There is Power, Power, Wondrous Working Power ......

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will ask Congress on Friday for greater power to shrink the federal government, and he would start by trying to merge six major trade and commerce agencies whose overlapping programs can be baffling to businesses, the White House said Friday.

The Commerce Department would be among those that would cease to exist.

In an election year and a political atmosphere of tighter spending, Obama's motivation is about improving a giant bureaucracy, but that is hardly all of it.

To voters sick of dysfunction, Obama wants to show some action on making Washington work better. Politically, his plan would allow him to do so by putting the onus on Congress and in particular his Republican critics in the House of Representatieves and the Senate, to show why they would be against the pursuit of a leaner government.

Obama will ask Congress to give him a type of reorganizational power last held by a president when Ronald Reagan was in office in the early 1980s.

The Obama version would be a so-called consolidation authority allowing him to propose mergers that promise to save money and help consumers.

The deal would entitle him to an up-or-down vote from Congress in 90 days.

It would be up to lawmakers, therefore, to grant Obama this fast-track authority and then decide whether to approve any of his specific ideas.

And now, you know the rest of the story .......

Pam's Story ......................

In a recent email, I read about a woman named Pam, who knows the pain of considering abortion. More than 24 years ago, she and her husband Bob were serving as missionaries to the Philippines and praying for a fifth child. Pam contracted amoebic dysentery, an infection of the intestine caused by a parasite found in contaminated food or drink. She went into a coma and was treated with strong antibiotics before they discovered she was pregnant.

Doctors urged her to abort the baby for her own safety and told her that the medicines had caused irreversible damage to her baby. She refused the abortion and cited her Christian faith as the reason for her hope that her son would be born without the devastating disabilities physicians predicted. Pam said the doctors didn't think of it as a life, they thought of it as a mass of fetal tissue.

While pregnant, Pam nearly lost their baby four times but refused to consider abortion. She recalled making a pledge to God with her husband: If you will give us a son, we’ll name him Timothy and we’ll make him a preacher.

Pam ultimately spent the last two months of her pregnancy in bed and eventually gave birth to a healthy baby boy August 14, 1987. Pam’s youngest son is indeed a preacher. He preaches in prisons, makes hospital visits, and serves with his father’s ministry in the Philippines . He also plays football. Pam’s son is Tim Tebow.

The University of Florida ’s star quarterback became the first sophomore in history to win college football’s highest award, the Heisman Trophy. His current role as quarterback of the Denver Broncos has provided an incredible platform for Christian witness. As a result, he is being called The Mile-High Messiah.

Tim’s notoriety and the family’s inspiring story have given Pam numerous opportunities to speak on behalf of women’s centers across the country. Pam Tebow believes that every little baby you save matters. I pray her tribe will increase!

May the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you always!

Dr. Gerald B. (Jerry) Kieschnick
President Emeritus, The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
Presidential Ambassador for Mission Advancement, Concordia University Texas

Tim Tebow

You ever feel like there's too much Tim Tebow news?  Here's a roundup of some of the most interesting Timbits from the aftermath of the Denver Broncos 29-23 overtime victory over thePittsburgh Steelers.

• The fact that Tebow had 316 yards passing and averaged 31.6 yards per pass in the game didn't escape notice on Sunday night. Tebow wore "John 3:16" on his eye black in the 2009 BCS Championship game and has since become identified with the famous Bible message. The coincidental stats caused millions of fans to perform Google searches on the Bible passage in the past 24 hours. Here's one more unbelievable stat: John Ourand of Sports Business Journal reports that the final quarter-hour television rating for the Broncos-Steelers game was, you guessed it, 31.6.

• Will Brinson of CBSSports.com has some more fun with Tebow numbers.

• Tebow earned $250,000 for the victory based on an incentive written into his contract. Since he took 70 percent of the team's snaps this season, he is entitled to a quarter-million dollars for every Broncos playoff victory.

• Twitter announced that 9,420 tweets per second were sent immediately after Tebow's overtime TD pass. That set a new sports record for the social media site.