I sat through the battery of tests where they show you the little farmhouse off in the distance, the “little pufts of air” for each eye, and the dilation drops which turns regular sunshine into something bordering on offensive.  In the end, it turns out my eye glasses were just really scratched up.  There were no changes to my vision, but my perspective had changed because of what my glasses had been through.  I was looking at a perfectly clear world through a bad set of glasses.

As I walked, squinty-eyed, to my car, I began to think of a conversation I had with a friend earlier that week about the whole gay marriage debate.  My friend, who is a Christian, felt that people could be born gay.  Not that he was completely convinced of it, but leaned toward that as he has also held the opinion that not everything in the Bible is true.  It was a very interesting conversation for me, because I like rational discussion with rational people who can explain their position without finger-pointing and name calling.  For my friend, it all seemed to revolve around the concept of a question: How could two people, mutually committed to each other in love, be wrong?

I conceded that I have seen some gay/lesbian couples in relationships that seemed far more loving, healthy, and even “more Christian” than some Christian marriages.  However, I still held the view that it was wrong, simply because the Bible very clearly spells out that homosexuality is wrong.  Where I think my perspective differs from others is that homosexuality is wrong, but it is no more grievous or wrong than the other sins of fornication or adultery.  For that matter, homosexuality is no more wrong than any other sin.

I think there is too much focus on homosexuality being wrong, and not enough focus on simply loving people where they are, regardless of where they are.  This is not in any way a condoning of homosexuality, but it is my view that it is not only useless to condemn people for it, it is also hypocritical.  As abhorrent as the idea of homosexuality is to some people, every single one of us is equally abhorrent in the eyes of a perfect sinless God without Jesus Christ in our lives.  Only by the blood of Christ are we made perfect.  I believe it is enough that the Bible condemns homosexuality (and all sin), there is no need for me to do so.

Because of my acceptance of Christ, I am forgiven, loved, and accepted.  I will not lose my place of relationship with Him, nor will I ever exhaust His love and forgiveness for sins.  I can accept that I will do wrong things, for nothing prevents my sinful flesh from being tempted, and I am still just as human as anyone unsaved.  The difference in my life is an acceptance of forgiveness, a recognition of right and wrong behavior according to the Bible, and a desire to please my Savior through a life that is pleasing to Him.

And what would be pleasing to Him?  Should I then, as a forgiven, loved, and accepted son of God, run around finger-pointing and name-calling?  Or rather, should I be just as accepting and loving of others as Christ was of me?

To my friend, I made it clear that while the Bible may actually speak of some people being born not attracted to the person of the opposite sex (Mt 19:12), the Bible is very clear that homosexuality is wrong.  The greater explanation is that maybe these people were born to serve God unencumbered by marriage (I Cor 7), and that while others may be tempted by sexual sin with someone of the opposite sex, there is no way the devil would leave these people untempted by sexual sin, and so we have the sin of homosexuality.

I wish I could get into all the aspects of the topic we talked about as the discussion was very interesting.  I am convinced that what confuses people on the topic is not what the Bible says, but where we stand on our perspective.  Just like my glasses were scratched up and had affected my vision, if we see this sin-scratched world first and try to align it with what we know about the Bible, our perspective will be skewed.  However, when we look through the clear prism of the Bible first at the world, we then see the world as God sees it.

There is no need to justify the world of sin to relate to it, Jesus justified all who would accept His payment on the cross.  Homosexuality is no less wrong than any other sin just because it is forgiven, the difference is a recognition of what is right and wrong, and a born-again life that seeks to please God.  As God sought you in your sin, to redeem you to Himself, so ought we show the love, forgiveness, and acceptance of God that is available to all regardless of where they are in life.

It reminds me of another story, this one not so pleasant, about a young man who was having a hard time with life.  His parents divorced when he was a child, he took up drugs and alcohol and had taken a job as DJ at an old bar.  His story began like everyone else who comes into this world, but quickly took its own path somewhere along the way, and he began asking the questions we all eventually ask: “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?”  Not finding any answers, depression overcame his will to live and he took his own life.

Even for Christians, this question is hard for many to answer.  Ask anyone on the street, “Who are you?” and if they aren’t feeling to suspicious of your motives you may get their name, but the name of a person is not who they are.  My name is John Bagwell, but who is John Bagwell, and why is he here on this earth?  Stop and think about it for a moment before continuing on, for the question of “Who are you?” is not one of asking your name, but your identity.

