The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

Psalm 23:1

Why does it say "want" rather than "need"?

I always tell my kids that what they want and what they need are two very different things but do I understand it?

The truth here for me is that the possession or lack of stuff is not the problem but the desire itself. I spend my life wanting stuff I probably dont really need. A reliable car, a new guitar, a day off. And when I get it I immediately start thinking about the next thing. The desire is still there. Nagging. Fueled by all I see around me.

What King David appears to be saying here he desires nothing, he is content. He has all he wants. Somehow his desire has changed. He wants no more. How is this?

Jesus as a great moral teacher?

A quote from one of the greatest thinkers of the last century..

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who is merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." | C.S.Lewis (Mere Christianity [New York: Touchstone, 1996] 56).

Religious belief amongst scientists

"A recent survey of religious belief amongst scientists in the United States (published in..Nature) showed that forty percent of scientists asserted a personal belief in a personal God-almost exactly the same percentage as when a similar survey was published in 1916." | Kirsten Birkett, Unnatural Enemies - An Introduction to science and christianity. ISBN 1 876326 01 8

Conclusive Evidence

"As a lawyer I have made a prolonged study of the evidences for the events of the first Easter Day. To me the evidence is conclusive, and over and over again in the High Court I have secured a verdict on evidence not nearly so compelling." | Sir Edward Clarke, K. C.

Forgiveness must be a wonderful thing

"One of the great benefits of organised religion is that you can be forgiven your sins, which must be a wonderful thing. . .I mean, I carry my sins around with me, there's nobody there to forgive them." | Kingsley Amis in an interview in The Times Magazine.