One of the guys in my firehouse asked me this question recently. A few of us were discussing the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear emergency in Japan, along with combat in Lybia, problems in the Middle East, etc. So he turned to me for some answers. My response was two fold. First, I can't answer specifically for God, but I do know that God is in control, He has a plan, and is never taken by surprise. He has a plan for the world, and Satan will do everything he can to try and stop it. Plus, we live in a physical world that is impacted by the fall of Adam, so natural disasters and other physical suffering will take place. Second, God loves and cares for us, and for the hurting people around the world. He cares so much that He became a man in the person of Jesus to experience life as we do, including all of the hurt, suffering, and betrayal we could ever experience.
This is seen in many of the promises He gives us in the Bible. One of my favorite is Psalm 46, God is my refuge and strength, and a very present help in times of trouble.
What in the world is going on? God has a plan, and that plan includes the return of His Son. So expect more natural disasters along with wars and rumors of war as we move closer to the completion of His plan.
Blessings,
Dr. Paul
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Kids and Facebook
How old should a child be to be on social media? This is a hot question today. Michelle Obama made some comments lately that provoked a lot of debate among parents. Speaking of her daughters, she said, “I’m not a big fan of children having FB, it’s not something they need.” Social media like Facebook have a policy requiring kids to be at least 13 years old. But is this too young? Here is what a study, the Internet and American Life Project funded by the Pew Foundation, recently discovered. This study found that 93% of children 12 to 17 are online.
73% of them are on one or more social media. This means that a lot of 12 and 13 year olds are using social media.
In a recent survey conducted by ABC News, most parents feel that age 15 is the youngest for social media. Even more striking, 43% of parents felt that social media are not appropriate for anyone under 18 years of age. Obviously, there is a disconnect between what parents said in the ABC survey and the amount of kids who are using social media according to the Pew study.
So what is a parent to do? Here are some things to consider:
The maturity level of your child.
Your child's school performance.
How social is your child?
What real activities is your child involved in?
How much are you willing and able to monitor your child's activity?
Regardless of the age which you select for your child's participation in social media, you want to impress upon your child some important safeguards:
Only allow selected friends to see your child's information and posts.
Never provide address and home or cell phone numbers.
Make sure your child understands that inappropriate photographs, posts, and comments can cause great harm, impact future job prospects, etc.
Have all passwords and make sure you can access all of their accounts. Go on their social media on a regular basis to monitor your child's activity.
Blessings,
Dr. Paul
73% of them are on one or more social media. This means that a lot of 12 and 13 year olds are using social media.
In a recent survey conducted by ABC News, most parents feel that age 15 is the youngest for social media. Even more striking, 43% of parents felt that social media are not appropriate for anyone under 18 years of age. Obviously, there is a disconnect between what parents said in the ABC survey and the amount of kids who are using social media according to the Pew study.
So what is a parent to do? Here are some things to consider:
The maturity level of your child.
Your child's school performance.
How social is your child?
What real activities is your child involved in?
How much are you willing and able to monitor your child's activity?
Regardless of the age which you select for your child's participation in social media, you want to impress upon your child some important safeguards:
Only allow selected friends to see your child's information and posts.
Never provide address and home or cell phone numbers.
Make sure your child understands that inappropriate photographs, posts, and comments can cause great harm, impact future job prospects, etc.
Have all passwords and make sure you can access all of their accounts. Go on their social media on a regular basis to monitor your child's activity.
Blessings,
Dr. Paul
Monday, February 7, 2011
Why Does a Couple Break Up After So Many Years?
Today Governor Rendell and his wife announced that they are separating after 40 years of marriage. Wow, 40 years, that is a long time. Some Hollywood marriages only last 40 days. I don't know the governor and his wife, they seem nice enough, even if you don't agree with their politics or public policy. I can give some reasons why a couple may chose to separate or divorce after 2o or more years. If there is no infidelity, physical or emotional abuse, or substance abuse, it often involves a gradual erosion of the relationship. The couple may have fallen for the common myth that marriage problems will just work themselves out over time. Actually, problems get worse over time, not better. As these problems get worse, and others are added, the couple finds themselves drifting further apart.
Another reason I see is reflected in the words of this man who was married for 25 years, “We never had a very close relationship, but the kids kept us together, they were our connecting point. When they left home, it was just the two of us, with no buffers. We had nothing in common and decided it was crazy to waste the rest of our lives. So we divorced." One or both of the spouses pour themselves into their children, or their career, or a hobby, or some other pursuit. Now there is nothing wrong with being a good parent, or seeking to do well in your job, or having a hobby. The problem is when any of these pursuits overtakes investing time and effort in your marriage.
