ShBlog

Your tax dollars once again have bloody fingerprints all over them

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Sat, 24 Mar 2018 22:55:00 +0000

Despite promises by President Trump and Republican leaders, the GOP-backed government funding bill which Trump just signed ONCE AGAIN fully funds an abortion provider that kills approximately ONE-THIRD OF A MILLION babies in the U.S. per year. Supported by your tax dollars.

Last year the federal government poured $528 million of your money into Planned Parenthood's bloody coffers. That's nearly $1.5 million per day, 7 days a week.

Planned Parenthood argues that abortions comprise only 3% of the services that it offers women. But since it offers multiple services per woman, that's a highly deceptive tactic. Other entities sympathetic to its cause estimate that 12% of its patients are there for abortions.

One innocent dead American child is too many, let alone a third of a million. Planned Parenthood must be stopped. And I fear that if we don't do it, God will eventually step in. As Ruth Graham famously said, "If God doesn't judge America for this sin, then He owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology."

Personally I commit to campaign AGAINST any politician (Republican, Democrat, or whatever) who voted to give Planned Parenthood our tax dollars. Who's with me?

Knowing (and being known by) God

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 18:36:00 +0000

If I had to guess, I'd say my cat (Carmen) thinks she knows me. And in a sense, she does. She's figured that if she stands in front of the sink and meows early in the morning, I will most likely turn the tap on so she can jump up and get a drink. If she leads me to a certain rug downstairs, she knows I will stop and admire her as she writhes and scratches her back. (She makes quite a display of it.) And she knows that when I put a soft blanket on my lap and pat it, she is being invited to jump up and make herself comfortable.

She more or less has me all figured out.

Not! Naturally there is so much about me that my cat does not know, and never could know. My likes and dislikes, what makes me happy or sad, my memories of my family growing up, and of my own family when our kids were young, all the places we've lived before this one, how I spend my time when I leave our driveway in our car (or even the purpose of the car and how to drive it).

She has no idea that I can have a philosophy of life, and a faith that is very important to me; or that I studied journalism and literature (and why); or the things that I've gone about writing (what would a cat think of romantic poetry, anyway?), and why. She may be vaguely aware (from past experience) that if she bites me while I'm sleeping, or pees on my pillow, I will get upset and chase her out of the room, or possibly throw something. But the things that really make me angry (man's inhumanity to man, children who are abused, lying and cheating, etc.) she could in no way comprehend.

There is a whole world of stuff my cat does not (or cannot) know about me. And the truth is, I know my cat a lot better than she knows me. True, I haven't figured out everything about my cat, but I'm fairly close.

And if an alleycat appears on our back porch, I know quite a bit more about it (I know it's likely to have flees, for instance; and it's probably hungry; and it's likely afraid of me) than it knows about me (which is virtually nothing, except that I am to be feared, which may or may not actually even be true).

Do I know God?

I think in truth, my relationship with God is a lot like my cat's relationship with me. She knows me well enough to trust me, at least to a certain extent. When I turn on the faucet or dish her kitty food, she doesn't worry that I'm trying to poison her. She knows the sound of my voice and can easily distinguish me from other humans. She knows how to ask for food, or water, or other things she wants.

These are all, fundamentally, things I know about God. His character: He's trustworthy, and I don't have to fear that he's trying to harm me. I have a general idea of what upsets or offends Him, the things that break His heart. I know how to ask for things I need.

And God also knows me — no doubt in a much more intimate and accurate sense than I know my cat!

But there are humans Scripture says God "doesn't know." In Matthew 7:23, 25:12, and Luke 13:27, Jesus reiterates a frightening situation in which God tells humans under judgment, "Depart from Me, for I never knew you."

As Christians, we often think that us knowing God is really what it's all about. But Scripture reiterates that it's a two-way street. God must also know us. And if He doesn't? He'll say, "Depart from me!" That's the truly terrifying part.

The really interesting thing is who He says this to. Not rapists and murderers, not tyrannical despots, and not even people who drive slow in the fast lane. No! The people He's talking about, in these passages, are all people who are doing amazing works "in His name!" And He says to them: "I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!"

So it seems to me it almost goes without saying: Scripture places a HUGE amount of importance on God "knowing us."

So, how does God come to "know us?"

When I was a kid, I was eager to "receive Christ" because my Sunday school teachers told me I had to do this in order to avoid Hell! Of course (as a kid) I believed these authoritative adults and fearfully tried to figure out exactly how I would do what they said I needed to do in order to avoid an eternity of torment in flames. I listened carefully as they taught: "Okay, here's how to receive Christ. Pray this prayer: 'God I know I'm a sinner. Thank you that you sent your son Jesus to die for my sins. I receive Him as my Savior.'" I memorized the words.

While I now know better, it struck me at the time that the exact words were very important. So I tried (multiple times) to "get it right" and pray exactly as they had shared. And in hindsight, I know God saw the intent of my heart and heard this prayer, but each time I prayed it I was left feeling "empty," like somehow I didn't do it right and it didn't "take." And I think God allowed me to feel this way, partly to drive home the point that "getting saved" really isn't about what I do, it's about what He has already done. And it's about a relationship, not about some words that you memorize.

And I think this is key: I was simply trying to invoke some sort of "magic" formula. I wasn't really listening to God. I wasn't really opening my heart up so that He might know me!

