Mark's Views, Perhaps — from behind my eyeballs
For our main Christmas Day meal here — my parents, my sister and husband, my niece and husband, my aunt, and my first brother-in-law (whom I hereby designate an honorary Roth).
And nine of my little flock.
And one candidate. 
But seven missing. 🙁 Read it all
Love puts its object first.
When you tell him, “I love you,” you’re saying you put him first.
When you declare your love for them, you’re committing yourself to keep putting them ahead of yourself.
Love puts aside selfish self-interests and self-centered self-absorption in order to do what is best for another.
Love puts a premium on the good of another…and without complaint or self-pity pays that premium.
Love puts its best into benefiting the other. Read it all
Clark Howard takes a swing at factory outlets: Read it all
Generally, by Fall we’re done with gardening here in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. And we certainly don’t plant our vegetables and tomatoes now.
But my boxed quote above isn’t about autumn crops. Read it all
“In the beginning, God created heaven and earth, which beginning of time, according to this chronology, occurred at the beginning of the night which preceded the 23rd of October in the year 710 of the Julian period.”
In the right margin of the page, Ussher computes the date in “Christian” time as 4004 B.C.
Get the scoop here: The Annals of the World.
I understand he was a meticulous documenter of his calculations…
Do I personally believe God began Creation 6018 years ago tonight? Read it all
Facts do not flex and will not stretch. Not for your preferences or your convenience. Not for your interpretation, your slant, or your opinion. Not even for your feelings. And certainly not for your agenda.
If you “adjust” facts with any of those, you no longer have facts.
If you want facts to remain facts, you have to stick to the facts.
I get very exercised when people present their interpretations, surmisings, and opinions as facts. So the following really clicked for me:
Facts first, then opinions. With God, facts and opinion are one and the same. There’s no slippage between the two in His marvelous, omniscient mind.
But with us mortals, there’s a whole spectrum ranging from what the Bible tells us is true, to what we think may or may not be the case, to what we know we don’t know. There’s nothing wrong with speculations along the middle of that spectrum. But things get dangerous when folks can no longer discern which category they’re thinking in—when they start treating facts and opinions as if they were interchangeable. If we want people to pay attention to our opinions, we should start by being careful with our facts. If you’re sloppy with your facts, why should anybody trust your opinions?
Sloppy with the facts — that’s just such a great way to put it.
So is this: “treating facts and opinions as if they were interchangeable.”
And I am so blessed at this realization: in the mind of God there is no slippage between facts and opinion. That is so amazing!
When anyone reports to me what happened or what was said, I want him to be faithful to the facts. I want to trust the accuracy of his report. I hate mistrusting others.
For myself, I hereby renew my commitment to truth, accuracy, and faithfulness. I throw my lot with the One who is the way, the truth, and the life. I reject the ways of the deceiver and father of lies whose seduction of Eve went so “well.”