Marriage takes work, and that work continues for the life of the husband and wife. James Dobson of Focus on the Family notes that “Married life offers no panacea, if it is going to reach its potential, it will require an all out investment by both husband and wife.” Are you making your marriage an all out investment? Take some time to think about how much effort you are putting into your marriage. Then ask your spouse how he/she thinks you are doing in making your marriage the most important relationship you have, next to your relationship to God.
Blessings,
Dr. Paul
Another reason I see is reflected in the words of this man who was married for 25 years, “We never had a very close relationship, but the kids kept us together, they were our connecting point. When they left home, it was just the two of us, with no buffers. We had nothing in common and decided it was crazy to waste the rest of our lives. So we divorced." One or both of the spouses pour themselves into their children, or their career, or a hobby, or some other pursuit. Now there is nothing wrong with being a good parent, or seeking to do well in your job, or having a hobby. The problem is when any of these pursuits overtakes investing time and effort in your marriage.
Marriage takes work, and that work continues for the life of the husband and wife. James Dobson of Focus on the Family notes that “Married life offers no panacea, if it is going to reach its potential, it will require an all out investment by both husband and wife.” Are you making your marriage an all out investment? Take some time to think about how much effort you are putting into your marriage. Then ask your spouse how he/she thinks you are doing in making your marriage the most important relationship you have, next to your relationship to God.
Blessings,
Dr. Paul
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
The Latest Deadly Drug Habit
Who would have thought that bath salts could be deadly. When Neil Brown got high on dangerous chemicals sold as bath salts, he took his skinning knife and slit his face and stomach repeatedly. Brown survived, but authorities say others haven't been so lucky after snorting, injecting or smoking powders with such innocuous-sounding names as Ivory Wave, Red Dove and Vanilla Sky.
Some say the effects of the powders are as powerful as abusing methamphetamine. Increasingly, law enforcement agents and poison control centers say the advertised bath salts with complex chemical names are an emerging menace in several U.S. states where authorities talk of banning their sale.
Apparently there are some brands of bath salts that include a chemicals from China and India called Mephadrone and MDPV. These organic chemicals are imported from these countries, added to the salts, and then marketed in the US. Names of the salts also include "White Lightning," and "Hurricane Charlie." Teens and adults are smoking it, snorting it, and injecting it.
The results of this abuse are deadly. Users of this experience hallucinations, altered speech pattern, delirium, severe paranoia, pscyhosis, and suicide. Mississippi lawmakers this week began considering a proposal to ban the sale of the powders, and a similar step is being sought in Kentucky. In Louisiana, the bath salts were outlawed by an emergency order after the state's poison center received more than 125 calls in the last three months of 2010 involving exposure to the chemicals.
In Brown's case, he said he had tried every drug from heroin to crack and was so shaken by terrifying hallucinations that he wrote one Mississippi paper urging people to stay away from the advertised bath salts.
"I couldn't tell you why I did it," Brown said, pointing to his scars. "The psychological effects are still there."
While Brown survived, sheriff's authorities in one Mississippi county say they believe one woman overdosed on the powders there. In southern Louisiana, the family of a 21-year-old man says he cut his throat and ended his life with a gunshot. Authorities are investigating whether a man charged with capital murder in the December death of a Tippah County, Miss., sheriff's deputy was under the influence of the bath salts.
At the present time, federal authorities are also looking into what can be done to stop the sale of these "bath salts." In the mean time, parents need to be aware of this new danger.
Blessings,
Dr. Paul
Some say the effects of the powders are as powerful as abusing methamphetamine. Increasingly, law enforcement agents and poison control centers say the advertised bath salts with complex chemical names are an emerging menace in several U.S. states where authorities talk of banning their sale.
Apparently there are some brands of bath salts that include a chemicals from China and India called Mephadrone and MDPV. These organic chemicals are imported from these countries, added to the salts, and then marketed in the US. Names of the salts also include "White Lightning," and "Hurricane Charlie." Teens and adults are smoking it, snorting it, and injecting it.
The results of this abuse are deadly. Users of this experience hallucinations, altered speech pattern, delirium, severe paranoia, pscyhosis, and suicide. Mississippi lawmakers this week began considering a proposal to ban the sale of the powders, and a similar step is being sought in Kentucky. In Louisiana, the bath salts were outlawed by an emergency order after the state's poison center received more than 125 calls in the last three months of 2010 involving exposure to the chemicals.