Now God of course already knows our hearts, better than we do. But there are some interesting passages of Scripture that refocus this sort of "knowing" on a different kind of knowledge, the kind that comes through relational fellowship. Toward the end of the third chapter of the Revelation, the risen Christ delivers a very important message through the Apostle John to the lukewarm church at Laodicea:

¹⁹"Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. ²⁰Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

²¹To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. ²²Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

It's interesting that Christ chooses the language of fellowship: "If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me." Some friends at our church recently invited us over for dinner. Bryan has been in our young adults ministry and we have really come to love and appreciate him. His mom, Carolyn, is incredibly gracious. She cooked an amazing ham dinner and served a bottle of nice red wine to go with it. We spent quite a bit of time sitting around the table and just trading stories. We got to know each other so much better as a result of that time around the fellowship table. Now we can truly say that we are good friends, and in a deeper sense, we "know" each other better.

I think this is what Jesus is getting at. He comes to "know" us when we open the door of our hearts to him, hear and respond to His "knock" (His approach in our lives, even if that approach brings with it rebuke and discipline, which is all based in His amazing love for us), and spend time with him around His table, listening to Him share His truth into our lives, and sharing our story with Him as well.

The "evildoers" in Matthew 7 were all about putting up a front to make God think that He was lucky to have them on His team. But when he knocked, they didn't hear and open the door. They neglected to do that most crucial thing that friends do: spend time sitting around the table and getting to know each other.

Knocking on my door

I love the way that God finally "tied the knot" on our friend relationship. I have vivid memories of the very moment He knocked on my door, 52 years ago. As an 8 year old I was playing with my sister Sandy in the back yard of our home in Sylmar, California. For a reason I don't recall, I hauled off and popped her one, hit her good. She burst into tears, and of course did what I should have known she would do, went running into the house to tell mom.

The red pin on this Google map marks the spot
where God first knocked on my door.

But, I had a plan. There was a bush on the northeast side of our house on the corner of Buckeye and Envoy in Sylmar, California. (That bush was approximately in the spot I dropped the pin on the above Google map. It's no longer there, of course, after 52 years, they've paved a little walkway along the side of the house, instead. But it used to be a great place to hide from the wrath of Mom! And, by the way, that pool is also new.)

I hid under that bush, listening carefully to hear if Mom approached. And that is when I heard, instead, God's knock.

It came in the form of a discreet thought God planted in my heart: This sin problem that you have ... it's only going to get worse, you know.

That thought just hung there, terrifyingly. What do I do? I asked in wonder.

Give it to Me, came God's ready answered. I already paid for that. Let Me in to your life. Let me take control.

So, this time I prayed, and in earnest, not something scripted, but a prayer of desperation: God, I don't want to be like this! I want to be someone you can be proud of. I want to be your friend. Thank you for dying for me! Help me to be different.

And at that point came a very distinct sense which I can only describe as "the smile of God." Okay. Now it begins, that inner voice said into my heart.

I didn't really know it at the time, but we were fellowshipping together. Exchanging comments. For the first time, I was being honest with God, and sharing my life and my need. And He was sharing Himself with me.

I ran out from behind that bush, and almost collided with Mom, coming to look for the scoundrel who popped her daughter, justifiably angry. But I was so excited I didn't care. "Mom!" I cried, forgetting for the moment all about the injustice I had done Sandy. "Guess what? I just met Jesus!"

You can imagine the look on my mom's face, I suppose. Sandy was there hiding behind her, sniffling and rolling her eyes like, Oh yeah, of course now he gets religion!

But, I was being honest. And I think my mom knew that. She scooped me up in her arms, and instead of spanking me, gave me a huge hug. That's just one of many things I loved about my mom.

Oh, and Sandy, in case I've never told you this before: I'm sorry I hit you! And I know, it probably happened more than once. But I know you will be glad that God used that particular time to knock on my door!

--------------------------------------

How about you? How did God first knock on your door?

Chaos in America: Have We Prayed for Justice Like our Lives Depend on It?

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Sat, 17 Feb 2018 04:51:00 +0000

Note: I've submitted this post to our church leadership blog, The Last Word. But I'd love your feedback on it.

I was watching the news this morning as Melissa Falkowski, an English and journalism teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, was being interviewed about her experience protecting her students in the midst of the horrific school shooting yesterday morning. At one point in the interview, as I recall, she said something that reached down deep inside of me:

“I’ve seen this on TV, we all have, shooting after shooting, and there’s always the same thing that is said, you know: ‘It’s not the time to talk about gun control ... it’s time to pray for the families.’ And I just think that that hasn’t gotten us anywhere. And now here we are. We’re the latest statistic on school violence. And as a society, as Americans, we’re failing our children. We’re not keeping them safe. Congress is failing us. The government is failing us. And something has to be done.”

Obviously, it’s been a depressing 24 hours, and we can (and probably will) debate the role that guns, or the media, or school policies, or whatever have played in these national tragedies. But what struck me, of course, is the comment that “We’ve prayed, and it obviously hasn’t gotten us anywhere.” And she’s right about the fact that school violence is getting worse and worse.

I ask myself, Is she right when she asserts that we’ve prayed? I’m not so sure.

And I’m speaking for myself here. Have I prayed when I’ve heard about school shootings? Did I pray for myself and my students when I was a tutor last year at Emerald Ridge High School and Glacier View Junior High? Do I pray each morning when I send my wife off to her job as a school nurse at elementary schools in downtown Puyallup? Do I pray for my precious granddaughter as she spends her days in her first-grade class in Pennsylvania?

