It’s Earth Day and I can’t help but be reminded on one of the reasons that the Creator placed us on this great big ball.
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. Genesis 2:15 New International Version (NIV)
Make sure you do your part everything day to honor God, but working and take care of his creation!
Once again I am late in the day for my post, so if you have been used to drinking your morning coffee with my thoughts, I apologize. I think I should be back on my morning schedule.
Well, while I was wasting time working this morning, searching for inspiration and motivation, I stumbled into these words:
The most often repeated command in the Bible: “Do not fear!” Our God is in control! Hallelujah!
Wow, that’s pretty interesting, so I decided to do some quick research. I am not sure that for sure its the more often repeated command, but I did find out that there are 84 occurrences of the command “Do not fear!” or “Stop being afraid!” starting with
1 After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision:
“Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward.” Gen 15:1 NIV
I am not sure about you, but I find this pretty invigorating and comforting. The creator of the world tell us via his communication with others on many occurrences that we should not be afraid as we go through life. That’s a cool thought, especially since we use that as a reason to not do so many times. And it appears it is something that I am writing about quite frequently. Or at least it seems that I have been writing a lot about lately.
I wonder what I seem to fear, and even more I wonder why I would – when I have a pretty good dude on my side. ( or I guess I am on his side!)
How about you?
Today is a big day, and in lots of ways it’s a sad day. The last Space Shuttle will rocket into the sky around 11 am this morning, weather permitting.
This is a sad thing for me as I have grown up with the Space Shuttle. This was the topic of my seventh grade science fair project. I had aspirations for a short time that I would fly on one of those things one day. Everytime I see the amount of engineering and the amout of design that is in those ships, I just stand and marvel at the amount of creative design and thoughts and the mind power that was used to build those things and to make them fly around the earth!
So today seems like the end of an era of exploration. But it seems that exploration is something that has been created inside of us. The abilty to dream and to explore and to create.
And it does seem that it all comes back to one creator who gave us the ability to create such incredible devices to explore his marvelous universe.
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27 New International Version (NIV)
Remember who created you today, and reach for the stars, or maybe the space station! I wonder what we will explore next!
There is so much going on this week that I can’t decide what to write about when! With all the exchanging of flowers and chocolate yesterday, forgot to tune my TV over to Alex Trebek at 7 to see the great IBM Challenge, plus I was watching my dear Mountaineers give the game to Syracuse with bad shooting.
Anyway, last week my favorite IBM employee and account rep, forwarded me the information that this week on Jeopardy the Watson supercomputer is going to take on 2 of the greatest Jeopardy champions of all time in a man vs Artificial Intelligence duel to the death ( or maybe to $1 Million !) And if there are three people I guess that is not technically a duel! This is really a pretty big deal in the AI industry, as its a real time test of over 4 years of development efforts on this super computer. It seems last night, Watson got off to an incredible start, but was slowly reeled in my one of the human contestants before the wheel starting spinning at half past the hour. I have set up my DVR to catch the heart racing action for the next two nights.
It is really amazing that men can build and program a machine to be able to process and answer to quickly. To be able to replicate in certain ways the workings of our brain is really really amazing. But I wonder if we will ever be able to really capture all the true intricacies that make us human. For instance our ability to create and organize and plan and build – those abilities are truly unique among the inhabitants of this world. Truly unique because they are given from God.
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27
and then here is an obscure instance of in Exodus
30 Then Moses said to the Israelites, “See, the LORD has chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 31 and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— 32 to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, 33 to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic crafts. 34 And he has given both him and Oholiab son of Ahisamak, of the tribe of Dan, the ability to teach others. 35 He has filled them with skill to do all kinds of work as engravers, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen, and weavers—all of them skilled workers and designers. Exodus 35:30-35 (New International Version, ©2010)
So, as we watch things like the Watson supercomputer and marvel at its complexity and let us celebrate the way men are using the gifts God has given them and then lets us use our gifts as well.
It’s Monkey Day! YEAH!
No, I am not exactly sure what you do on Monkey Day, except consider monkeys, or maybe pick insects and bugs out of your friends hair, or maybe we could be like King Solomon, and have some shipped our way:
22 The king had a fleet of trading ships at sea along with the ships of Hiram. Once every three years it returned, carrying gold, silver and ivory, and apes and baboons.1 Kings 10:22 (New International Version, ©2010)
My guess however, is that Monkey Day is just to help remind us of monkeys, those animals who share many things with us humans, and to remember that we have been given dominion or rule over them.
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” Gen 1:26
And of course, any good ruler, is then, in turn a servant. Since this world is God’s and we are his followers, we should always remember to take great care and concern around his creation.
So have fun on Monkey Day, the monkey’s will!
Go throw some poo!