Must I be Carried To the Skies?

Must I be carried to the skies

On flowery beds of ease

While others fight to win the prize

And sail through stormy seas? 

No,  I must fight if I would win

Increase my courage,  Lord

I’ll bear the toil, endure the pain

Supported by Thy Word

As I'm traveling through Nicaragua,  which is incredibly poor,  I see and sense a joyous determination in people .  It makes me think twice about Christians who always say  -- you know,  who always sing songs such as the above about the struggle,  about working hard for Christ,  but who also like to surround themselves with luxury hotels and meetings, who are always going top shelf on everything -- and I'm beginning to find these things increasingly incongruent.

We are here doing some vacationing, but it's an ecologically responsible vacation and we're staying in places that fit in with the environment so they may not be as fancy as some other places, but the idea is to blend in with, to preserve and to honor that which God has put on this earth.

I can't help but wonder why some of our traditional African American churches are not more ecologically responsible.  I can't help but think about how some of our African American preachers always have  to have a chauffeur and have to have certain things for them just in order to preach God's Word where I see people who live without material comforts, without all the amenities, who are standing only on God’s Word on a daily basis…