This was one of the things that I was on the verge of blogging about before I was distracted by the swishing of the swords of the late debate.
I am a unique and strange Christian by today's terms.  I by no means claim any knowledge of His plan.  What makes me most unique is my suffering.  Most Christians suffer from battles with sexual orientation, alcoholism, smoking, or some cancer or another.  Granted, my battles are not unlike some of theirs'.  I have diabetes type 1.  I war and loose to any variety of sins that the serpent let loose in Eden.  Yet, I've noticed on so many Sunday nights, almost every church, the same, people claiming victory.  The hoot, holler, smile, fellowship, and bear witness.  The elders, as if by instinct or inherent right, pray upon others.  While they tell them that we are all equal in sin, all fall short of Christ, and are all equal in the eyes of the Lord where does the unequal balance of one man on his knees, humbled and praying for salvation from this world and the other man (in the same church) that you never see on his knees, never see praying for His mercy but rather standing with oil on his finger tips bringing healing and comfort to the other.  The human contradiction that I find is that between the humbled and bowed sinner and the youth group leader elder offering collector the roles are never shared, exchanged, or traded during any one service.  The subliminal message seems to me that one has attained a higher level, a higher power while the other has not been blessed with the same yet or ever.
I have issues with that.  I do believe that the Christian religion is the guiding force of the universe and our world.  The destiny of everything that He created will be decided by Him.  God made everything good and all life with the exception of those of us with free will naturally accepts Him and his plan.  Dogs live as God commanded dogs to live.  Monkeys live as God commanded monkeys to live.  The worlds orbit as He commanded them to do.  I can't imagine the mayhem that would exist if all God's creation was born with free will!  For the things and life that God created without free will, living his plan to get to Heaven is pretty simple.
Yet, ever since the creation of Adam and Eve, free will has only gotten our species into more and more trouble.  The choices that human kind has made out of the gift of free will has very nearly destroyed our planet and slaughter of countless species since we began is only one of our marks.  Today, so much sin has been evolved into our lifestyles, societies, cities, neighborhoods, and minds from generation to generation that using this free will to choose Him is not so easy.  Rather than relying totally on God and reading the instructions and lessons he scribed for us in the Bible, we have become so dependent upon our own decisions, thoughts, and ideas.
We arrogantly go from day to day trying to make our own paths, each one of us using our free will to attempt choices and decisions that will make our path the best ever.  We trust so much in each of our unique handling of free will that we'll someday obtain immortality.  But is it any wonder that we've all been only going in circles and circles throughout our entire history?  Is it any wonder that along with free will human kind has constantly repeated mistakes upon mistakes upon mistakes including some that cause whole empires to fall or millions to die or countless more to suffer?  When will we turn our free will to choose God?

I was watching CBN last night and the 700 club with Pastor Pat what's his face.  His newscasts appeared no different than the staged ones that other Christian stations create the press home a point that signs are leading to the end.  You know the kind.  The erie fact, however, was that this newscast was real and the events that were reported was no different that what has been reported by every single news agency out there.
The battles along the banks of Israel, Russian and Georgia, and the Middle East and the growing frustrations of dozens of other nations all seem to be construction a stage of kinds of wars too vast and too violent to be contained by any side.  The 700 billion dollar bail out designed and worded to give a break to the crooks that began this brink of depression and the tools to repeat the mistakes that initiated this mess, of course, did nothing to save the constant broken records of falling stocks, failing dollars, and dying confidence.  I find it hilarious that just days after Obama's and McCain's senate passed that bill things have become much worse and quicker than ever imagined before hand.  Our little ole local economic issue has now engulfed the European empire as well.  We are more than ten trillion dollars in the hole and it is estimated that billions of dollars reserved for health care, social security, and other retirement savings our being zapped in the wind on a weekly schedule.  It is near to the point where all we have is what we have now.  The scariest part of that fact is that we are not only loosing what we have for tomorrow but what we have today.  Glen Beck calls it the perfect storm.

We are all the point in our history when the Bible offers the only successful bail out scenario.  And YET, pastors and people are still praying that God fix these things, changes these things, or reverses this black dawn.  Most do not realize that this is all according to plan.  The only thing avoiding the signs and the truth that this history was already written to set the stage for Christ's return is us.  Pastor Pat what's his face prayed for all good things to happen soon, hinting nothing at the obvious connection of what he had just reported and what was written in the Bible.  And as if that connection was some threat peeping around the bend, pastor Pat what's his face switched off to a heart warming and chicken soup story of a member of a rock band called Korn (he pronounced it Khorn and I loosed a giddy giggle for him having no clue at what the band's name symbolized) became a born a gain Christian.
We are living in a specific passages of the Bible, the most important parts since the books of John, Mark, Luke, and Matt all Pastor Pat what's his face can do is report the signs yet not read them and then pass on to a story about some guy from Khhhhorn?
Oh Lord!

I was watching a show on the history channel about bread.  One part of the program showed a Kosher bakery making Hebrew bread.  They were so strict in their standards that they had actual Rabbis come into inspect the ingredients.  The History Channel seemed to give honor and respect to these Hebrew traditions and made the process of creating traditional food holy to the Hebrews appear interesting and educational.
Yet, would the History channel or any other network channel provide just as much respect and tolerance towards Christian practices and traditions without calling them fanatical or "things of faith"?

More on that soon!  I have run out of words and I am off to bed.  I am sure that some sleep will inspire me to continue here later.