You see, your identity is not just who you are, it also gives you purpose and context in life.  Walk up on a car accident and you will see all kinds of people with identities.  A policeman, an EMT, a wrecker driver . . . and they all are doing something.  They are not haphazard about what they are doing either.  It is an orchestra of motion, each person with their identity doing their job according to their identity and the context of the situation.  Then there are also the bystanders.  “Who are you?”  “What is your purpose here?”

The bystanders have no identity here, they have no purpose here, and so they stand around and do nothing.  So many people in life are still searching for their identity.  For many who do not find it, they ultimately end up standing around, doing nothing while life passes them by.  They do not know who they are, so they have no purpose and life for them is meaningless.

If you are a Christian, allow me to help you just a little bit on the path of identity, for who you are now is not who you were.  Romans 6:6 “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, . . .” (You may also see Ephesians 4:22 and Colossians 3:9).  Too many Christians today are trying to walk around with two identities.  They have their old identity as a sinner, but have failed to let the dead weight fall as someone who has been born again.  They have a new heart, but still carry the old identity, and so they do not know who they are.

To discover your identity as a Christian, let’s take a look at another few verses from the Bible.  Try reading just Ephesians 6: 14 – 17 and see if a picture does not develop.  There we read of different types of armor for the body, a helmet, a sword, and a shield.  Who operates this type of equipment?  Get the picture?

As Christians, we are soldiers bred for battle, but not a war of flesh and blood.  It is a warfare fought in the minds and hearts of men, and evil fears who you are and what you are capable of doing, for within you dwells the presence and power of the Almighty.  “Who are you?”  Well, what is that in your hand?  You have a sword and a shield and armor to fight, so stop standing on the sidelines and become engaged in the battle before you so that at the end of this life on earth you may say, 2Timothy 4:7 “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:”

It appears that the story about the kindergartener is about as true as a decade-old chain e-mail. Perhaps what Barton was referring to was a lawsuit brought by a mother in St. Louis in 1994 that alleged her 10-year-0ld son was singled out multiple times by teachers and the principal for praying at lunch, on the grounds that prayer wasn’t allowed in school. What I found most troubling about this is not that the teachers allegedly told the child not to pray, but that the mother would have brought a lawsuit.

I’m in Jon Stewart’s camp–I don’t think we have anything to complain about as Christians in the United States. Some of us feel Biblically justified in “defending the faith” by filing suit, or painting protest signs, or conducting ourselves in a generally unpleasant way whenever any one of a myriad cultural or political issues rears its head on a blog or a radio show. If our mission is to glorify God and to bring more people to belief in him, how is our “defense of the faith” accomplishing that? Rather than defending the faith, we are serving ourselves. We are crying out to a government that already caters to us to remove every single perceived obstacle to our practice of our faith. We are shutting down conversation with people who disagree with or threaten our beliefs rather than listening to them to find out where the foundation of our disagreement lies and listening to God to find out what he has to say about that. “The world” we so claim we want to change through our faith looks at us and sees a bevy of combative, chattering followers so in love with our own voices that we cannot hear the crying of the truths that exist on the other side of our imaginary fence. How is this glorifying God? How is this winning disciples?

In the Women In Ministry blog series this morning, Nicole Unice wrote, “… the way anyone in ministry changes the world is by looking like Jesus. It’s with gentleness, humility, and kindness. It’s with patience. It’s with a meekness that knows when to be strong and when to be silent.” Perhaps we should practice being silent.

I want my children to be aware of bullying, how and why it happens, and to be able to defend both themselves and others from the practice of bullying by others.  However, when I read the article yesterday, it kind of set the whole thing of bullying and intolerance in its proper perspective.  You can read the article here: “Anti-Bully Speaker Bullies Christians”

When you read the article, what strikes me most is that Dan Savage, the speaker invited to address specifically the topic of bullying, is a known homosexual, yet many Christians still went to hear him speak – not to judge him, hold up signs, heckle or protest, but to listen with an open mind.  They certainly didn’t go there to be bullied.  The audience?  Teenagers.  Not a group of adults, but kids. What happened next is all too typical of what happens by the same people who call Christians intolerant.

Dan Savage chose this moment to address his personal views about Christianity rather than talk about what he was actually there for.  Instead of talking about bullying, he cursed, name called, and generally bullied anyone in the audience who was a Christian.  Exactly what he was there to speak against, he began to do.  The Christian response?  They got up to simply walk away.  They did not scream, yell, protest, or anything.  They quietly rose up and walked out.  Dan Savage’s response?  He name calls and bullies them even more.  Typical.

