If you were to ask any Christian layperson or pastor, "Can God use me if I am rich?" I am sure that they would say, "Yes." And if you were to ask, "Can God use me if I am poor?" I expect that the answer would be the same. So why is it that we teach our children and our fellow beleivers in Christ to seek only the former and not the latter? Get the best education, the best spouse, the best house, the best job that you can. Then you can use the money that you make for good, for God. But did Jesus ever say these things? He did say that to come after him would mean suffering, the giving up of possessions, the lack of houses, the leaving of stable vocations, the loss of family and friends, the increase of persecution. Granted he told he told those who were following him that they would be repaid richly, but I think that he meant in the coming Kingdom rather than in their retirement years. So why do we reactively defend the "call" to be among the rich and reluctantly acknowledge the call to be among the poor? It is easier, right, and more comfortable. I mean who really wants to give up their security or their ability to take care of themselves and their family? Who wants to rely on God in this world when we can rely on our own tangible selves? Better to just trust him for that time after death, which we can't do much about on our own. Right?

Here in Alabama everybody goes to the beach and the Gulf of Mexico, so we joined in the tradition and spent a weekend at the beach with a group of friends Joshua has from high school. We and the guys (and the wives that have been added) swam in the ocean, walked along the beach, rode in a boat and found tons of hermit crabs, and dug a really big hole in the sand, as seen in this picture. I think my favorite thing was finding the hermit crabs. There were a lot of complete shells on the bottom of a shallow area of the bay and just about every one had a little crab inside. My brother Jeff had a pet hermit crab that Dan gave him for Christmas a couple of years ago, but I think it froze in the car and Jeff decided to find out the secret of the hermit crab. He broke the shell with a hammer and claims that "The back end of a hermit crab is like a slug."

Soup.