Folks,
  

I am stoked (in a tired and exhausted sort of way)!  Lost, the first TV show that I'm a real follow-it-from-week-to-week-buy-the-season-the-day-it-comes-out fan of returns tonight in a little less than an hour!  When it closed down for the break, Jack was trying to free Kate and Sawyer from the Others by holding their leader's life hostage on the operating table.  What's gonna happen next?!
   

In other news, I'm also very tired for some reason.  At 6pm I basically hit a wall and just shut down for the last two hours.  Thankfully, I'm a (former) boy-scout and I know how to be prepared.  My couch and I have been having quality time together, and it's a beautiful thing.  Now I'm ready to take the hound for a walk and then settle down for my favorite show.

My serious meditation for the day has been: "How do we not make provision for the flesh?"  The flesh being our sinful desires, and provision being actions or thoughts that strengthen those desires rather than weakening them.  Most obvious is to avoid those situations that contain temptation, but sometimes they're sneaky and come in disguise.  Other times, they're inextricably linked to other activities (like the magazines at the food store - y'gotta shop to eat, after all).  The answer that Scripture gives in Romans 13 is a) to put on the armor of light and b) put on the Lord Jesus Christ.  Part b immediately takes my mind to "take every thought captive to the will of Christ" and "be conformed to the image of Christ", but what does part a refer to?  Should I be buying those glow-stick things in bulk?  A whole new line of fashion rises from the ashes - Luminesce!

Then again, maybe not.  I suspect that these passages from Col. 3 are more relevant ...

Col. 3:10 (ESV) 
    and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 

Col. 3:12-17 (ESV) 
    Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,  [13] bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.  [14] And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.  [15] And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.  [16] Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.  [17] And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Those are the things we're thinking about today.

Thor