Oct. 5, 2006

Toronto, CANADA --> London, ENGLAND --> Johannesburg, SOUTH AFRICA --> Blantyre, MALAWI --> Zomba, MALAWI

holla!

go go go

A friend of mine once told me her grandfather used to tell her two things when she was younger:

1) You gotta marry someone who looks like Jesus
2) When you follow Christ, you always gotta go go go.

I'm not too sure I'll be able to follow the first point, but the second one does seem more manageable. My work visa just came in, so I'll be on my way soon.

Does God Want You to be Rich?

Prosperity Lite: emphasis is on God's promised generosity in this life and the ability of believers to claim it for themselves. In a nutshell, it suggests that a God who loves you does not want you to be broke. Its signature verse could be John 10: 10: "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly."

an excerpt about the Osteen family and their views on Prosperity, from TIME magazine:

"But there are many more illustrations of how the Prosperity doctrine has produced personal gain, most memorably, perhaps, for the Osteen family: how Victoria's "speaking words of faith and victory" eventually brought the couple their dream house; how Joel discerned God's favor in being bumped from economy to business class."

God's goodness is biblical, as is the idea that he wants us to enjoy the material world. But doesn't this seem to be treating God as a "celestial ATM." God then becomes a means to an end, and not the end in himself. Prosperity Lite wants to exhort the positive, but barely gives a glance at the negative. But the problem is that we live on this side of Eden, because we're fallen.

What's going on with all of this? All I know is that if one of my friends become rich and I see him wearing crocodile shoes, I'm gonna sock him in the face, then the nuts.

Two Face

I got four wisdom teeth pulled out last week. The right side of my face handled the surgery very well, the left side, not so much. If I look at just my left profile, my jaw and cheek are protruding out so much that I almost look like Syndrome from the Incredibles. If I look at my right profile, I look like my normal self. I feel like Two Face, from the Batman series. You can call me Two Face.



The cool thing is that when I went to the doctor for a checkup, he gave me this feeding syringe to clean out the food in my mouth that may have gotten stuck in the areas where my teeth got pulled out. It's pretty fun to use, and I must admit, I use it even after I haven't eaten anything. It makes me feel like a real health professional...almost.