The answer is yes, I’ve prayed. Some. But have I really gotten down on my knees, consistently, persistently, and begged the One I call Lord and King to do something to stop the downward slide of our country into moral oblivion and suicidal hopelessness that I think each of us truly believes (guns or no) is really at the root of all this chaos and violence?

Have I wrestled with Him on this issue, and listened for His voice? If He were to say, “What if I wanted YOU to be a part of the solution?” have I responded like the prophet of old: “Here I am, Lord. Send me!”

I confess that I haven’t done THAT. Have you?

In Luke 18, Jesus shares a profound parable about a widow who seeks justice with an all-powerful but “unjust” judge who could grant it, but isn’t inclined to. After much persistence, he finally relents. And Jesus concludes, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

Some parables are a little difficult to figure out. But the meaning of this one is crystal clear, and it is a huge indictment on my heart and may be on yours as well. He assures us that His Father is wholly unlike that unjust judge. Instead, He is EAGER to grant justice, and quickly! But the question is, Are we serious about asking Him for it? Have we persisted “day and night”? Have we prayed like our lives depend on it?

I’m starting to believe that my life depends on it. How about you?

My recent Twitter experiences

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Mon, 08 Jan 2018 19:35:00 +0000

I began a "specialization" of sorts on Twitter about 2007, when I met early Apple employee and "evangelist" Guy Kawasaki at a "Publishing on the Web" conference at his alma mater, Stanford University. We were between his sessions and I had a few minutes alone with Guy in the hall. He was a big World Vision fan and supporter (still is, as far as I know), and so I introduced myself as part of the World Vision contingent there, and asked him my typical bleeding-edge question:

"Guy, if there was one up-and-coming technology you feel holds great promise that World Vision should explore, what would that be?"

Apple (and Twitter) evangelist and World Vision supporter Guy Kawasaki.

Guy answered, without hesitation, with a single word: "Twitter."

I was too sheepish to ask the question that immediately entered my mind: "Twitter? What the heck is that?" But, I think he saw the hesitation in my eyes, so he immediately began to explain why he was so excited about this very recent technology.

He convinced me. That day I created http://twitter.com/WorldVision (which has 1.24 million followers today) and shortly after that I created http://twitter.com/LarryShort, http://twitter.com/WorldVisionUSA (606,000 followers), http://twitter.com/WorldVisionNews and http://twitter.com/WorldVisionReport (no longer active), and several more Twitter streams related to various projects and ministry efforts. (Be sure to visit http://twitter.com/ShroomObsessed, which has a whopping 81 followers!)

I've never really had professional designs on the @LarryShort Twitter account, but I have used it instead primarily to "evangelize" for other things (and People) I believe in, and to experiment with ways to manage and grow your Twitter stream. About five years in, I stumbled on a method for steadily growing my own Twitter stream, and described it here. But basically, it involves: 1) Finding and following people with like interests, in hopes that they follow you back. 2) Stop following them after a time, if they don't. 3) Follow back most others who follow you. And 4) Acknowledge/greet all new followers (by name) in a tweet. (I try to be creative about these daily tweets.)

Using this method, I've grown my Twitter stream to about 13,500 followers presently, and for most of this time I feel like I've had a relatively high-quality follower base. I've been able to share nearly 10,000 tweets and have had lots of great conversations.

Now bear in mind that the average Twitter user only has about 208 followers (as of research done June 2016 ... probably more now). And also bear in mind that many of those with large volumes of followers are either celebrities (who rarely follow others back, and probably, with the unfortunate and notable exception of our President, don't pay much attention to their Twitter accounts); or are using "junk" methods of increasing their Twitter streams, which may be inhabited by 90% or higher "bot" and basically junk accounts. (And believe me, there are lots of those out there on Twitter, being used to dupe people into spending money to gain more followers.)

By the way: @realDonaldTrump has about 46 million followers. But he's not "the biggest," at least as far as Twitter goes. It must really tick him off that he's in a distant 20th place behind Barack Obama (with about 99 million followers). Who himself is behind both Katy Perry (in first place) and Justin Bieber (in second). At least he's ahead of Hilary Clinton (with "only" 21 million followers).

My Recent Tipping Point

Recently I feel like I've hit some sort of "tipping point" on Twitter. Prior to this point, I was getting maybe a dozen to 20 new followers per day, and perhaps half of these were "dropping" me after a time (I assumed because they were seeking to get me to follow them, then adjusting their follower volumes to look favorable in their regard by quietly dropping followers). I didn't at all mind "unfollowing" these sorts, although I rarely if ever unfollow others who keep following me (unless they get abusive ... more on that later).

The tipping point came maybe a month or two ago, when I hit about 13,000 followers. (Currently I'm at about 13,500). Mind you it took me nine years to get there, and until then my new followers were primarily real people I had followed. After this "tipping point" I started getting large numbers of followers who weren't necessarily like-minded. The focus of their account is not necessarily a human being, but a topic like cute puppies or love and romance, or other popular "fuzzy" topics. Their handle is frequently misspelled or nonsensical, which probably relates to the difficulty in finding creative new account names among the millions already taken (current estimates put that number at 974 million!)

In March, according to CNBC, USC researchers wrote that "'our estimates suggest that between 9% and 15% of active Twitter accounts are bots.' Since Twitter currently has 319 million monthly active users, that translates to nearly 48 million bot accounts, using USC's high-end estimate."

