Wading through life

And such an ugly sign it is. From the BBC:

The US government’s debts have ballooned so badly the National Debt Clock in New York has run out of digits to record the spiraling figure.

Some economists believe the $700bn bail-out plan for ailing US financial institutions could send the national debt level to $11 trillion.

The digital counter marks the national debt level, but when that passed the $10 trillion point last month, the sign could not display the full amount.

The board was erected to highlight the $2.7 trillion level of debt in 1989.

The clock’s owners say two more zeros will be added, allowing the clock to record a quadrillion dollars of debt.

Douglas Durst, son of the late Seymour Durst – the clock’s inventor – hopes to replace the Manhattan clock with its lengthier replacement early next year.

For the time being, the Times Square counter’s electronic dollar sign has been replaced with the extra digit required.

For its part, the digital dollar symbol has been supplanted by a cheaper version – perhaps a sign of the times for the American economy.

Compare what that says about our country with God’s ideal for a nation. Jeremiah 33:6-9 says:

Nevertheless, I will bring health and healing to it; I will heal my people and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security. I will bring Judah and Israel back from captivity and will rebuild them as they were before. I will cleanse them from all the sin they have committed against me and will forgive all their sins of rebellion against me. Then this city will bring me renown, joy, praise and honor before all nations on earth that hear of all the good things I do for it; and they will be in awe and will tremble at the abundant prosperity and peace I provide for it.

There was a time when all the nations of the earth heard about the good things God was doing in America and people sought out the health, prosperity and peace that could be found within our borders. But those realities are slowing being replaced with sickness, debt and turmoil—things that have no place within the Kingdom of God, neither among his nations nor his people.

It’s a sign of the times. And an ugly sign it is.

Gustav, Hanna, Ike and Josephine are all lining up to strike record devastation upon US coastlines—another sure sign of God’s wrath toward our country, the onward march of global warming and the impending doom of humanity. Storms are getting increasingly frequent and violent, leading to greater havoc upon our cities and lives.

Or so it would seem.

But, in Why Disasters Are Getting Worse, TIME magazine suggests it isn’t the storms that are changing, it’s us.

If climate change is having an effect on the intensities of storms, it’s not obvious in the historical weather data. And whatever effect it is having is much, much smaller than the effect of development along coastlines. In fact, if you look at all storms from 1900 to 2005 and imagine today’s populations on the coasts, as Roger Pielke Jr., and his colleagues did in a 2008 Natural Hazards Review paper, you would see that the worst hurricane would have actually happened in 1926.

If it happened today, the Great Miami storm would have caused from $140 billion to $157 billion in damages. (Hurricane Katrina, the costliest storm in U.S. history, caused $100 billion in losses.) “There has been no trend in the number or intensity of storms at landfall since 1900,” says Pielke, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado. “The storms themselves haven’t changed.”

Ooops.

This is a pretty sweet story from Fox News: Son of Hamas Leader Turns Back on Islam and Embraces Christianity.

Mosab Hassan Yousef was raised in the most radical of radical Islamic families and traditions. And through the mercy and grace of God, the eyes of his understanding were enlightened and he came to know the truth. And the truth set him free.

I cannot fathom how difficult a process it must have been to walk away from everything he was raised to believe and understand as truth and reality. I tried putting myself in his shoes and had a really hard time believing I could even do it. It would be like me completely abandoning by faith in Christ, leaving my friends and family behind in America, and taking up residence in Afghanistan to study Islam. I guess that’s where God’s grace proves sufficient. When we find ourselves in our most vulnerable condition, His strength makes itself perfect in our weakness.

Lots of more thoughts on the article, but I encourage you to just go ahead and read it yourself.

My prayer is that as news of this spreads (it’s still a Fox exclusive from what I can tell), it will stir courage within the hearts of other Muslims—in America and around the world—to ask the hard questions Yousef asked of his faith and truly study the religion. And then study Christianity, as Yousef did. And then go back and study Islam in light of a true understanding of Christianity, as Yousefl did. And then embrace the love and compassion and forgiveness and grace and freedom of Jesus Christ, as Yousefl did.

“Eskimo village sues over global warming”

You read it right—Eskimos are suing the big boys for their contribution toward global warming. A village of a couple hundred in Alaska is watching their community become threatened by the elements due to a loss of sea ice that normally protects them from the Chukchi Sea and Kivalina River.

Good luck convincing judges with the Fuzzy Global Warming Math.

From the Indianapolis Star:

Greenland’s ice sheet melted nearly 19 billion tons more than the previous high mark, and the volume of Arctic sea ice at summer’s end was half what it was just four years earlier, according to new NASA satellite data obtained by The Associated Press.

“The Arctic is screaming,” said Mark Serreze, senior scientist at the government’s snow and ice data center in Boulder, Colo.

Just last year, two top scientists surprised their colleagues by projecting that the Arctic sea ice was melting so rapidly that it could disappear entirely by the summer of 2040.

Last week, after reviewing his own new data, NASA climate scientist Jay Zwally said: “At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions.”

“The Arctic is screaming.” Sound familiar? Romans 8:19-22:

“For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”

Things are going to start getting really interesting, especially when God starts “reveal[ing] who His children really are.”