How does he justify this behavior?  He makes a claim leveled by many by saying “there are people using the Bible as an excuse for gay bullying, because it says in Leviticus and Romans that being gay is wrong.”  This is wrong on two counts.  First, there are not “many people” doing anything even remotely like “gay bullying” and there is not one single account I have heard of where someone specifically used the Bible as their justification for bullying gays.  The Bible does say homosexuality is wrong, but as soon as some idiot bully happens to bully someone who is gay, it is people like Savage that assume the context must be the person was using the Bible condemnation of homosexuality as the cause of the gay bullying.  Again, typical.

Savage is but the tip of the ice-burg.  The situation in that moment all too clear.  Christians, when bullied, are expected to remain silent and are expected to take it, while if the same speech had been given anywhere in the nation by any Christian leader, that Christian speaker would have been labeled a “hate-monger” and accused of inciting “hate-crimes” against gays.  Savage is a hypocrite, and a bully.  Savage is also just one of many who persecute Christianity and Christians in general for no other reason than that they are Christian.  They like to lift their own banner of “free speech” while conveniently labeling any dissent “hate-speech not covered under free speech”, and seek to remove the freedom of religion.

It is one more example I am going to use to educate my daughters about what they will face as a Christian.  It is a lesson about intolerant people claiming Christians are intolerant, bullying by those who claim to help the bullied, and hypocrisy from the same people who point the finger at others claiming they are hypocrites.  Dan Savage, as is the case with those who hate and do not understand Christianity, is simply ignorant.  My task in educating my children will be to teach them how to deal with that ignorance, intolerance and oppression, simply because they are Christians.

But I digress, because it isn’t Jacob that I want to talk about.  It is Esau.  In Chapters 32 and 33 we find that Jacob is heading back toward Canaan and is scared that his brother is going to kill him.  He offers all sorts of animals and wealth to his brother that he sends ahead in order to appease Esau.  When he sees Esau approach, he puts his favorite wife and kids in the back of the group and approaches Esau with fear.  What does Esau do?  He falls on Jacob and embraces him.  He turns down the gifts and offers a blessing to his brother.

It just doesn’t sound right, does it?  This hulking, violent man who had vowed to kill Jacob instead forgives and lets him go on his way.  Esau shows forgiveness and mercy and grace.  It would have been easy and probably just for him to attack Jacob, but instead grace.

And yet, Esau and his descendants (the Edomites) are seen as enemies of the Israelites.  The Bible tells us that the Lord HATES Esau.   This brings to mind two questions.  The first is purely historical, what did Esau do that was so bad?  I mean, he isn’t a goody two shoes, but at least he is never described as a liar and a cheat.  He is just sort of dumb and chose the wrong wife.  So, why would God hate him and punish him?  The second question is this–If Esau, who was so bad that he was hated by the Lord is capable of showing such mercy, grace, love and humility before his scoundrel of a brother, then why can’t I always do that?  I who have known the love and mercy of Christ.  I who have studied His word and live a blessed life and yet fail utterly every day to live up to His commandments.  Is there something we can learn from this despised man from so many years ago?

My wife and I talked about the controversy, and she made a good point in that it was not the violent acts everyone was complaining about, but the rather that the violence was being perpetrated by teens.  Two weeks prior to this conversation, I went to watch the movie John Carter and in that movie, the lead character beheads one of the aliens and everyone cheers.  In Star Wars – Attack of the Clones, a Jedi knight beheads Jango Fett in front of his son Boba.  Never a word from the media about any controversy there.  While we are not allowed to see the actual beheading take place in either movie, there is a dramatic thud as the head of the character visibly hits the ground after their respective confrontations.

In the world we live in today, violence is everywhere for teens to view, but there is no outcry.  They are saturated with it in movies, video games, and all other forms of entertainment, but there is a sense that “it’s just entertainment” and that “kids understand the difference.”  I’m not one to disagree on the face of it, but there is another side of me that says all this has to be having some effect on how kids and teenagers perceive their world.  Or is it a reflection of how far we have already come?

In one of the more recent news reports regarding the movie “Bully”, it showed a small handful of teenagers who were allowed to view a small portion of the movie and give their opinions.  Their response to the movie?  “That’s how it is with teenagers in school today.”  My response: “Yeah, that’s pretty much how I remember it, too.”

