My family and I took a trip to the Sacramento Zoo this morning, leaving our home at about 10am (when the zoo opens), and arriving there at 10:25. We walked around and looked at half the zoo before leaving and eating lunch at a place called "China Buffet". The buffet turned out to be quite tasty (but $11-12).

I enjoyed walking around in the zoo, and looking at the diversity of life that God created. Seeing animals like giraffes, the big cats, and primates in real life is much different than seeing them in a photograph. Sometimes I would stare at an animal and think, "Oh man. I can't believe this thing actually exists."

Ostriches are huge. Giraffes are gigantic. Didn't see elephants. There was a talking parrot that we returned to repeatedly. When it talked with my dad, it would say, "Ni Hao". We couldn't really get it to say anything new, but it said things like, "Hello", "Polly want a cracker?", "Here kitty kitty kitty", "Hah hah hah", and some other pretty typically phrases.

Some of the monkeys we saw were obviously old and basically immobile. I expected to see even old monkeys running and swinging around, but it was literally hobbling around like a really, really old person. My brother referred to them as, "old-timers".

When we we came across a chimpanzee eating brunch, he noticed us, picked up his food, and walked away. My brother and I thought that was pretty amusing. Many of the monkeys turn their backs on you when they see you looking at them.

Later in the afternoon, we saw a large crowd of people gathered around the tortoise pen. When we walked over, we saw two of the tortoises ramming each other, one of them on its back. After a while, the right-side-up tortoise walked away, leaving the other one stranded on its back. It tried to get up, but the mud and slippery ground prevented it from doing so, and it couldn't do much aside from flail around helplessly. Someone in the crowd went to get help, and a zookeeper finally came over, gave the tortoise a push, and helped it get on its feet.

She told us that the smaller tortoise bullies the bigger one, getting under its belly and flipping it over. The bigger tortoise was flipped over all night once, and wasn't discovered until the zookeeper came across it in the morning. The other tortoise was comfortably sleeping inside the tortoise house while its companion was stranded on its back outside. Silly tortoises.

Anteaters are weird.

Devotion time notes:

Romans 10

Paul knows that the Israelites were zealous for God, but their zeal was not based on knowledge, but rather blind obedience to tradition. I need to make sure I am not guilty of the same sin of misguided zeal. The Jews did not know the true righteousness that comes from God (through faith), but instead sought to establish their own (through works and the law).

Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.
Romans 10:4

It is through our Lord Jesus Christ that righteousness through faith is possible.

That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.
Romans 10:9-10

The way of salvation that God has provided for us is described plainly: confess with our hearts that Christ is Lord, and believe in his resurrection. Confessing is not only in what we say with our mouths but what we believe and how we live out that belief. True belief will logically lead to a changed life, for no longer being slave to sin entails rejecting the lordship of sin and accepting the lordship of Christ.

Empty words that do not flow from the heart are simply lies. I must not try and deceive God by confessing his lordship with my mouth but living as a slave to sin with my mind and body.

It is with our heart that we believe and are justified. It is not with our minds that we are saved through faith. What does this mean? It means that understanding does not equal faith. Even the demons understand and know that there is a God, and that Jesus is the son of God. Just as love is not an understanding of relation or obligation but something greater, our love for God and faith in his Son must not be simply a mental ascent.