In Brown's case, he said he had tried every drug from heroin to crack and was so shaken by terrifying hallucinations that he wrote one Mississippi paper urging people to stay away from the advertised bath salts.
"I couldn't tell you why I did it," Brown said, pointing to his scars. "The psychological effects are still there."
While Brown survived, sheriff's authorities in one Mississippi county say they believe one woman overdosed on the powders there. In southern Louisiana, the family of a 21-year-old man says he cut his throat and ended his life with a gunshot. Authorities are investigating whether a man charged with capital murder in the December death of a Tippah County, Miss., sheriff's deputy was under the influence of the bath salts.
At the present time, federal authorities are also looking into what can be done to stop the sale of these "bath salts." In the mean time, parents need to be aware of this new danger.
Blessings,
Dr. Paul
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Philadelphia's Abortion Horror
Here in Philadelphia an abortion doctor, Kermit Gosnell, M.D., has been charged with murder in the death of a woman, 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar, who came for an abortion. According to the Grand Jury inditement, he allowed untrained personel to adminster powerful anesthesia drugs which resulted in her death. Many other women wound up in emergency rooms with various injuries from his malpractice. In addition, a number of babies were born as a result of his performing late term abortions and he murdered them with a pair of sciossors. Philadelphia District Attorney, Seth Williams said during a press conference Wednesday that Gosnell "induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord."The district attorney also said patients were subjected to squalid and barbaric conditions at Gosnell's Women's Medical Society.Authorities went to investigate drug-related complaints at the clinic last year and stumbled on what Williams called a "house of horrors.""There were bags and bottles holding aborted fetuses scattered throughout the building," Williams said. "There were jars, lining shelves, with severed feet that he kept for no medical purpose."
The clinic was shut down and Gosnell's medical license was suspended after the raid.
Workers, some of whom were also charged with murder, were untrained and unlicensed, including a high-school student who performed anesthesia with potentially lethal narcotics, Williams said.
Not only am I, like any decent person would be, horrified and sickened by the horrific acts committed by this sick excuse for a physician. But I also think about the fact that the authorities who have oversight of the abortion clincs allowed this facility to operate for years. State regulators were given numerous reports of problems and yet NO ONE BOTHERED TO INVESTIGATE! Those of us who are Pro-Life have warned that the abortion business culture of death would lead to a de-valuing of human life. While this case is a more extreme example, it seems to me that the culture of death has desensitized us as a nation to the sanctity of life. If there is another explanation for the fact that, as D.A. Williams said, there is more oversight of a beauty parlor than an abortion clinic, I would like to hear it.
Blessings,
Dr. Paul
The clinic was shut down and Gosnell's medical license was suspended after the raid.
Workers, some of whom were also charged with murder, were untrained and unlicensed, including a high-school student who performed anesthesia with potentially lethal narcotics, Williams said.
Not only am I, like any decent person would be, horrified and sickened by the horrific acts committed by this sick excuse for a physician. But I also think about the fact that the authorities who have oversight of the abortion clincs allowed this facility to operate for years. State regulators were given numerous reports of problems and yet NO ONE BOTHERED TO INVESTIGATE! Those of us who are Pro-Life have warned that the abortion business culture of death would lead to a de-valuing of human life. While this case is a more extreme example, it seems to me that the culture of death has desensitized us as a nation to the sanctity of life. If there is another explanation for the fact that, as D.A. Williams said, there is more oversight of a beauty parlor than an abortion clinic, I would like to hear it.
Blessings,
Dr. Paul
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Haiti One Year After the Earthquake
On January 12 it will be one year since the devastating earthquake that hit the nation of Haiti, one of the poorest on the planet. It has been 8 months since I went to Haiti for the pastor's conference in Port Au Prince. Haiti is about the size of Maryland with a population of 10 million people. It is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with 80% of the population living under the poverty line, and 54% living in adject poverty. The daily personal income averages to $2 per day.
The 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck at 4:53 in the afternoon with the epicenter 10 miles West of Port-au-Prince. As many as 250,000 people were killed and 1.2 million people were displaced . Since then there have been 33 aftershocks.
To me, the biggest aftershock is not the physical impact of the earthquake, as horrible as that was and how it continues to impact the people. It is the spiritual aftershocks. God is working in the midst of the incredible suffering. It is hard to imagine what a tent city is like until you are there and see an ocean of tents as far as the eye can see. When we came for the conference, we met pastors who had suffered so much, yet were hungry for what God could do in their lives and in their congregations and communities. Here is an excerpt from my first message which opened the conference:
We want you to know that as a pastor, who knows Christ, armed with the Word of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, you are more capable than you realize to help the people suffering in your church, and in your community. You don’t need to be an expert in post-traumatic stress, or have a doctoral degree to make a difference.
Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me, to bring good news to the poor, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted.
But we also want to bind up your wounds, to minister to your hearts. Our goal is that as you experience the ministry of God to you, you will begin to experience healing, your hope will be renewed, and you will be better equipped to be servant leaders to your people.
Little did I how prophetic these words would be. God is doing amazing things in Haiti, breaking the stronghold of supersition and vodoo which has gripped so many. The church is rebuilding and revival is breaking out.
To find out more, I encourage you to go to the web site of the organization which sponsored the conference in which I participated, http://www.churcheshelpingchurches.org/. Pray for the pastors and people of Haiti. Our God is an awesome God!
Blessings,
Dr. Paul
The 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck at 4:53 in the afternoon with the epicenter 10 miles West of Port-au-Prince. As many as 250,000 people were killed and 1.2 million people were displaced . Since then there have been 33 aftershocks.
To me, the biggest aftershock is not the physical impact of the earthquake, as horrible as that was and how it continues to impact the people. It is the spiritual aftershocks. God is working in the midst of the incredible suffering. It is hard to imagine what a tent city is like until you are there and see an ocean of tents as far as the eye can see. When we came for the conference, we met pastors who had suffered so much, yet were hungry for what God could do in their lives and in their congregations and communities. Here is an excerpt from my first message which opened the conference:
We want you to know that as a pastor, who knows Christ, armed with the Word of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, you are more capable than you realize to help the people suffering in your church, and in your community. You don’t need to be an expert in post-traumatic stress, or have a doctoral degree to make a difference.
Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me, to bring good news to the poor, he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted.
But we also want to bind up your wounds, to minister to your hearts. Our goal is that as you experience the ministry of God to you, you will begin to experience healing, your hope will be renewed, and you will be better equipped to be servant leaders to your people.
Little did I how prophetic these words would be. God is doing amazing things in Haiti, breaking the stronghold of supersition and vodoo which has gripped so many. The church is rebuilding and revival is breaking out.
To find out more, I encourage you to go to the web site of the organization which sponsored the conference in which I participated, http://www.churcheshelpingchurches.org/. Pray for the pastors and people of Haiti. Our God is an awesome God!
Blessings,
Dr. Paul
Sunday, January 9, 2011
I Thought I was a Dad
This is not exactly how I envisioned my first blog entry of 2011, but the U.S. State Department has a new policy that I just can't ignore. For the last 23 years, I was known as Dad, the father of my first child, followed in the next couple of years as being Dad to my two sons. I like the idea of being Dad. But according to the State Department application for a passport, I am no longer know as this. I am simply "Parent #1" or "Parent #2" depending on how I might feel when filling out the application. In the latest example of trying to redefine the family, and wanting to be overly sensitive to situations where a child has two members of the same sex for his adoptive parents, the terms "mother" and "father" are now removed. I am simply either Thing 1 or Thing 2, no, wait a minute, that is Parent 1 or Parent 2.
How pathetic are we getting as a nation? Here is what Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council has to say about this change: "Only in the topsy-turvy world of left-wing political correctness could it be considered an ‘improvement’ for a birth-related document to provide less information about the circumstances of that birth,” Family Research Council president Tony Perkins wrote in a statement to Fox News Radio. “This is clearly designed to advance the causes of same-sex ‘marriage’ and homosexual parenting without statutory authority, and violates the spirit if not the letter of the Defense of Marriage Act.”
So much for being a Dad.
Blessings,
Dr. Paul
How pathetic are we getting as a nation? Here is what Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council has to say about this change: "Only in the topsy-turvy world of left-wing political correctness could it be considered an ‘improvement’ for a birth-related document to provide less information about the circumstances of that birth,” Family Research Council president Tony Perkins wrote in a statement to Fox News Radio. “This is clearly designed to advance the causes of same-sex ‘marriage’ and homosexual parenting without statutory authority, and violates the spirit if not the letter of the Defense of Marriage Act.”
So much for being a Dad.
Blessings,
Dr. Paul
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