Being Courageous Through God's Eyes

Numbers 14:7-9

New International Version (NIV)

⁷ and said to the entire Israelite assembly, “The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. ⁸ If the LORD is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. ⁹ Only do not rebel against the LORD. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will devour them. Their protection is gone, but the LORD is with us. Do not be afraid of them.” 

 

1 Samuel 17:45-47

New International Version (NIV)

 ⁴⁵ David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. ⁴⁶ This day the LORD will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. ⁴⁷ All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

                                                                                                                                  

     After reading these two passages of scripture I want to jump up and shout, "Yeah!, The battle is the Lord's!  I can do anything God assigns to me!"  That's an easy thing to say when life is going easy, but then the car breaks, work get slow, people you love get hurt, or some other bad thing happens.  It's not so easy to be courageous then.  The three men were in bad situations though.
     Joshua and Caleb explored a land that had a larger population, better weapon technology, and were bigger and stonger (they called them giants) than the Israelites.  God gave them the task of defeating these people and taking over their land.  Everyone else in the group that scouted out the land with Joshua and Caleb was too frightened to wage war with these people.
    David was to visit his brother on the front lines of battle with the Philistines.  While he is there he hears Goliath, a 9' 9" giant, challenge anyone to a 1on1 fight to the death to decide the battle.  Nobody else in the Israelite army dared to accept this challenge.
    What about these men made them courageous compared to everyone else?  They trusted in the Lord.
    Joshua and Caleb trusted that when the Lord says he will give us this land that it means he will give us this land.  Doesn't matter what the people living there look like or how much better their weapons are.  David knew that the Philistines would be defeated by Israel and since the challenge to decide that was first to defeat Goliath, then that is what was going to happen.  The difference between these three men and "the crowd" was the way they looked at the situation.  These three men looked at the situation through God's perspective.
    Recently my car is in desperate need of repairs.  My first thought by human nature would be "Great, there goes my savings account!", but if I look at it in God's perspective it would be " I'm blessed to have enough in the savings account to pay to fix my car!"
    So when life isn't going as planned.  When if feels like the walls are falling in.  When God gives you a difficult mission.  Read these two passages and receive some courage to take on the giants of your life.

 

Music Styles

     Lately I've been thinking about the different styles of music and why they are what they are.  So let's go through and dissect them into their different parts.
     Let's start out with one of the most controversial ones of the last century, rap music.  Broken down rap music is mostly a simple beat that makes you want to dance with very long complex lyrics that rhyme.  The lyrics seem to be the most important part or it is what the artist wants you to focus on usually.  The lyrics are mainly just the artist talking with emotion in their voice instead of singing. Now if you made the instrumental part more complex it would take away from the lyrics since a singer would have a wickedly hard time fluctuating their voice that fast with how much they have to say.  Rap music has been given a bad rap in the past due to artist putting in vulgar messages that glorify being in a gang and being addicted to sex.  Also there has been a lot of subpar rap that becomes popular just because it has a good beat and is easy to dance to making it appealing to drunk people.  True rap will focus on the message and have a good beat and will leave you with know what point the artist was trying to get across to the listener.
    Classical music is not as popular anymore, it is rare to even hear it on the radio in my area now.  Classical music is only instrumental with the full scale of notes and a plethora of instruments.  Some of it makes you want to get up and dance in a different way than rap music, in a more swaying motion compared to a jumping motion.  The slower tempo classical is sometimes sung with.  This is called Opera and seems to be enjoyed by very few people in the United States.  As far as I know from what the TV tells me it is popular in Europe.  Now as far as the faster tempo classical music, imagine someone trying to sing to that.  It would sound horrendous and the person would have a very difficult time fluctuating their voice to it.  Most of the famous classical music is pre-1900 (Mozart, Bach, Brahms), but some newer classical does become popular.  The scores from movies become CD soundtracks and they also sometimes can be heard being played by symphonies in concert halls.  Classical music my become less and less heard, but it will never fade out completely.
    Rock Music is very popular and we hear it every day on the radio, in stores, and in advertisements.  Rock music is a simpler form of music than classical.  It is usually a mix of electric guitar, electric bass, drums, keyboard, and a singer.  The music is a harmony of these instruments.  In older rock music they had some guitar solos where just the guitar would play by itself changing many chords in more of a classical type of style(don't we all miss that?).  The electric instruments give and "edge" to the music.  The lyrics play an equal part as the instrumental in rock music.  They are sung rather than talked as in rap music.  They lyrics are much shorter, but still can convey a message in the song that the artist wants people to hear.   Rock music seems to be staying close to the top of most popular music types and I believe it will stay there.
     Most other music falls somewhere in between these two or mixes them.  Swing and Ska music is rap music with some more instruments here and there.   Country is pretty much Rock music with more acoustic instruments and someone with a southern accent to their voice.  Pop music is a rap music beat with more of a singing voice and shorter lyrics and is the most popular (as far as what the TV tells me).  Heavy metal is a more edgier form of rock music where the instruments are played faster and with distortion.
    Well, that is my take on the different types of music and I hope it helps you better understand why different music is the way it is and gives you a better understanding of why people like different music.