I'm wondering if those 48 million are flagged to go after people like me. No doubt when I crested 13k it put me on some sort of list, inhabited by Twitter users who follow back most if not all of their followers and who have succeeded in growing their accounts to a certain threshhold.

Part of the unfortunate dynamic of this recent effect is that I have less time now to find and following like-minded accounts (managed by real human beings, not bots).

So, I'm seriously considering simply not following back any account that follows me that appears to possibly be a bot.

Also, another recent phenomenon is the increase in both socially unacceptable and "phony" Twitter streams (such as those mimicking a certain celebrity). By socially unacceptable, I'm referring to gambling-related streams or streams apparently designed to "hook" people into following porn or engaging in some sort of "escort" (aka prostitution)-related activity.

In other words, lately I've been followed by lots of provocatively-dressed women (sometimes with names like "MistressBrandy," "CamQueen," "DomGirl" etc. (though not always that obvious). If I follow them back they invariably (and almost immediately) direct message me in a provocative, lonely manner. Sometimes it's outright flattery "Ooooh, you are such a handsome man! I love your profile pic. We should get to know each other." Other times it's less obvious, but trying to start a conversation: "Hello there, how's your day going?" It pretty much feels like bait either way, and probably is.

At first I wasn't sure, and I'd respond in a polite manner. When things escalated, I'd then cut it off quickly. I told my wife about these, and she was concerned. "Hey, that doesn't happen to me! Why is it happening to you?" I'm guessing it's because I'm a 60-year-old professional, an American male with a lot of followers, but I'm not sure. I'm hoping I didn't do anything to trigger or deserve this!

I also mentioned fake celebrity accounts. One guy followed me purporting to be a daytime soap star. He seemed very interested in a conversation so I chatted amiably. I also checked him out, he seemed to be a legitimate star on a daytime soap.

But I grew suspicious when he began pitching me. At first it was "Hey, have you heard about this great government grant?" Yes, I've heard that one before. Not interested. "Why not?" Because I'm perfectly satisfied with what God has provided. I don't need to pursue scams and schemes. Then he graduated to, "Well, if you are so well off, how about investing in my foundation for the poor?"

At this point, I decided to take a second look. and I discovered that his account was a very, very close look-alike to the "real" account of the celebrity. I contacted the real celebrity and gave him a heads-up about the poser, and also reported him to Facebook. They banned him, and the real celebrity thanked me. Jeesh. Who woulda thunkit?

My Dilemma Now

I've always had lots of qualms about Twitter. Is it really worth investing time and energy into? Is it really a good way to get to know new people, and to influence others? Or is it just a bunch of people broadcasting, never listening, never learning anything new? Or worse, is it merely a bunch of bots talking to each other? If the humans completely left the room, would it be immediately evident?

Obviously my recent experiences have magnified those qualms. I appreciate having a steady stream of new followers (which I've always felt helps increase my own "cred" as a social media professional and evangelist), but this means more work (if I am to keep up my regimen), and weeding out the "junk" followers is becoming increasingly more difficult, if not impossible.

My desire (on Twitter) flows from the same dynamics that influenced me to become a writer way back in the 1970s: to have an honest and authentic dialog with real human beings, who can be influenced (and who can influence me) as a result of this dialogue. In light of recent events, that seems more and more difficult.

Your thoughts? (This will be an interesting test to see if anyone is listening! I blog mainly because I have to write, but I've also had the same qualms about blogging. Is anyone really listening, and willing to dialogue?)

One Dark Day in Texas

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Wed, 08 Nov 2017 18:07:00 +0000

You may not recognize this wonderful couple …
but they are one of your brothers and sisters in Christ,
Bryan and Karla Holcombe. They and seven other members
of their immediate family lost their lives Sunday in the mass
shooting at the Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs.

Joe and Claryce Holcombe are retired teachers, now in their 80s, and living in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Sunday they hosted a prayer meeting of nearby pastors and churchgoers at their home as they awaited details about the tragic shooting at the First Baptist Church nearby.

The news wasn’t good. The Holcomb’s only son, Bryan, was Associate Pastor there and was filling in for the church’s pastor that fateful day. As he walked up onto the stage to lead worship, a deranged gunman named Devin Kelley burst into the church sanctuary and began spraying automatic weapons fire.

Bryan was killed, along with 26 other members of the small congregation. One of them was Bryan’s wife, the Holcombe’s daughter-in-law, Karla. The couple had been married nearly 40 years.

And the bad news didn’t end there. Bryan and Karla had two children (the Holcombe’s grandchildren), Marc Daniel and John. Marc Daniel was also killed. John, who was recording the service from the back, took shrapnel to the leg but survived.

But John’s wife, Crystal — who was pregnant with their sixth child — also died in the hail of bullets, along with her unborn child.

John and Crystal’s other five children were also in the service. Three of them — Emily, Megan, and Greg — were killed in the spree.

Marc Daniel and his wife had one child, a sixth great-grandchild of Joe and Claryce’s, 1-year-old Noah. She too was killed in the gunfire, alongside her dad.

Joe and Claryce, a couple who love and trust the Lord, lost nine members of their immediate family in Sunday’s massacre: their only child and his wife; a grandson and the wife of another grandson; and five great-grandchildren, including one yet to be born.

The “family tree” below dramatically illustrates what I have just shared.

