Three things

1. I am doing a lot of reading about great saints from the Reformation. One of the questions that this has raised for me concerns the almost total lack of suffering in the American church. More personally, the fact that I suffer little for the gospel. I think that all too often, I confuse the idea of suffering with life being difficult. But life is difficult for everyone, Christian and not. And I just wonder if I am missing something important....

2. In my continuing analysis of the music we sing on Sundays, yesterday we sang "And surely goodness and mercy will follow me...". And I couldn't stop thinking about my shadow. My shadow follows me wherever I go, whether I see it and recognize it or not. So it is with God's goodness and mercy.

3. With the opening of the new Cowboys stadium here in Dallas (kindly referred to as the Death Star), the media was in a tizzy. And I thought about the Roman Coleseum and the greeting that it must have received upon its opening. And you look at it now and although it is still big, it is well on its journey to becoming dust. And its architects are long forgotten. And so the Cowboys Stadium will one day be obsolete.....

....but I would still like to get a glimpse at that big HDTV that hangs over the field.