Sleep

I have wondered, of late, as to why G^d created us in such a way that we need sleep.

Think about it, about one-third of our lives are spent unconscious.

Now, as a physiologist, I understand some of the physiological reasons we need sleep, I am questioning the philosophical reason we need to be unconscious.  G^d could have circumvented our physiological requirement for dozing.

But I think I have found the reason for sleep.  In Matthew chapter 2, on 5 occasions G^d spoke to Joseph in a dream.

If Joseph in 1 BC needed to sleep in order to be quiet enough to hear from G^d, then how about us today?

We run to and fro, always hurrying, never quiet.  G^d in his wisdom, recognized He would need to slow us down a bit, and He invented sleep.  At least, that's my hypothesis.

Lord slow me down, even when awake, so that I can hear your voice.

Marvelous birds

Birds are marvelous.

They, at least most, can actually get airborne and fly under their own power.

Birds are marvelous.  I love them.  They are cool.  They have one-way lungs(air makes a single pass, not back and forth like us).  They have feathers that can keep them warm or cool.  They do all this and most of them look good doing it!

We can learn a lot from birds.

The gulls here at the beach, will come up to us to get free bread.  They will get close, but only so close.  There is a line they will not cross.  We need those boundaries.

The gulls right here, right now, are all immature.  Their parents hatched them, fed them, and taught them the basics.  Now they are on their own.  We need to do the same for our hatchlings.

The birds fulfill the tasks for which they were created.  Vultures clean up the dead.  Martins eat pounds of mosquitoes.

The Galapalagos finches adapt their beaks to fit their environments.

We would do well to be more like the birds.  We would do well to look at the birds and learn from the birds, see:

²⁶"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

Beautiful Beach Bodies

Brenda and I are on holiday at the beach.  Here I am reminded of an important lesson that I seem to forget.

At the beach, if you pay attention, you realize that there are FEW perfect bodies in the world, and in fact, few beautiful bodies in the world.  We are fooled by the images on tv, movies and magazines.

Why is that important to know?

In my business of exercise physiology, I am surrounded by a lot of people who fall in love with their bodies, and a few who begin to worship muscles, exercise and health.

It's hard to keep in mind that, even if we live to be one hundred, life is very short.  James 4:14b says, "What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes."  Note that a mist doesn't even leave a track or a corpse when it's gone.

We put so much effort and thought into something that is so short lived.  I guess I (and we) just lack foresight.  It's like polishing a paper plate.

There's an old southern USA saying, "He's so heavenly minded, he's no earthly good."  I realized several years ago, the opposite is much much worse, He's so earthly minded, he's no heavenly good. 

L^rd give us at least a modicum of long-sighted thinking and acting.

My Worst Enemy

There are quite a few people who don't like me... but, from my perspective, I have no enemies; except one.

I have this one enemy that seems committed to frustrating my plans.

I have one enemy that causes me to make bad decisions.

I have one enemy that accuses me of stuff I do, and of stuff I don't do.

I have one enemy that causes me to be self-centered, egotistical, and  covetous.

Can you guess?   Here's my enemy:

I have long understood what the Apostle Paul said (Rom 7:19), "For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want."

and a few verses later (7:21-25), "So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²² For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; ²³ but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. ²⁴ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord"

Thanks indeed!