Jesus

From my days working at a Christian bookstore in State College, PA (circa 2002), I've always loved this picture of Jesus. There are many days in which I feel like this man; it is wonderfully precious that when I can't pick myself up or fight the fight of faith, that Jesus upholds me with His victorious right hand.

If you were to caption this picture with a Bible verse, which one would you pick?

She Must Really Love Horse-Racing

I found this picture humorous (click the photo to enlarge):

Can someone think of a caption?

What do you think is going through this guy's mind?

God's Kingdom and the Animal Kingdom

A leopard walks with a tranquilizer dart hanging from its neck, in the residential area of Jyotikuchi in Guwahati, the capital city of the northeastern state of Assam, India on March 15, 2009. Three people were mauled by the leopard after the cat strayed into the city before it was tranquilized by forestry department officials.

One day, it won't be so:

⁶ The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
and a little child shall lead them.
⁷The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
⁸The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,
and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.
⁹ They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea. (Isaiah 11)

The entirety of God's creation will again be at rest. Come, Lord Jesus, with healing in Your wings.

"He determines the number of the stars; He gives to all of them their names"

Psalm 147:4 seems a lot more amazing in light of photos like these (click photos to enlarge, and increase worship experience!):

Hubble Telescope Advent Calendar

Bookmark this one and marvel at God's majesty during Advent:

Keep checking this page, because every day, for the next 25 days, a new photo will be revealed here from the Hubble Space Telescope, some old and some new.

Maybe my wife can explain to me what this explanation of the above photo means:

This composite color infrared image of the center of our Milky Way galaxy reveals a new population of massive stars and new details in complex structures in the hot ionized gas swirling around the central 300 light-years. This view combines the sharp imaging of the Hubble Space Telescope's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) with color imagery from a previous Spitzer Space Telescope survey to make the sharpest infrared picture ever made of the Galactic core. The core is obscured in visible light by intervening dust clouds, but infrared light penetrates the dust. At this distance - 26,000 light-years away - Hubble reveals details in objects as small as 20 times the size of our own solar system.

A Memorial of God's Grace

The Nittany Lion statue next to Rec Hall is the most famous landmark at Penn State (Oh well, maybe it's Beaver Stadium, but I prefer the Lion!). And when I think of Penn State I think of Jesus, because that's where I encountered Him and gave my life to Him.

Three years later, Penn State is where I also encountered and fell in love with my amazingly beautiful bride.

Now the Lord has blessed us with two extraordinary little girls.

So when I look at this picture, my heart bursts forth with awestruck wonder and praise: Grace, grace, grace!

Autumn Scenes

Evidently, God likes color:

If this is the beauty now, what will it be like when the whole creation is set free from its bondage to decay and enters into the freedom of the glory of the children of God?

(See more photos here)

Echoes of Redemption

I thought this was a great set of photos from The Big Picture blog on the one year anniversary of Hurricane Ike, which caused more than $29 billion in damage. When you click on a photo of the devastation from a year ago, the picture fades to a shot of what that same location looks like today.

As I clicked on these photos and saw the way in which things in Galveston have been made new, I found myself being stirred by these little foretastes of the coming redemption that Christ will bring to the whole cosmos upon His glorious return (you'll have to click through to the Big Picture site to see the pictures fade):

More 9/11 Remembrance

Some amazing photos remembering 9/11. Here's a couple that stunned me most:


The Falling Man. A man, whose identity remains unknown, falls headfirst after jumping from the north tower of New York's World Trade Center after it was atacked on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001.

The south tower of New York's World Trade Center collapses.

God is big; we are small

I thought it was pretty cool that on the day these photos were released, my appointed reading in the Psalms said this:

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

What the heavens are telling

(Click photo to enlarge)


The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

I wish the sky looked like this where I live...

Can't help but think of these words from the Psalmist:

He determines the number of the stars;
he gives to all of them their names.

Don't marvel at the beauty of the night sky; marvel at the Maker of the night sky. The heavens are declaring HIS glory!

Does this picture say 1,000 words?

Thomas Lofton writes:

Sergeant Crowley, the sole class act in this trio, helps the handicapped Professor Gates down the stairs, while Barack Obama, heedless of the infirmities of his friend and fellow victim of self-defined racial profiling, strides ahead on his own. So who is compassionate? And who is so self-involved and arrogant that he is oblivious?

That may be an uncharitable conclusion to draw from a single photograph. I'm sure if Lofton or I was photographed as much as President Obama, we'd come off looking pretty unflattering more than a few times too.

But what really amazes me about this photo is that it originates not from some conservative, Republican blogger trying to make Obama look like a jerk, but from the White House blog! Seems like some PR guy at the White House fumbled the ball on posting this pic, no?

(Here's a writeup of the meeting between these three, for those who are unfamiliar with the story.)

Don't forget to groan, 6/28

It was hard to pick just one picture to capture the horrors of what is going on in Iran amidst the disputed presidential election. Click here for a a full photo report from The Big Picture.

(Why should we groan?)

Don't Forget to Groan, 6/13

Internally displaced children scramble to get a piece of ice being handed out by aid workers at the Chota Lahore relief camp on May 20, 2009 in Swabi, Pakistan.

(Why should we groan?)

Don't Forget to Groan, 6/6

Cyclone Aila damaged or destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes in Bangladesh, India and Myanmar. Over 300 people are confirmed to have died, with more than 8,000 still missing. Here, two Bangladeshi women whose relatives fell victim to Cyclone Aila mourn in Nil Dumoor village in Shatkhira, Bangladesh.

(Why should we groan?)

Don't Forget to Groan, 6/1

Pakistani rescue workers look for trapped people in rubble of a building destroyed by an explosion in Lahore, Pakistan. Gunmen detonated a car bomb near police and intelligence agency offices in eastern Pakistan on Wednesday, in one of the country's deadliest attacks this year.

(Why is it important to groan?)

Don't Forget to Groan, 5/31

Two boys look at the bodies of two government soldiers killed during clashes between Islamic fighters and government soldiers, in Mogadishu, Somalia, Friday, May 22, 2009.

(Why is it important to groan?)

Don't Forget to Groan, 5/30

A young girl is rushed to a waiting ambulance and later died after arriving at Medina Hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia, on May 10, 2009. A mortar shell landed in the girl's house in the Wardiglay neighborhood killing 6 people on the spot and wounding three others.

(Why is it important to groan?)