The End is Near! Final Judgment is Upon Us!

Not THAT final judgment... those on college campuses know what I mean.

Here is a message I shared with my students this week in the weekly update for the campus ministry. I share it here as well for everyone feeling burdened by exams, papers, grades and the like...

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Finals are upon us... a time of focus and exams and stress and work and stress and... yeah. Finals are important to be sure. There is some need to gauge how well (or not) we have comprehended the material set before us over the course of the semester. Sometimes the exams and papers seem unfair. Sometimes they are ridiculously easy. And we prepare, hopefully diligently. We do our best and place ourselves at the mercy of the faculty and others grading us.

It is important to remember though that our ultimate worth is not determined by our GPA, or the grades we earn. We make our lives more difficult when we allow ourselves to become immersed in the messages that "EVERYTHING DEPENDS ON THIS GRADE!" Our grades are necessary and can help us reflect on our courses of study and the direction for our lives.

But at the end of the day, they are partial pictures of our lives and our identity as human beings. We are loved and deemed worthy by a God who came and dwelt with us as one of us. God's love for us shows us our worth and our value.

You are a precious child of God. period. Please never forget that... and if you think you are forgetting that during this time of judgment... call me. email me. text me. Let me remind you.

Goblins, Chupacabras, Moral Atheists and Immoral Christians

Many of the books I read, include mythical or fantastical creatures. Orcs, ents, elves, dwarfs, Martians, Vulcans, and the like. Most people likely believe these creatures are imaginary. Possibly people believe they exist as cryptids, a creature for which there is mere suggestion and little proof of existence... like Sasquatch or the Loch Ness Monster or the Pittsburgh Tunnel Monster, which feeds upon faster moving traffic which explains why everyone in the 'Burgh slows down immediately before entering one of our tunnels making the traffic jam cascade behind them.

In a recent spewing, Phil Robertson opined on an imaginary violent encounter with an atheist in which the atheist's wife and daughter were raped and  murdered, followed by the castration of the atheist. Throughout this foul reflection, Robertson follows the old motif that the atheist cannot oppose such activity because he, being an atheist, has no basis for any moral judgment. The perpetrators of the evil against the atheist say in the midst of their attack, "But you’re the one who says there is no God, there’s no right, there’s no wrong, so we’re just having fun."