Knowing how to be a good husband or wife or parent or child or employer or employee is notoriously difficult because of various personalities and circumstances. I remember being on vacation and listening to a well known and highly regarded preacher on Fathers' Day dispense counsels of perfection which left me feeling inadequate and angry. There is a tendency to lay down too much law and not enough grace.

Futility of thinking is a description of meaninglessness, a feeling of uselessness, a sense of worthlessness, and an experience of emptiness. It is what Ecclesiastes expresses: "Everything is meaningless...All things are wearisome." The conclusion of atheistic philosophy, which reduces all truth to scientific description, is that we are mere biological machines with no freedom to choose and no future to hope for beyond death. Life is therefore futile.

In Peter's incarceration nothing was left to chance. He was heavily guarded until the show trial. The religious and civic leaders were salivating over the prospect. Persecution is always the product of pure and blind hatred. Any possibility of justice is set aside. Peter is in grave and imminent danger. The fate of James is proof of that. Everyone knows what is likely. The church doesn't seem to panic but resorts to fervent prayer (v5).

My grandfather inherited one of the hotels, which my mother took over when she was twenty-two, and where my sister and I were born and raised. You could say that my great-grandfather's striking it rich changed the course of our family, and determined my destiny. As a friend once said to me when I commented on how he was always raising money for good causes, "With money you can make things happen." When I was fourteen years old I struck it rich when I discovered, what St.