I remember seeing a gang of guys in high school jump one single guy and nearly beat him to death because he insulted the girlfriend of one of the other guys.  I’ve seen fistfights that left some kids in pools of blood while the offender got a week off from school and maybe a week or two of in-school suspension.  I also remember quite clearly being involved in such brawls myself, sometimes managing to put up a good fight, and other times not so much.  I’ve heard every cuss word, insult, and degrading remark hurled between teenagers both male and female.  What’s more, as a teacher in a private school for a short time, I’ve been witness to some of the same things.  The reaction of parents to these reports?  “Not my kid” and “It couldn’t have been as bad as they’re making it sound” and “I didn’t raise my child to behave that way.”

This leads me to my conclusion.  The uproar over the violence in movies among teens is misdirected.  The movies, I believe, are simply showing us a reflection of the society we have become.  Violence among teens exists in all its ugly forms.  So why is it that there is such an outcry against the movies?  Again, my opinion, but I think it has to do with where the responsibility really lies.  If the violence is in the movies, it is easy to finger point there, but when it exists in the real world, the finger has to be pointed at the parents.

I’d encourage any parent to go see “The Hunger Games” and “Bully” with their child/children and have the hard conversations about violence among teens afterward.  I’d also encourage parents to be more attentive when your kid talks about violence in school in any form, and equally aware of when someone says something is going on with your child acting a certain way and not jump to the “My kid is an angel” or “My kid would never . . .” routine.

Biblically speaking, all the passages about “turn the other cheek” and those that speak against violence are not to be taken out of context.  The Biblical principle of non-violence is one that teaches Christians not to fan the flames of an already hostile or tense situation.  We are to seek peaceful alternatives whenever possible, yet we are not supposed to just allow ourselves to be kicked around either.  When possible, we are allowed to legally defend ourselves within the limits of the law – including the use of deadly force – but again, I would say only after all other peaceful alternatives have been exhausted.

The key to teaching your children about violence is that it is not OK to be violent, but that to prevent violence it is sometimes necessary to employ force in a violent fashion, such as in the defense of others or in defense of yourself.  I think Katniss Everdeen was a good example of this type of character in The Hunger Games.  That is just my opinion.  Feel free to disagree.

Rewind years ago when the nation didn’t really know who Tim Tebow even was.  As an Alabama fan and a Christian (yes you Auburn fans, it IS possible!!), my first gut reaction to his public displays of faith were to shrug them off as meaningless.  How many times have I seen players kneel in the end-zone, point to heaven, thank God on TV, or make some other overt display of faith on the field only to be caught up later in some drug or immoral scandal later?  I thought he was a fake.  First impressions can be hard to shake.

As Tim Tebow grew into the role though, I began to pay attention more.  I read about his background as a home-schooled kid and missionary kid.  As a former missionary to China, I know how tough life can be on missionary kids, and now that we live in the states and home-school our two daughters, we see how the homeschooling movement is just now starting to be accepted even in largely conservative circles.  I can only imagine that it must have been tough for him growing up, and here he was experiencing success on levels most people will only dream of, and how does it affect him?  It doesn’t even seem to register.  Nothing changes.  Tim Tebow is still the same person, and that is when I became interested.

I watched his last year in college with great fascination and wonder at the unprovoked hate that came from people who did not even know him and from the liberal media, and I found myself in the awkward position of rooting for him even though he played against Alabama.  I wanted Tim Tebow to win, but for Florida to lose.  It was an interesting year.  Then came graduation, and I assumed we’d heard the last from Tim Tebow.

Then came his chance to shine yet again.  After a losing start to the 2011 season, Tim Tebow was put in to replace Kyle Orton at halftime and quarterbacked the Denver Broncos on a wild ride taking them almost to victory against a 16 point deficit.  The rest of his season, as they say, is history but nothing short of inspiring.  The whole time, the media kept touting his style as awkward and that he’d never find real success, yet he kept winning.  His win streak was only broken by the New England Patriots weeks later, and again the Patriots handed him the defeat that would take his team out of the playoffs.

What was Tim Tebow’s reaction to all this?  He was still Tim Tebow.  Nothing had changed.  Meanwhile, the rest of the nation had heard about him by now, and they couldn’t seem to make up their minds about him.  Was he a good football player or not?  Was his Christianity real or not?  Who is this guy really?  And why does he have to keep making public displays of his Christianity?

Let me at least answer the last question for everyone.  The reason he keeps making public displays of his Christianity is simple: he is a Christian.  Would that all Christians had his courage.  Then comes this article and I think to myself, “Hollywood just doesn’t get it”.  Maybe the nation at large just doesn’t get it.  Now, I’ve never met Tim Tebow, and I’m not his best friend or have any close relationships, but I’ve seen him enough over the years to realize one thing: Tim Tebow is legit.