The enormity of Joe and Claryce’s loss is truly difficult, if not impossible, to grasp. I was therefore very interested to read what this couple – living a nightmare reminiscent of the heartbreaking tragedy that befell Job’s family thousands of years ago – had to share about their personal loss and tragedy.

"It's of course going to be difficult," Joe Holcombe said about the days ahead, according to an article in the Chicago Tribune.

But, he said, "we are Christians, we have read the book. We know the ending, and it's good.

"They're in heaven," he added. "And they're a lot better off than we are."

It Could Happen Here

As I reflected on this tragedy, I was confronted with the stark reality that something like this could easily happen in our own church. Sutherland Springs Baptist was really no different than we are, and only slightly smaller. But they are a church where people learned about Jesus together, worshipped the Lord together, and simply lived life together, much as we do. None of them could have ever foreseen or anticipated the seemingly random violence that would tear through their congregation on this particular Sunday in November.

So, what should our response to all this be? Should we stay home, cower in fear?

Absolutely not! Like the Holcombes, we are Christian. We have read the book. We know how the story ends!

And we also know the Author of the Book. He is the one who has told us: “Do not neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encourage one another; and all the more as you see The Day drawing near.” And, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.”

We are called to be the light of the world, a city on a hill, shining God’s glory for all the world to see. And the world is seeing that glory, today, shining through the lives of people like Joe and Claryce Holcombe and their surviving family members, who have suffered such unspeakable loss … but still choose to trust God regardless.

They are truly our brothers and sisters, and we must pray for them … and for one another … during these dark days. For, as the author of Hebrews says, another Day is drawing near!

When Materialism Provides No Answers

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 18:20:00 +0000

"It just makes no sense. It's like an asteroid."

Stephen Paddock's brother, Eric, stood in front of the media and groped for words as they asked him to explain why his brother had just unloaded a hail of thousands of bullets into a crowd of concertgoers in Las Vegas, killing at least 59 and injuring more than 500, in the U.S.' worst mass shooting.

But asteroids are (more or less) random. People who kill dozens of people with guns, and injure hundreds more, are not. Reasons exist. Everyone knows this, so law enforcement and media are currently in something of a frenzy seeking to explain why a quiet, unassuming person like Paddock would go off the deep end and do the unthinkably horrible thing that he did, before taking his own life.

He was suicidal, that part's clear. But it still doesn't explain why a suicidal person would seek to take so many innocent people with him.

Like all of us, I think my first emotions upon hearing the news reports were a sickening sense of grief. How could such a thing happen? And my own emotions are compounded by knowing one of the victims, an L.A. County Sheriff deputy who worked with me at World Vision a number of years ago. (A bullet lodged very near his spine and they are currently evaluating whether or not they can remove it safely. Please pray for Andrew and his family!)

The last time I remember feeling this way was in March 2015, when Germanwings flight 9525 copilot Andreas Lubitz deliberately crashed his jetliner full of 149 innocent people, and himself, into a remote mountainside in France.

A Time for Reflection

I've learned to try and put the emotions associated with such events in a certain compartment, in order to examine the facts as best I am able, interpreted by the media of course and from my rather inconvenient spot in my comfy chair here in front of my computer. But the importance of careful reflection on such events cannot be underestimated. I'm not talking about figuring out how to prevent such tragedies, which is not necessarily up to people like me; but rather, deeper questions. Questions like: Why do seemingly "normal" people commit such horrific, seemingly senseless atrocities? If you eliminate the obvious possible motivations (like terrorism, greed, anger, revenge, etc.), what are you left with?

At press time, it appears that revenge may be a possible motivation. Paddock had spent large sums of money in recent days, gambling. It is theorized that perhaps he was angry at the gambling establishment for ruining his life.

Now, as you may already be aware, I am no fan of gambling ... but, first of all, it's not clear by any stretch that Paddock's life was ruined. He actually was reported to have made quite a bit of money gambling. And I would think that even if he were considered a "professional" gambler, the occasional losing streak would just be part of the territory for someone like that. Anyone with any brains knows that ultimately, the house is the winner when it comes to gambling. (And, while I am in general wired as a risk-taking person, I do question whether and why people who are blessed in the brains department would do much gambling, in the first place!)

Second, and perhaps more significantly, even if you were angry about gambling losses or the perception of being cheated, would this anger be sufficient to motivate a rational person (and for all practical purposes, Paddock did appear to be rational, as witnessed by the manner in which he planned and executed his attack) to injure and kill hundreds of innocent people? Wouldn't it make more sense to take your vengeance out directly on those casino professionals more directly responsible for your losses?

Another popular materialistic explanation is mental illness. He must have been insane. But once again, there doesn't seem to be any apparent history of mental illness. His friends and relatives all thought of Paddock as a "normal, regular guy. Just a guy." And the methodical way he planned and executed his attack also is causing most experts to question the mental illness hypothesis.

What, then? ISIL has of course claimed responsibility, but law enforcement currently sees no connection. All THAT proves is that those clowns have the ability to watch the news and the hutzpah to try and take advantage of horrible moments for their own devious ends.

What then? The materialistic explanations are running out.

More Things in Heaven and Earth

And this is what should bother thinking people about the materialistic society in which we live. As Shakespeare famously penned, "There are are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

We don't like to consider the possibility that there are dark spiritual forces at work among us. For most of us, watching movies like "The Exorcist" falls into the category of "entertainment." I was fascinated by this introduction on the site "Ranker," on their page listing "the best demonic possession movies" ...

There’s nothing more horrifying than watching a movie about a person who’s possessed by a demon. What is it about the thought of demons, supernatural visitations, darkness, and evil that fascinates to human beings so much? We must love it, as there are tons of wildly successful films where characters are possessed by demons.

I would suggest another explanation behind our fascination. It rings true. In college I had a professor of missions who had spent many years in South American countries. He had a reputation there (which surprisingly followed him to Southern California) as a (somewhat reluctant) exorcist. He was even called to one of the girls' dorms at our college, late one night, where he cast a demon or demons out of a student who was very troubled, changing the course of her life dramatically for the better. My fiance was a witness to this event, as as the campus newspaper editor I did an extensive interview with Dr. Murphy where shared the details of many of his fascinating experiences with demonic forces both in South America and in the United States.

The challenge in the U.S., he acknowledged, was that in our materialistic society we oftentimes don't believe that Satan or his demonic forces are real. Even in our churches we frequently shy away from things like this which transgress the boundaries of the "ordinary" into areas we can't materialistically explain.

However, the Bible we say we believe observes no such boundaries. Christ's interactions with demonic forces were numerous and dramatic, as were those of the apostles who followed Him. The Bible certainly agrees with Shakespeare: "There are more things in heaven and earth ..."

But Light Overcomes Darkness

And while we might find this truth frightening, if we reflect further and more deeply it should also be of great encouragement to us. For, if there are Evil Forces at work, there must also be forces at work for Good! And what do we apprehend (in faith) about those Forces for Good?

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. (1 John 4:1-4)

There are a couple of important things to note about the truths revealed in these verses. First, even though we have been speaking (as if we were Luke Skywalker) about "Evil Forces" and "Good Forces," the truth is that there is a person (or persons) behind all such forces. Force is wielded by personality. And these persons (in this case the "spirits" of whom John speaks) have goals.

The first goal John speaks of is to convince us to believe their narrative of truth. With some friends at our church I am currently studying C. S. Lewis' brilliant work of fiction, The Screwtape Letters, which postulates what it be like to be privy to a conversation between a senior tempter and his demonic trainee. There is a fascinating exchange which highlights the demonic strategy:

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.

So, the demons themselves wish for us to either not believe in them at all (the materialistic viewpoint); or, to believe in them wholeheartedly and fear them and structure our lives around that fear.

And, if you take the words of these verses ("for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world") out of the equation, it makes sense that so many non-materialistic societies have feared and worshiped demonic forces. For the primary goal of those forces is stated by Christ Himself, and it is bad news indeed: in a word, it's "death."

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly. (John 10:10)

In Christ's parable, "the thief," of course, is the prince of demons himself, Satan. Satan exults in taking what is not his, in robbing God of His glory and creation; in killing, in destruction. Fearful power.

But juxtaposed against this fearful power is an even more awesome power wielded by Christ, the "greater is He that is in you," the One who came that we might have life, and abundantly. While we mustn't make the mistake of not believing in the existence of demonic forces, we must simultaneously hold a realistic view of their relative impotence. They can only go "thus far, and no further," as God permitted Satan to afflict Job. They can only act in accordance with God's permissive purposes, which are greater than we can possibly understand.

The Cross: The Ultimate Test of Power on Both Sides

And the foremost example of this is the Cross of Christ, the greatest tragedy of human history, sinful human beings unjustly condemning the sinless Son of God to an untimely, gruesome death. But then the pinnacle achievement of Satan, killing the very Son of God, was turned on its head by the power of God (manifested in the resurrection of Christ) into the pinnacle achievement of He who is greater than!This is the power of God, my friends. And it is a power we can be confident will overcome the very worst attacks of the evil one and his minions, be they Islamic terrorism or mass murder of innocents or the opiod epidemic or even the brutal slaughter of millions of innocent unborn.

None of us know, ultimately, how the actions of a person like Stephen Paddock will be explained. But what we CAN know is this: while Satan is real, and powerful, and we are not unaware of his schemes; we have a God who is also real, and far more powerful, and has purposes that we will someday comprehend and will cause us to drop down and worship Him!

So ... I know it sounds trite to say, "Keep the faith!" at times like this ... but I believe it is exactly what God would want us to do. In the face of immense tragedy and suffering, we must reflect on His greater purposes and keep the faith. Amen?

The Congruence of Christian Friendship

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Thu, 10 Aug 2017 14:53:00 +0000

Spending time with some amazing friends, the Passics.

Our Pastor, Martin Schlomer, recently posted an article from Relevant Magazine titled, “What Does It Mean to Be a Christian?” The article is a conversation with Eugene Peterson, the renowned author of The Message.

At the article’s core, Peterson addresses the issue of incongruence in the Christian life. “Incongruence” is the gap between what we say we believe and what we act like we believe. A pastor for a number of years before he became a theologian and author, Peterson was shaken by the incongruence he saw in himself (as a preacher) and those who sat under his sermons each Sunday, so much so that he considered himself a failure as a preacher.

I would encourage you to read the article for yourself, and I won’t lengthen this blog by summarizing it. But I did want to present a couple of ideas that really jumped out at me, that resonated with my heart.

One is that the solutions to most of our problems really are quite simple. They aren’t necessarily easy, but they are simple. Peterson talks a lot about the importance of faithfulness, about which he coined the phrase “a long obedience in the same direction” in a book by the same name he wrote over 20 years ago. We have problems that may seem intractable, but the solutions are usually quite simple: disciplined financial management, thinking and praying before we speak or act, seeking to focus on the needs of others before our own, etc. Simple . . . but not easy.

