Thought

So i was at a conference yesterday and today. It was a conference for those thinking of going into missions or in missions or just plain have a heart for missions. After listening to many speakers and hearing stories from Haiti, Guatemala and locally. I have a question.
Is the "American Dream" biblical?

What do Christians do?

So over the last year or so I have been confronted with circumstances that I have had to ask this question. What I mean is when someone says things about you that are false, or what if people hurt you in a physical manner and cause pain on you. What do you do? in the last year i have been apart of situations like this. I have fallen into what he world says and then gone back to scriptures to find out. Guess what it doesn't line up, scriptures are different than the worlds ideas. What have you done lately with the scripture that says take care of widows and orphans? What about loving those who persecute you, do you retaliate or love them with a deeper love. What about giving to those in need? OK so where does the scriptures talk about saving and storing up enough money to retire and not have to work? is there a spot in scriptures that we can point to and say this is why i save and why i store money away to have enough to not have to work. So where do our actions as western world Christians line up with the teachings of Scripture? Are vacations and recreation something of scripture or something of our own desire and not really what scripture teaches?
Just a thought.

Confirming

So what does it mean to say that something is confirmed? I would say that this past summer has been exactly that, confirming. So where have I been this summer? Guatemala with 27 high schoolkids and 6 leaders. South side of Chicago with 27 middle school kids, and on houseboats with 10 college kids. In addition to that was able to get 2 weeks of vacation with the family. All to say this summer confirmed a lot of things. The Guatemala trip was the right trip for the right kids, Our eyes and ears were attentive and listening to God speaking and moving. All the trips were the right trip. It isn't that God showed up and did great things, he did. God is always showing up and doing great things, are we listening and watching and wanting to see him? That is the question. God is always at work in our lives it is just a matter of if we want to see him and claim it as him working. Our vacation times were great. It wasn't until the last vacation about 2 days into it that we realized why it was so good. Then it dawned on us. We were alone as a family, the first time in 5 years we have taken a vacation with just our family, no body else but us. That was confirming that we did the right thing. Confirming things happen all around us, do we see it, Do you choose to see it?