I have a dream...

I had a dream last night--more like a nightmare really--where for some reason I had taken a part-time job down in Draper or thereabouts and I was late to it on my first day and so busy doing other stuff that I didn't even show up on my second day. If dreams can reveal our subconscious fears, then apparently my greatest fear is not performing well in my commitments. Weird.

On another note, some deranged fellow decided he wanted to kill himself by getting hit by a train while still in his SUV. Then he changed his mind, but instead of driving away, he decided to get out and let the train run into it anyway. The train derailed, killing 11 people and causing God-only-knows how much damage in terms of hospital, emergency response, and rebuilding expenses. Now he might face the death penalty. I guess suicide is something you just don't play with unless you really want to die. I can't help but wonder how it would have been different if somebody had been able to "save" him, and bring him back to Jesus. I mean, if the guy was able to clean up and get off drugs and live a positive, upstanding life, his wife wouldn't have had to issue a restraining order and none of this ever would have happened. And the weird thing is, we'd never be able to look back and say, "Gee, it's a good thing that one guy found religion, because otherwise he might have killed 11 people by wrecking a train." Nobody would ever have had any idea that his life might have come to this. Who knows how many lives are saved each day by the simple, everyday good works of the many? It's no wonder that the angels of heaven rejoice whenever a lost soul is brought back into the fold. It really gives new meaning to the phrase, "There, but for the grace of God, go I."

I met an atheist once who thought that Christianity was the worst thing that had ever happened to the world, because at various points in history people have done terrible things in its name. The thing is, there is really no way to gauge the profoundly positive impact that Christianity is having on the world every single day. I can point to somebody and say, "After he converted, he stopped beating his wife," but I can't point to somebody and say, "If he hadn't converted, he would have killed almost a dozen people in a failed suicide attempt." All we can do, really, is to keep fighting the good fight and have faith that the influence we're having on the world is far greater than it appears to us now.