As for the worryings of the media over how Hollywood will affect him, all I have to say is “Hollywood, Tim Tebow is not your type.”  While Tim Tebow is only human and prone to failings and mistakes just like the rest of us, I tend to think he’ll take the world on the same way he always has – by just being himself.  If he’ll do that, then we’ll never hear of a drug or immoral scandal unless one is manufactured, and we’ll never even have to wonder if Tinseltown will ever jeopardize his Christian image.

He’s a great example of a Christian man simply being a Christian man.  Maybe the real question isn’t why the world thinks he’s so odd, but rather why, in the public Christian community, his consistent example as a Christan man is so rare.

Let me be clear on one thing.  Easter, in fact, was a pagan holiday.  First Fruits, is a Christian Holy Day.  These two days are separate with the Christian Holy Day of First Fruits being established long before Easter was ever even a word.  “The theme of the festival of First Fruits is resurrection and salvation.” according to the Jewish Holy Day of Bikkurim.  It was one of several Feast Days /  Holy Days in the Jewish calendar.

This Holy Day saw several important events, Biblically speaking, that established the theme of resurrection and salvation before Christ died and rose again.  Those events include the resting of Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat signaling the end of God’s judgement on the earth by flood, and the rebirth / new beginning of mankind, as well as the crossing of the Red Sea by Israel when they escaped out of Egypt, and other events.

Study Jewish Holy Days for some time and you will quickly realize they were not only celebrations of events past, but predictors of events to come.  The Holy Day of First Fruits was a foretelling of the resurrection of Jesus Christ – the most important event in Biblical history.  Without the resurrection, we have a story of a man who lived an incredible life that died, however, the story of Jesus Christ – God in the flesh – doesn’t end with a tomb.  Jesus rose again the third day (for those of you who do not quite understand the Jewish timing of events, see this page here “How Long was Jesus Dead in the Tomb?“).

Point is, Easter and First Fruits happen to fall on the same day.  Which do we celebrate?  Well, we celebrate the Holy Day of First Fruits actually (I Corinthians 15:23), but the means in which we celebrate it in American culture is much the same as Easter.  Is it wrong?  Nope.  There is nothing wrong with allowing your children to have fun, even if it happens to resemble some pagan holiday.  Why?  Because if you are like me, you are educating your children about the true meaning of this most important season of great celebration, about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

What’s more, if I were to suddenly not have anything to do with any and all pagan holidays, I’d pretty much set myself up so that anyone could declare Thanksgiving, Labor Day, July 4th, or any holiday “pagan” and I’d then be expected to have no part simply because of someone else’s pronouncements.  That is absurd and ridiculous, and I refuse to allow myself to be sucked into someone else’s expectations of what I should or should not do.  As a Christian, I only need ask myself “What does the Bible say about Easter?”  Quite simply, the Bible verifies that the resurrection happened on the day of that recently established pagan holiday – nothing more.  It does not condemn Easter, it does not rail against Easter, it does not give a hate speech about Easter, it simply mentions it and moves on.

As that is the attitude of the Bible about Easter, then that is the attitude I am going to choose to take.  In the mean time, my girls will still be going out to collect eggs filled with candy, have baskets to dig into on Sunday morning, and they will learn of the importance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  For without the resurrection, there would be no hope of salvation.  The resurrection of Christ is the cornerstone of our faith.  Far more important than His birth, His life, or His death, we have hope because Jesus lives!

“1Corinthians 15:13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: 14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.”

Jesus, my gentle Jesus,
Walking in the dark of the Garden –
The Garden of Gethsemane,
Saying to the three disciples:
Sorrow is in my soul –
Even unto death;
Tarry ye here a little while,
And watch with me.
Jesus, my burdened Jesus,
Praying in the dark of the Garden –
The Garden of Gethsemane.
Saying: Father,
Oh, Father,
This bitter cup,
This bitter cup,
Let it pass from me.
Jesus, my sorrowing Jesus,
The sweat like drops of blood upon his brow,
Talking with his Father,
While the three disciples slept,
Saying: Father,
Oh, Father,
Not as I will,
Not as I will,
But let thy will be done.
Oh, look at black-hearted Judas –
Sneaking through the dark of the Garden –
Leading his crucifying mob.
Oh, God!
Strike him down!
Why don’t you strike him down,
Before he plants his traitor’s kiss
Upon my Jesus’ cheek?
And they take my blameless Jesus,
And they drag him to the Governor,
To the mighty Roman Governor.
Great Pilate seated in his hall,–
Great Pilate on his judgment seat,
Said: In this man I find no fault.
I find no fault in him.
And Pilate washed his hands.
But they cried out, saying:
Crucify him!–
Crucify him!–
Crucify him!–
His blood be on our heads.
And they beat my loving Jesus,
They spit on my precious Jesus;
They dressed him up in a purple robe,
They put a crown of thorns upon his head,
And they pressed it down –
Oh, they pressed it down –
And they mocked my sweet King Jesus.
Up Golgotha’s rugged road
I see my Jesus go.
I see him sink beneath the load,
I see my drooping Jesus sink.
And then they laid hold on Simon,
Black Simon, yes, black Simon;
They put the cross on Simon,
And Simon bore the cross.
On Calvary, on Calvary,
They crucified my Jesus.
They nailed him to the cruel tree,
And the hammer!
The hammer!
The hammer!
Rang through Jerusalem’s streets.
The hammer!
The hammer!
The hammer!
Rang through Jerusalem’s streets.
Jesus, my lamb-like Jesus,
Shivering as the nails go through his hands;
Jesus, my lamb-like Jesus,
Shivering as the nails go through his feet.
Jesus, my darling Jesus,
Groaning as the Roman spear plunged in his side;
Jesus, my darling Jesus,
Groaning as the blood came spurting from his wound.
Oh, look how they done my Jesus.
Mary,
Weeping Mary,
Sees her poor little Jesus on the cross.
Mary,
Weeping Mary,
Sees her sweet, baby Jesus on the cruel cross,
Hanging between two thieves.
And Jesus, my lonesome Jesus,
Called out once more to his Father,
Saying:
My God,
My God,
Why hast thou forsaken me?
And he drooped his head and died.
And the veil of the temple was split in two,
The midday sun refused to shine,
The thunder rumbled and the lightning wrote
An unknown language in the sky.
What a day! Lord, what a day!
When my blessed Jesus died.
Oh, I tremble, yes, I tremble,
It causes me to tremble, tremble,
When I think how Jesus died;
Died on the steeps of Calvary,
How Jesus died for sinners,
Sinners like you and me.

All that money is kinda fun and scary to think about at the same time.  Fun to think about what you’d do with it, and scary to think about all the problems it would inevitably bring.  I can just imagine the number of people who would suddenly become your friend asking for “just $1 million” out of “all those hundreds of millions of dollars” you’d have.  Within days you’d have every worthy cause and crackpot at your door looking for a donation, and then fingering you as a heartless miser (or worse) if you turned any one of them down.  Then there are those out there who would seek to find some creatively exploitative reason, however trivial, to sue just in the hopes that you’d settle out of court.  After all that, then there are the relatives . . .

Besides the ones you actually know and have anything to do with, you’d have relatives you never knew, and those sudden relatives who are related because you have the same last name, or maybe just the same first name would be enough.  To be sure, winning $640 million would start a parade of long-lost acquaintances and friends from all over, and makes me think that year-long vacation I was thinking about would need to stretch out a little longer, like maybe over the rest of my life.

So what would you do with $640 million?  It’s just a question, but one worth asking if only to think of what could be, and as you do remind yourself of what will be.  You see, for those people who won the $640 million, they will have a lot of decisions to make, and I’d love to be one of them, but in the end, both the winners of the $640 million and I will have one thing in common with you.  Whatever we have now in this life, we must leave it all behind when we die.

Kinda depressing, but a reality check is in order here.  I love dreaming about what I’d do with $640 million if only because of the circumstances I face every day in my life right now.  To be sure, I’d be substituting one set of problems for another, but at this moment I’d like to see what handling the problems of having $640 million looks like.  However, life is, and always has been, one of the great equalizers.  Whether it is money, or problems, which you have in plenty, you will one day leave them all behind.

With the end of March and the end of a record lottery jackpot, tomorrow turns to a new month, and thoughts turn to a new day.  As we approach the Easter season, I think of the greatest prize in all of history – that of heaven.  The price of that ticket?  Paid in full.  Availability?  Free for all who choose to accept and believe.  It is safe to assume I will never know the life of a millionaire on this earth, but with all the potential problems it can bring, I like to think my life is quite a wonderful blessing as it stands right now, and all the dreams I might have of living the life of a millionaire will simply never compare to the coming eternity in heaven.  How about you?  Did you get your ticket?