Perspective

I have been thinking much lately about putting things in perspective. Again, a theme that God has been working in my life. I think it started with several videos, blogs, and articles about the lack of clean water in the third world, especially Africa. Here are some statistics to put into perspective. Americans spend more on makeup than it would cost to provide good wells with clean water for the third world. My dog drinks better water than most of the third world. Americans flush more clean water than most of the third world has to drink.

Then I read this blog about persecution of Christians in India. Here is a quote from Pastor Sudhakar about the persecution he and his congregation have suffered.

"On 9th( Sunday) of this month a group of 20 young people came while we were worshipping and beaten me and some women of our church and in return they have lodged a counter complaint on me putting allegation on me by saying i am converting lot of Hindus into Christianity. Kindly pray for me as the case is in the court."

It's not just limited to this pastor and his congregation. Four anti- communal groups called RSS, VHP, Bajarangdal and Hindu Vahini have been and continue to be responsible for attacks upon Christian churches in India. Hindu Vahini seems to be the worst among these groups. They killed two pastors brutally three years ago. They poured acid, cut the pastors into peaces and put them in a gunny bag and threw their bodies in the outskirts of the city.

Finally, this morning my wife and I were taking a walk and we were talking about how last year so much corn was used for the production of ethanol that other corn products and corn fed products went up in price because there was a "shortage" of corn. Now this year more corn was grown to meet the demand, but less wheat was grown so now there is a "shortage" of wheat so wheat products have increased in price. Then my wife said, "But it's not a shortage like so many other places in the world."

Perspective: here I sit fifty pounds overweight, with a cup of parasite free coffee in one hand and an unpoisioned diet coke in the other typing away on my laptop with a wireless high speed Internet connection confident that no one will grab me, pour acid down my throat, cut me into pieces and throw my body on the edge of town because of my faith.