Happy Valentine's Day!

That's right, another Valentine's Day. I just threw a surprise birthday party for my wife last Friday (she turned 26). For some reason I thought that I didn't have to plan too much for Valentine's Day because I had put some much time and effort into the birthday party. At any rate, Maris asked me yesterday what we were doing. So today I'm planning away at the last minute.

Every year during Valentine's Day I think about love. What is true love? It doesn't seem like many people really experience true love. People are always breaking up or getting divorced. We're always hurting eachother and getting hurt in one way or another. I love my wife very much but I often do or say hurtful things. It's at this point that I'm reminded to look to the thoughts about love that are in the Scriptures.

If you want to check out some thoughts from the Scriptures then go to the following links.
description of true love
Jesus' own words
the origin of love
husbands and wives
the two greatest commandments

The Information Age

Well, it's been about a month since I've posted anything. I think I tend to get a bit overwhelmed by living in the information age and trying to keep up with the Joneses. All this stuff is going on with Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, Blogs, e-mails, etc. It's crazy! I want to be purposeful with how I spend my time. I often feel bad because I don't respond to folks as much as I'd like to. A bunch of my high school friends have looked me up on MySpace. Sometimes I forget to let them know that I'm really there behind the computer screen.

I haven't even mentioned the bombardment of other forms of information. We have the news to read, Christian books to read, magazines to read, our Bibles to read, Christmas letters to read, the classics to read, poetry to read, articles to read and on and on. Plus we've got to be listening to the latest sermons by the latest pillars of the Christian community. Sometimes I think I can't even think. How's that for ironic...thinking you can't think? We do live in the information age (maybe we're moving away from it I don't know).

So I've been thinking about what kind of "age" I long to live in. I know the real answer is heaven but surely there are some things that can change, some decisions to be made that will be helpful in clearing out some space so I can at least think. I've heard that President Lincoln "read less and thought more" than any man in his position. I want to be a deep thinker so I can be a deep influencer for God's Kingdom. I'm praying for wisdom in this but for now I have to go check my e-mail...