an elevator up one floor except that you are lazy, even worse to take the elevator down one flight of stairs, gravity is on your side that way.

It is clear to me why other countries hate America. We are the wealthiest, laziest, and most prideful country since Rome.(in it's later years) We are constantly complaining, we have to have the best of everything for the least amount of effort. The best example of this I can see daily is taking the elevator up one freaking floor. The other morning two overweight women got on the elevator talking about how the holidays were awful for their diets, they were going to gain more weight; I didn't get to hear very much of their conversation because they got off on two. I thought that is America in a nutshell, or better a thin candy shell.

hmmm... things to think about

I have noticed something in the last month or so that only comes up every four years-

The amount of political paraphanalia seems to have been extra high this year. By that I mean the amount of signs, commercials, bumper stickers etc. This particular post has to do with bumper stickers. How long after an election can you leave the bumper sticker on your car? Has anybody heard a ruling on this, because I haven't seen a real decline in the amount of Bush or Kerry backers on the freeways. If your guy wins do you get to leave your bumper sticker on a little longer, and rub it in a little to any democrat drivers you pass? If your guy loses should you take it off immediately, or leave it on to show you are still proud of him? The hard-core democrats will probably just leave it on until they start selling the "Don't blame me, I voted for Kerry" bumper stickers.

I know...I know, this is completely ridiculous. Just something to ponder, and a reminder that the election is over, clean your bumpers.

post numero uno

This is my first post. Nobody knows what a relief that is to get that off my chest.

..that's all