Do you believe in aliens? Surveys show that more and more folks are open to the idea that we are not alone in this universe... that lurking out there - or maybe even here - are beings that are definitely different in nature and not at home on this planet.

Like Yo Gabba Gabba, have you seen these guys? My 2-year-old daughter, Audrey, is obsessed with these guys! If Muno, Brobee, Foofa, Toodee, Plex, and Dj Lance rock are not aliens... who is? The songs that they sing ALWAYS get stuck in my head and they are there all day! I hope they are not putting hidden messages in my brain!

I was recently a part of a discussion where I heard some disturbing comments. This person struggles with their belief in God for various reasons, one of which is the gifts that God gives to each one of us. Basically, they felt shafted because their gift wasn't good enough in their opinion. They didn't understand why God would give one person a better set of gifts than someone else. The problem is that his understanding of spiritual gifts was way off.

Luke 9:24 - "For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it."

When we continually stress over problems instead of looking to God for solutions, the enemy will magnify your fears. If he can't get you to worry about the present - he'll remind you of everything that could go wrong in the future! Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "All I have seen, has taught me to trust God for all I haven't seen."

Back in 1960 (a mere seven years before my birth), Stanley Kubrick directed the movie Spartacus which starred Kirk Douglas. It was a movie about a man during ancient Roman society who rose from the dust of his slavery to shake the very pillars of Roman rule with his declaration of freedom. Still, while the movie certainly relied on the tried and not-so-true Hollywood concept of rewriting history (for the sake of the cinema), Spartacus was a real person. In fact, he was the leader of the slaves in "The Third Servile War", (yes... I Googled it) a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic.