“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.” Psalm 19:1-2

“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” Romans 1:19-20

I don’t just want a PDF. I want a nice OS X-style application with a built-in concordance and whatnot. Googling around this evening has revealed two possibilities: MacSword (free) and Logos (commercial). Logos isn’t due to be released for the Mac for some time yet, so I’ll be trying out MacSword for now. Anyone have suggestions on other apps that I might have missed? Or maybe there is a generic eBook reader for the Mac out there that I haven’t stumbled across yet?

“It is not a mass of dead dogmas, deep frozen in some ancient cathedral to be carried as a burden through life and thawed out five minutes before death.

“The gospel is not a list of religious rules and regulations to be strung around the soul like a lucky charm in case of accidents.

“No, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is a message — and what a message! It is a living message from the living God for living people, just like us, for people with sins just like us, for people with sorrows and heartaches just like us.

“It is the only message on the face of the earth with concrete promises and absolute assurances of an eternal inheritance that will withstand the impact of death and the collapse of the universe.”

— J. Boyd Nicholson

“We leave our places of worship, and no deep and inexpressible wonder sits upon our faces. We can sing these lilting melodies, and when we go out into the street our faces are one with the faces of those who have left the theater and the music halls. There is nothing about us to suggest that we have been looking at anything stupendous and overwhelming. Far back in my boyhood I remember an old saint telling me that after some services he liked to make his way home alone, by quiet by-ways, so that the hush of the Almighty might remain on his awed and prostrate soul. That is the element we are losing, and its loss is one of the measure of our poverty, and the primary secret of inefficient life and service.”

Why yes, I did visit the doc today. How ever did you guess?

After being told to show up a half-hour early to fill out paperwork that took 5 minutes to complete, then sitting around for the next hour reading ancient copies of Parents magazine, you can imagine the mood I was in when I was finally called. God is obviously trying to teach me patience through these ordeals, it’s just my own thick skull that’s getting in the way.

God must also be testing my tolerance for pain since this is the third time in the past few months that a doc has found the need to “practice” (yes, it’s a pun) an especially painful procedure on me, albeit for my own (eventual) good. At least the pain brought about some immediate good by making me consider an interesting question: do we place the same amount of faith in God that we do in medical professionals?

Ahhh, the theology of the doctor’s office!