A second thing that he said that really jumped out at me was that authentic Christian friendships are our best weapon against incongruence. I know many of us struggle with a sense that we don’t have many, or possibly even any, authentic, honest Christian friendships. In our culture, in particular, this feeling of loneliness, a lack of true friends, seems epidemic. We don’t stay planted in one place for very long. (I’ve read that the average American moves every three years.) And when we do have a place to call home, we usually hunker down inside it and hardly spend any time out-of- doors, getting to know our neighbors. (Darlene and I walk around our neighborhood daily, and we always marvel how rarely we actually see any of our neighbors out-of- doors.)

When Evangelical Free Church missions director Nubako Selenga was visiting the United States for the first time, I asked him (while driving him to our church) what struck him as the strangest thing about America. “It’s so empty,” he replied without hesitation. “There are all these beautiful homes, but I don’t see people around them. When you drive down a road in Africa, everyone is outside their home, visiting with their neighbors.”

That was convicting. How well do I know my neighbors? How many do I consider friends?

And it seems, to me, to be getting worse in the younger generations. I’m always astonished when I see at a restaurant a table full of young people, and everyone is engaged deeply . . . in their smartphones or personal devices. A whole table full of silent people who are doing God-alone- knows-what on social media, but are barely even talking to one other.

Does it surprise us to learn that friendship is an extremely high value to our Lord? “No longer do I call you servants,” Jesus said, “. . . but I have called you friends.” Exodus 33 tells us that the Lord would speak with Moses “face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” Job said he was “in [his] prime, when the friendship of God was upon [his] tent.” Jonathan and David had “sworn friendship with each other in the name of the Lord,” and the power and poignancy of that particular relationship rings down to us through the ages.

Solomon told us that “faithful are the wounds of a friend,” but “profuse are the kisses of an enemy.” Herein, perhaps, lies the secret to the power of Christian friendship to create spiritual congruence (people who live like who they really are, adopted sons and daughters of the Most High God): people willing to tell each other hard truth, even if it hurts, because their love and friendship makes such truth both necessary and beneficial.

Sounds great, right? But how? What if you are reading this and frustrated and tired of feeling alone? You wish you had intimate and authentic Christian friendships, but they just don’t seem to be happening?

I can’t think of how to say this without sounding trite, but this, once again, is something that I think is both simple and hard. It’s a “long obedience in the same direction.”

First of all, Scripture advises us to choose our friends carefully. “Be not unequally yoked,” we are admonished. I can’t tell you, however, how many times I see young people willing to enter into dating relationships and even become engaged and married to someone who does not share their faith. I understand that loneliness can drive us to make poor choices. But that’s one poor choice that has little chance of doing anything other than later enhancing and ensuring continuing loneliness.

One of God’s richest blessings on my life I am celebrating today, on the 38th anniversary of my marriage to my best friend. Actually, Darlene and I probably became the best of friends some six years before we were married, so that makes it 44 years and counting. She models to me what it truly means to be a Christian friend: she is unafraid to tell me hard truth, when I need to hear it, and I know that she is 100% committed to me and my best, no matter what lies ahead. A friend like that is worth more than all the money in the world.

Young people: please, please, please, hold out for God’s best for you! Don’t give in to the temptation to date people who do not share your faith. Could they become a believer? Sure, we pray so. But don’t take the chance that their interest in you lies in places that will eclipse their interest in Jesus.

Dating and marriage aside, my other “simple but hard” point is that any friendship requires risky nvestment: time, effort, love, whatever. Time is probably the big one we struggle with. But you can’t really expect to develop meaningful friendships if you aren’t willing to invest the time.

And I say “risky” because I know it doesn’t always work out. I’ve had people I invested in that I hoped I would be lifelong friends with, who for whatever reason didn’t reciprocate, and we drifted apart.

But true friendship is worth the risk! So get started today. Enroll in a community group at a good church and get to know others who love Jesus. If you make the investment but don’t find any solid friends there, move on to another group. Sooner or later, you’ll hit pay dirt!

And then, allow those friends to speak truth into your life! Each of us has a congruence problem—and part of the answer is finding good Christian friends.

How does God really feel about slavery?

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Sun, 02 Apr 2017 20:50:00 +0000

... in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:26-28)

Atheists and others who denigrate the #Bible have assured us repeatedly that God supports the horrific institution of slavery; if not actively, to the extent that He permitted it; or at the very least by His supposed silence on the subject.

This is partly the fault of Christians who, in the 18th and 19th centuries, used certain passages of Scripture and certain manufactured concepts to support their own justification of owning slaves. They pulled passages like Leviticus 25:44-46 (KJV) out of context to make their case:

Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.

American slaveholders said Africans were "heathen" so that supposedly justified owning them as slaves. (Also, by this logic, as soon as a slave became a Christian, as many did, he or she was no longer a "heathen," right? And should therefore have been freed. Hmmm.) But isolating a passage like this does not give a clear view of God's opinion on the matter, particularly when terms like "bondmen" (or "slave"), and "buying children" are not clearly defined in accordance with the intent of Scripture.

So, let's start there: When the Bible calls someone a "slave," how is it defining the term (as opposed to when we here in the 21st Century call someone a "slave")?

The answer is complicated, because the word can refer either to voluntarily or involuntary servitude. And there's a huge difference (obviously!) between the two.

