Rapture

So Sarah and I were laying in bed last night thinking about the future. I actually started out the conversation with "I wonder if we will ever get to be old." Then we got on to the baby and the rapture and we got to thinking about our doctrines and figured out that something has got to be wrong about what we were brought up believing; we don't know what, but something.

You see, we always were told about the age of accountability, which I personally don't believe in right now, but it sure makes a lot of people feel better. Anyway, if we believe in the age of accountability, then we believe that babies will all go to heaven when the rapture happens, that is (the other belief I grew up on) if we believe in a pre-tribulational rapture. So if we believe in that, then we would believe that all babies will go to heaven at the rapture, and with our pro-life views, we believe that since life begins at conception, we would have to believe that at the rapture there will be pregnant women who are no longer pregnant. Does that make sense? Are you following me?

So what about the verse that says at the time of the beginning of the tribulation, "Woe to those who give suck in those days..." If all of our beliefs (most of the people that read this blog) are true, there wouldn't be any babies that would be nursing at that time. One of our beliefs has to give. Of course, none of them are major doctrines of the faith, and I personally do not believe in the age of accountability (not that it couldn't be true, but I don't think it has Biblical basis, and I believe that we just have to trust that God knows what He is doing). Also, lately I have thought that our pre-trib view of the rapture has little solid Biblical basis, although that is certainly what I am hoping for, and certainly at this point what I believe.

Anyway, what do you guys think?

Do you find, as I do, the thought of babies in the womb being raptured as an interesting thought?

God's timing

Last week my brother was supposed to have knee surgery. The week before at a softball game a Pastor had prayed that he would not even have to do the surgery. No one else had thought about praying that, but on the day of the surgery, the surgeon opened up his knee and say that Jeff's knee was healing itself, that he would not have to reconstruct anything, did a little cleaning, and closed it back up. I talked to my dad about it the other night and he told me some stories of God working and solving problems sometimes without our even praying that way for them to be solved. Sometimes we try our own ways. Anyway, I realized that I have not really posted much about answered prayer that we have seen the last year or so.
About a year and a half ago, we were trying to get to Field prep seminar and needed a bunch more support. One couple decided to support us for 200 dollars a month, which is a very high amount for an individual, and we didn't even know the couple. That was a big faith booster. More recently though, they stopped supporting us...but another couple we barely know picked us up for the exact amount.
The main time that we really saw God working was last summer. Seeing all of our support come in was a huge blessing. Then things happened with our Visas. The day before we were supposed to go apply for our Visas, I was waiting to for a package with a document we needed. I had to go and had given up hope and headed out the door when the UPS truck pulled up. I think that the UPS man thought I was really weird cause I was so excited. Then when we had applied for our Visas we had a deadline that we needed to hear about getting them before we could leave for Brazil. On the last day we could hear, I got the phone call that we had received them. What an emotional moment that was. I remember clearly being on a ladder helping my friend Mitch paint his house. I had just said, "Mitch, the way God has been working for us in the last second, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if they called today." And then the phone rang, and I said, "oh my word Mitch, it is them."
Traveling to Brazil with 18 pieces of luggage and no problems was an answer to prayer, as well as the shipping price we received for them as well. And there have been numerous answers and blessings since then, and we are looking for many more, cause we know that we serve a faithful God.

Love

I was just putting my baby to bed thinking about my love for her. I have always heard that your love for your spouse grows over the years, but I never imagined how much. Looking back to the beginning, I think about how I barely knew my wife compared to how well I know her now. I have always compared life to a roller coaster ride of ups and downs, and maybe love is like that for some, but I think that love is more like two mountains standing right next to each other. The first mountain is when you first get together. Some people start at the top of the mountain (you would call it love at first sight), and some people take a time of getting to know each other before they actually fall in love. But either way, around the engagement period or the time of marriage, or at some point, the couple is on the mountain top. The thoughts there generally or at this point I am talking about: My husband/wife can do no wrong. They are the best. We are so much in love, I can't believe it. It is a great feeling and you never want it to go away.
But then sometime after that you figure out there is something wrong with this person and that they are not the best. and..."you've lost that loving feeling, ohoohooooh, loving feeling..." Well, I don't want to say you totally lost it, but you certainly are not on the mountain top still and probably every couple experiences a different valley. Personally, I don't think that I experienced a huge valley or anything, I just realized how little I actually knew Sarah. I hadn't really known what I was getting into and I don't mean that in a bad way, just to say that you fall in love, act on it, but that is a different season in life.
So then your love starts to grow more and more (at least it should ideally). You start to know your spouse more and more and love them more and more. I know this isn't with everyone, but it has been with me. Some people even say that you eventually look more and more like your spouse. I know that many great marriages merge their humor, likes/dislikes, etc... And you love more and more.
I say all that to say that it is kind of like our love for God. We receive Christ as our Savior and we are on a mountain top. Everyone's journey to arrive at that point is different, but generally you are there. And then after a while, a fellow Christian does you wrong, or you get confused about the Trinity, or someone sits in your delegated seat at church and you realize that life after salvation is not perfect.
And some people drop off at that point (just like some marriages do too). Both are very unfortunate. But hopefully you keep on going and learning more and more about God and growing in your love for Him.
And eventually you get to the point where you are amazed at how much you love your spouse, or you are passionate in your love for your Savior. This is what we shoot for. And just for the record, this thought came into my mind tonight because of my incredibly awesome wife who I love so much more than I ever thought I would and who through her love for me has given me a tiny glimpse of what it means to be loved by the eternal God and our future spouse, God's Son, Jesus Christ.

I don't get it

So I really try to be a nice guy, but I think that I get run over too often. I guess that I could write a bunch of times this has happened, but the current ones are that I am still waiting for a mailbox key, even though we moved over a month ago. I also feel like I bother people if I call them too many times to remind them of what they are supposed to do.
Do I have a right to feel like I need to be treated right? Do I need to take it every time someone runs over me like that? I know that patience is a virtue and that we need to exhibit the fruits of the Spirit, but how do we exhibit righteous anger? And is it worth it for me to do that? What is better for my testimony, having patience and being run over, or gently urging someone to do what they have promised? Maybe someday I will just end up a punk.

Why the Catholic church has succeeded

I am not sure if the Catholic church has started to lose followers lately, I think they have, but they sure have been successful as a church in the past as far as getting a crowd. In Brazil, I have heard that the Catholic population to be as high as 85-90% and that is just one country out of many that have Catholicism as their main religion. Why is that so?
I was thinking this morning about a conversation I had in Sunday school a while back with someone who was not in line with our Baptist belief. She was convinced that her friend, who was not religious, but very good, would not be sent to hell by God. "He, in fact, was better than most Christians she knew." And you know what, it makes sense. I think that is why Catholicism has been successful, because according to our natural beliefs, it makes sense. We all tend to know what is "fair" and always want to be treated fairly. Catholicism says, basically, that if we do more good than bad, we will go to heaven. And that is what comes naturally to believe. And since everyone believes themselves to be basically good in their own eyes, we will all go to heaven.
That is the main reason I think it has done well, but there are others like having an official representative for God, offering plenty of works based services, being state run often times, and other things that I can't think of right now. But for now, here is a video to watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrLzYw6ULYw&feature=related