In the Zone

God values you. Did you know that?  It's true. God values you. We see in the pages of scripture - Psalm 139 to be specific - that God formed you in the womb, called you by name and that you are fearfully and wonderfully made.  Not only that, Psalm 139 tells us that God is all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing, ever-present and yet still takes time to form you and know you. God values you. So many times in our society, we feel undervalued by someone. We decry racism or classism or sexism or corporate greed or environmental factors that retard our growth and development as valuable members of society. We start movements or Twitter hashtags to rally our cause.  We use words like "disenfranchised" or "discriminated" or "left behind." All of that is to say we feel worthless, oppressed or distressed. We seek to right the wrongs that have been done to us.  Yet, we miss the point.  God values you.  It doesn't matter what your skin color is or

I cut out the above cartoon several years ago.  I depicts a think-tank with the results of their latest study:  Life is a leading cause of death and they recommend against it. It's funny because it's true.  You can't die if you are not alive.  So life, in fact, is the leading cause of death.  It's funny when we think of it in terms of all the studies on food and nutrition and health.  It seems like every study releases reveals that eating or drinking something will inevitably lead to our death due to some debilitating disease.  But the reality of this cartoon is far too often we take the punchline seriously.  Since life is the leading cause of death and hurt and pain, as a society, we simply opt not to choose life. This week marks the anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision that legalized abortion.  In that time, over 56 million abortions have taken place. 56,000,000.  Let that number sink in for a minute.  While we decry gun sales, wars, health concerns about f