How about a non-Labor-Day story for this Labor Day weekend? Several years ago I received a letter from one of our television viewers who is a Pentecostal pastor ministering in a city near us. He informed me that from his Bible study he had come to the conclusion that the Scriptures plainly and clearly teach that the seventh day of the week is the divine Sabbath for humanity, that it has been so from the creation of earth and remains so today. Needless to say he got my attention!

How would you like to begin the new school year with a loan this big? If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed with your higher education expenses right now, you might find a small measure of comfort in meeting somebody who owes a bit more than you do—the United States. Today’s headline was an eye-catcher: “U.S. is facing tidal wave of red ink.” And underneath it followed these words: “In a chilling forecast, the White House is predicting a 10-year federal deficit of $9 trillion—more than the sum of all previous deficits since America’s founding.

With forty-one candidates for president, Thursday’s election in Afghanistan certainly won’t be remembered as offering too little choice for the people of that war-torn nation. Although with the Taliban’s dark threat to kill poll workers and voters alike who show up for this national exercise in fledgling democracy, the choice for many may simply have been between life and death.

Before we consider “Cash for Clunkers,” the government’s latest stimulus project, I’d like to thank our guest bloggers and preachers who allowed me to spend the last six weeks finishing a devotional book manuscript and marrying our son Kirk to our new daughter-in-law Chelsea. But of course, the preachers weren’t “guests” at all, but rather key leaders and pastors on our senior leadership team here at Pioneer. Without their passion for Christ and ministry, we wouldn’t be the Pioneer we are. So, thank you!

Moses Maimonides, a physician and rabbi who lived in the twelfth century, worked in the court of the sultan of Cairo by day and cared for the destitute of that city by night. He began each day with the following prayer:

“Deem me worthy of seeing,

In the sufferer

Who seeks my advice,

A person Neither rich nor poor,

Friend nor foe,

Good nor evil.

Irony. Simply defined it is when the expected outcome is totally opposite of what actually happens. Sometimes irony is laughable and sometimes it is profound. In the book of Esther we find a little bit of both.

At the time of writing this, I have been two weeks with little to no secular media contact—no TV, no radio, and only sporadic minimal connection to the internet for work purposes. (I've been at Michigan camp meeting.) My only reason for commenting on the lack of media infiltration into my life is to let you know that this will not be a commentary on what has been happening in the world—but more of what is in THE WORD. It seems the secular media is always full of bad news—telling you what the devil has been up to all day long.

Ever feel like the flight you’re on is going down? Karen and I just returned from two weeks in Europe—taping a Waldenses documentary (for the Andrews University School of Architecture) in Torre Pellice, Italy, and celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary in Grindelwald, Switzerland. After the recent Air France Flight 447 tragedy, travelers are even more sensitive to the possibilities of midair trouble.

Until the black boxes can be retrieved, the cause of the crash of Air France Flight 447 over the Atlantic Ocean Sunday night will remain unresolved. Some have speculated that the aircraft suffered a midair disaster related to what scientists call the "intertropical convergence zone"—a nearly continuous band of colliding weather systems that stretches across the Atlantic at the equator from South America to Africa. The ICZ is the hotbed of some of earth's strongest storms, with massive thunderheads at times towering up to 60,000 feet above sea level.

The CNN.com headline caught my eye: "Americans not losing their religion, but changing it often." The lead story was of Ingrid Case, a 41 year old freelance writer and editor in Minneapolis, who grew up an altar girl (acolyte) in her Episcopalian church. But after college, she drifted away, uncomfortable with her church's theology, eventually meeting and falling in love with a man who himself was searching for religion. Eventually the two of them joined the Society of Friends and became Quakers. She told the reporter, "It wasn’t so much 'You people stink and I'm out of here,' as 'I like this better and this is what I want to do.'"