Government in the Right Places

     Some questions I've been pondering lately is "Should the federal government be making laws and regulations for the whole nation?" and "Should the government make a decision to where my money(taxes) funds organizations and charities?" Obviously on the first question they have to make some laws and regulations else everything would be chaos. Would it be better though for just states to make laws and not the federal government?  To me it seems it would cost us less in taxes this way.  What about conflict between states where one state something is legal and another it is not?  Say someone buys marijuana in one state that it is legal and takes it across into a state that it is not.  What do we do then?  For people in Michigan we know that the illegal firework laws don't get enforced much.  People everywhere in Michigan go to neighboring states and buy these illegal fireworks.  I really don't care that they do so, but what if something I don't want in my neighborhood  that is illegal arrives there easily because it is legal in another state?  Well, I could call the cops and they take care of it.  If this illegal activity becomes popular like illegal fireworks how much would it cost to enforce these laws?  This is where I see a federal law that mandates all states to have certain laws that would effect people negatively.  I believe it would be easier to enforce and in so costing us less tax dollars.
     Now to the second question, "Should the government make a decision to where my money(taxes) funds organizations and charities?"  The government gives money to charities and organizations without out our consent.  Some of the charities are places that do some good, some places I would rather see go bankrupt and shut down.  Let's say all these places that the government gives our tax dollars to are places that do good in the world.  If the government just gives these people money and that's their only involvement then this may be acceptable.  If you know anything about government you know that this is not what happens.  No, the government wants to make sure the money is being spent wisely so they hire someone to oversee the funds that are given.  You have to pay this person right?  So the money the charity receives gets cut some or they just allocate more tax dollars to pay for this employee.  This employee may oversee a number of charities and organizations.  Well, that person can't just fly around the country and make sure the charity and organizations are spending their federal donations right.  So they hire people at state level and maybe someone at local level.  There may be more levels, but I believe there is at least these three.  That's a lot of tax dollars being spent just to manage donation money.  Do you think that the federal government will let them spend the money on things they really need?  Only if it is within certain parameters is my guess.  Now let us say the government didn't give to charities and organizations.  Let's say the government just lowers our taxes and we give to the charities and organizations that we WANT to support with no overhead of federal government.  If this happened then the charities and organizations I think would get more money and they could spend it on anything they need.  As a side bonus it would probably lower their taxes!

Purpose of this Blog

You are probably thinking, "What is this blog going to be about?"  Well, it is going to be about just random things I'm thinking about.  Some thoughts will be about God, Christianity, and the Bible.  Some will be about politics, current events, history, or other world views. And some thoughts will be just about something random.