In the Night Watches...

Over the years, I have heard many people say, "The Lord woke me up in the middle of the night..." Claims like these always make me bit uneasy, because I'm not sure God is always the one awakening us. Of course, in the greater scheme of life, the Lord is with our "going out and coming in" (Psalm 121:8). And we know that He is ultimately in control of everything, in His divine sovereignty. But in the Bible, we see God awakening His people only a few times, mostly by visions or angelic messages (think: Ezekiel, Zechariah). So more often than not, I believe we are awakened by humanly circumstances (e.g. a crying baby, an illness, a loud noise).

Best New Love Song

Year after year, the debate rages on about which love songs rank among the best. 

If you are a teen, you may gravitate toward the recent, puppy-love pop tunes by Bruno Mars and the like. If you're a single adult, your choices could range from the wistful and lovelorn to the angry and bitter. And if you're middle-aged or more, married or single, you probably gravitate toward the old school...depending on your era of preference, anything from Jim Croce's "Time In a Bottle" to Perry Como's "When I Fall In Love" might tickle your fancy.

First Kiss

I pulled up the ever-trusty Google search on my smartphone today and saw that the featured artwork was (of course!) Valentine's Day-themed. On the mobile site at least, "first kiss" was the heart candy message. But I was curious to see what the desktop site had to offer, so I clicked over on my compy later in the day and realized there were a bunch of different heart-shaped, virtual candies that you could click on and hear "true stories of love" from "real people."

Why not?

Have We Become TOO Culturally Relevant?

For Olympiphiles (like myself), this is a time of great rejoicing. Nearly every hour of every day for over a fortnight is filled with media coverage of medal hopefuls doing their thing. Every two years (alternating summer and winter), this happens. And usually, the opening ceremonies would cue me to pull up a piece of the couch and fall under the magical spell that accompanies the beauty of worldwide unity mixed with nationalistic fervor.