Christmas is Here?

It's funny how Christmas seems to arrive earlier and earlier each year.  On my way to work today I heard Jingle Bells on a radio commercial.  Really?  Thanksgiving hasn't even happened yet!  Then when I was walking into the church, I saw it.  There was snow on the ground.  Not a lot, but it was there on the grass.  In the first half of November.  I guess Christmas really is coming.

Have you started Christmas shopping yet?  No?  Good!  I'd like to give you some ideas while your Christmas budget is still flexible.  Without further ado, here are some wonderful Christmas gift ideas!

• Parasite Be Gone!          $4.00  
• Garden Seeds                $10.00             
• ABC's                           $25.00

Sorry if I failed to mention that these gifts aren't really great ideas for your loved ones this Christmas.  These are gifts for people around the world who are in desperate need of life's basic necessities.  It's hard to imagine their circumstances for those of us dealing with First World Problems like running out of space on our iPods and complaining the heater in our house is either a tad too cold or a tad too hot.  But for just 4 bucks, you can give a kid meds that will wipe out intestinal bugs in his system so that he doesn't go malnourished.  For 10 dollars, you can give a family in Africa seeds so that they can plant a garden and be fed for months to come.  For $25, you can help an impoverished mother become literate so she can provide for her family.

Super: Moses is Storm

I used to love watching the X-Men cartoon when I was a kid.  Ok, I also watched them all on Youtube when I was in college.  There was one X-Men that I always thought was cool but simultaneously never really liked.  Storm.  She was just too cool.  She grew up in Egypt and was worshiped as a goddess by a native tribe because of her incredible mutant-granted powers.

Her mutation allowed her to control the weather which sounds tiny until you realize all of the wild things she could do with it.  Controlling the wind allowed her to fly, toss enemies around like rag dolls, and even bring down aircraft.  Power over the clouds meant she could create spontaneous floods, blast her foes with lethal lightning, and blind everyone with thick fog.  Even when her enemies were unstoppable, she would blast them with arctic winds and freeze them solid.  The the X-Men had time for lunch and naps before they thought up a plan to stop the bad guy.  Storm was great.  Too great.  She was an "I win" button that made everything way too easy.

There is a man in the Bible who became that sort of legend and powerhouse to the people of God.  He too grew up in Egypt.  He too performed phenomenal miracles over nature that would cause Storm's powers to look like the magic tricks you see at a child's birthday party.  He too was an "I win" button and no situation the people ran into was unsolvable with him around.  But Moses didn't start out that way. The movies you've seen may have painted a very different picture than the truth in the Bible.  Moses actually starts off as a bit of a loser.  So what turned him into the hero we know?