How is it that Jonah could actually be swallowed by a large fish? I suppose it's because he was only a 'minor' prophet!

Hello folks, it's yours truly again, broadcasting live from my studio keyboard here on a Wednesday, May 19, 2010. Because of the dearth of watchable programs on TV I take in quite a few of the nature shows, especially those broadcast in HD. I do know that if anything ever happens to me my wife can get by with one local channel for weather and the Game Show Network for entertainment. I'm not sure the cable company can price it out that way but I do know from experience this will be all she really needs. The nature programs today have changed. Call me paranoid or a conspiracy theorist if you like, but man, are they ever pushing an agenda on these programs! Essentially, it's the whole mother earth, animal equality, ecological wackiness, and atheism all rolled into one. The images, however, are gorgeous, and they, just so you know, depict the creative genius of our Great God. One I saw the other evening was wistfully wishing that people could be more like elephants who are so communal and caring. Obviously those bulls trying to kill each other to see who will be boss bull would be a slight aberration to their thesis. God's order of creation puts humanity, created in His image, at the top of the chain and we should never forget this truth. Failing to honor God's directives about the priority of human life and His rules for dominion is what has led to unfettered abortions, activists suing in court on behalf of animals, and more and more of a general acceptance that there's somehow an equivalence in value between people, animals, and the environment. I believe the Bible teaches a proper respect for managing these resources provided to us by God. However, these new age shenanigans that continue to trumpet craziness around the clock in these programs just knocks me down. Sadly, more and more folks from kindergarten up are soaking this up because it literally saturates our culture today. I suppose I can always watch with the sound turned down and enjoy the wonderment of God's created world!

If we aren't careful we will begin to act more like monkeys instead of the human God created and called us to be. Speaking of monkeys, did you hear about the guy who taught his pet monkey to play chess? A friend commented how the monkey must be real clever. His owner replied that he really wasn't that clever yet since he typically could still beat him three out of four matches. Okay. I know it's early and I did not give any kind of a bad joke warning. Since I started this I have to give you at least one more. A monkey goes into the ice cream shop and orders a 50 cent sundae. He pays for it with a ten dollar bill. The attendant thinks to himself that the monkey probably knows very little about money and so he gives him only a dollar in change. He tells the monkey that they get very few monkeys coming in to buy ice cream to which the monkey replied, "I don't doubt it, especially at these prices!" I'll quit before you all go together and take up a collection to send me to a Gong Show reunion. NASA has been told to skip going back to the moon and instead concentrate on going to Mars. My suggestion is that while they are thinking about this perhaps they could free up a handful of smart people to figure out how to stop a run away oil well out in the Gulf of Mexico.

I suppose it could be hard proving that we are the highest order being on the planet whenever you think about some of the silliness that we folks end up doing. One category that stands out to me is the one where folks say they see Jesus in almost anything. This has become so common in our society that they catalog them into a category referred to as Jesus Sightings. Here's a few of the wackiest: On the remaining portion of a Kit Kat bar after one bite was taken; In the natural discolorations from a ripened banana; A single odd shaped Cheeto; A piece of fried bacon; Image found in a lung x-ray; On the inside of a bottle cap; In a shadow cast upon a board fence appearing each afternoon wearing a crown of thorns; The famous cinnamon roll appearance; Found in one of the Hubble telescope outer space images; and, In the smudge on an old baseball found in an attic. I suppose my personal choice would be to throw in Hip Hop as a way of demonstrating our cultural insanity but no doubt there are those who would violently disagree. Given all of the distortions of what God intended it's no wonder how some might consider other life forms as being a better candidate than we humans. However, messed up or not, crazy or sane, intellectually inclined or mentally challenged, we are God's very own creation and He so loved the world and the people He created that He sent His one and only Son to die for sinners just like you and just like me. Finding Him and His salvation will not happen in looking for His image on a piece of toast. It's in responding to His call that we recognize our hopeless condition, turn away from our sin, and call upon Him. When we do this from our heart then we instantly become His very own child, an heir of God Almighty, and a joint-heir with Jesus Christ, our Savior. They won't be showing this any time soon on the Discovery Channel but tuning in to this truth will allow a person to discover the greatest change ever, one that will last for all of time and eternity. You have God's Word on it! Amen. ....More later.