I've been thinking about the Karla Faye Tucker story referenced at the end of Unit 2, day 1. Our summary statements are that we must deny ourselves, focus on God's purposes (not our own), see things from God's perspective, wait to see what God is about to do, and watch to see what God is doing around us. For someone on death row, it seems like there would be two main options... to give in to hopelessness because your life is over, or turn everything over to God and let him take complete control and submit totally to His plans for you. God really used her story and I was amazed at reading about it on wikipedia. I think that we as "free" Christians have too many options sometimes. Maybe we think that our plans are better than Gods or that His plans don't really apply to us, because we are content doing our own thing. Really, our lives apart from joining in God's plans for them, are as futile as if we were like Karla in prison on death row, awaiting our execution in a dark and empty cell, with no way out and no motivation to even attempt an escape. But if we turn our lives over to God like Karla did, and engage fully in His calling to us... we can be used powerfully, even if we are awaiting an exection and shut up in some prison somewhere. there is no shutting out God's presence and purpose to any of God's children who seek Him, because His love is too great to be interupted by concrete or barbed wire. Robert