Skip to main content

Some prayer requests

If any of my Christian bro's or sistuhs read this, I would appreciate prayer for the following long-term requests. (I don't exactly advertise or promote my blogsite.) And feel free to share requests with me, if you need prayer for anything.

1. In the past year, I have started to understand the biblical concept of the fear of God, which has been revolutionary for my spiritual life. It is barely mentioned or very misunderstood in modern evangelical circles; it's not inherently negative, and is in fact quite a blessing to understand it. I've turned more to older Christian writings and varieties of religious experiences to help me better understand and express it. But I need to understand it much better and live it out more, especially in terms of practical spirituality. Please pray for my deeper understanding, practice, and experience of the fear of God.

2. Please pray for my research - the labor-intensive design & running of experiments on Chinese psycholinguistics, getting subjects, analyzing data, and writing up and finishing my dissertation by Dec. 2007 or early spring 2008. Then I need to find a good academic job as a research professor. Also, I need to write up and submit good papers for publication soon (important for getting a good job at a good school - I don't want to end up at some place like University of Greenland, Micronesia College, or Siberia Tundra College).

3. My wife and I would like to start a family, and have been trying to have kids. Related to that and #2, I need funding sources for school, research, and family - fellowships, assistantships, etc.

4. I continue to have eye problems - eye strain and pain, aggravated by allergies and working and studying a lot in front of computers. It's problematic for studying or social interaction at times (people probably wonder why I look at them or others strangely).
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mystical & charismatic Christianity

As a person with charismatic leanings, I have come to prefer Catholic / Anglican / Episcopal forms of charismatic Christianity. As mentioned in my last post, charismatic Catholicism goes way back to the early church, under the rubric of Christian mysticism. The reason I prefer these forms is because they are more balanced. Protestant charismatics and Pentecostals greatly overemphasize things like speaking in tongues, which are really a minor gift. Tongues have been practiced throughout church history, and there is no historical or scriptural basis for the claim that tongues and other charismatic gifts ever ceased*. But they have never been considered "a big deal" or in any way a sign that a person is more spiritual than another who doesn't do tongues or such gifts. Only with the advent of modern charismatic movements did such an extreme emphasis get put on tongues and charismatic gifts. St. Paul commanded us to desire the better gifts - in that context, he was referring t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Evangelicalism's gradual demise

The term "evangelical" was popularized by Martin Luther ("evangelisch" in German), which meant a follower of the gospel. The term was originally a very good and useful term, as it referred to someone who believed in a religion based on faith and following the teachings of Christ, rather than man-made religious rules. It was meaningful enough but also broad enough to encompass a general theological orientation and religious lifestyle. It could include and accommodate somewhat different views or interpretations of Christian belief, including those who focused more on the grace, spirituality and lifestyle of Christ. As such, it was not the exclusive property of one religious group or theological orientation. The meaning has been generally positive in modern church history. However, in recent decades the term has been hijacked by fundamentalists who insist on a narrow interpretation of the term, insisting on a set of specific theological beliefs, while ignoring the C...
Post a Comment
Read more

Apologetics site

A good scriptural apologetics site I found recently is www.christian-thinktank.com , which provides explanations for difficult biblical passages and issues. I can't vouch for everything yet, but one article I liked gives a good explanation for the ordered attacks and killings of Canaanites and Amalekites in the Old Testament, and similar OT controversies.
Post a Comment
Read more