There is a lot of argument about this, depending on your perspective on who God is and the integrity of His Word; as well as your understanding of cultural norms at the time the Bible was penned. I believe that when the Bible uses the phrase "bondsman" or "slave," the base concept is of (primarily voluntary) indentured servitude.

So what is an "indentured servant?" There are several definitions of "indenture," but here is the one closest to the meaning of the phrase in Scripture: "A contract binding one person to work for another for a given period of time." Contracts are (obviously, again!) an agreement struck between two or more parties. In most cases, in biblical times, those two parties were the buyer (the "master" purchasing the servitude), and the one selling the servitude -- most often the "slave" him (or her) self, or else another who had the legal right to sell the servitude of that person (for a set of very narrowly defined reasons in Scripture ... keep reading!).

One can argue that even a person selling themselves into voluntary servitude was the result of economic injustice and poverty, and so often that was true. While the Bible certainly addresses these issues (economic justice and how the poor should be treated) in many other places, the fact of poverty was (and remains) a reality, and a very persistent part of the cultural fabric not only of biblical times, but also of ours.

Jesus famously said, "The poor you always have with you ..." and those among us inclined to cast dispersion upon Him often cite this as an example of His "unwillingness to speak out" against the injustice of poverty. But you and I know that's not what it was. This was not a case of the indifference or antagonism of the wealthy against the poor. Jesus Himself was poor. ("The Son of Man has no where to lay His head.") He commingled and identified with the poor on so many levels (as he also commingled and accepted as human beings those from within the system that oppressed them).

Those who take in and grasp the context of His quote understand that He was addressing the excuses of those (like Judas) who would say "The social mission is the top priority!" His words were a retort: "No, your top priority should be your heart, and loving and honoring God with 100% of it."

So, what does this matter of heart have to do with the question of whether or not the Bible condones and even supports slavery?

First let's read about the various parameters that the Bible wraps around the relationship of master to indentured servant:

Except under very limited circumstances, which follow, no human being was ever to be "kidnapped" and forced (against his or her will) to become a slave. To do this, in the Old Testament, was a crime punishable by death! Read Exodus 21:16 ... "“Anyone who kidnaps someone is to be put to death, whether the victim has been sold or is still in the kidnapper’s possession.” Selling the victim? Possessing the victim? What this verse is talking about seems pretty clear.
The narrow circumstances under which a slave could be forced involuntarily into servitude included:

If a nation went to war with Israel and its people were captured, they could be turned into slaves. (Think about the terrorists who have attacked the United States. Do we have the right to make them do forced labor at Guantanamo? You bet.)
If a person was convicted of committing a crime against you (theft or violence) but had no resources to pay restitution, you then had the right to force them into servitude in order to pay their debt. But even these rights were limited by the points that follow.

Slaves were to be afforded compassion. Slaves (owned by others, who escaped and fled and needed help) had dignity and were to be shielded from a return to slavery. Read Deuteronomy 23:15-16 -- “You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him. You shall not wrong him."
Indentured servants were to be treated with dignity and respect, as humans, and their needs provided for. Many passages support this, some found in Exodus 21, where it is revealed that if a master strikes a slave and kills him, he is guilty of murder. It also says that if a master knocks out his slave's tooth, that slave must be freed! And that if a master marries a slave woman, she is entitled to all of the rights as his wife. If he becomes displeased with her and decides to set her aside, he must free her and allow her to choose her own way.
When it comes to slavery, Deuteronomy 15 is one of the most revealing chapters of Scripture. It makes the case that because Israel suffered horrific slavery under the Egyptians for 400 years, they were to be much more sensitive and just to the slaves within their midst. For instance, slavery was never to be life-long; when someone gained a slave for any reason, they were required to free them after the sixth year of servitude (the Jubilee principle). Not only were they to free them, but they were to let them go with generous provision from the master's house!
The goal of the master was also to be to treat the slave so well that the slave wouldn't want to go free. Exodus 21 and Deuteronomy 15 both make provision for slaves who want to voluntarily commit themselves to life-long servitude of their masters. (The first "ear-piercing" came from these chapters! Read them.)

Frankly, the way slavery was conducted in the 18th and 19th centuries by so-called "Christians" from Britain, the U.S. and elsewhere, is so clearly and horrifically anti-biblical in nature that one should make the case that slave traders and slave owners should have been executed for their practices. Did these slavetraders and slave-owners use their religion to justify their treatment of other humans? In some cases, yes. But abusing and justifying the Bible to support something that the Bible condemns is not a condemnation of the Bible, it is a condemnation of human nature which so often seeks to justify its own sin.

The truth is, the Bible holds a redemptive view of slavery. Right now our young adults group is studying the Apostle Paul's letter to Philemon. Philemon was a wealthy slave-owner whose slave, Onesimus, wronged him (probably stole something) and ran away. Paul became friends with Onesimus at some point and led him to Christ. Paul then appealed both to Onesimus to return to Philemon voluntarily; and for Philemon to be reconciled to Onesimus as a brother in Christ, to forgive him and to treat him as an equal.

Paul even said that if Onesimus "owed anything" to Philemon, he would himself pay it! In other words, he himself would pay whatever debt Onesimus owed for however he had wronged Philemon before he became a believer. Talk about redemptive!

We don't know what happened after Paul's letter to Philemon (the shortest recorded in the New Testament), but there are hints that it worked. The early Christians attitudes toward slavery and indentured servitude were to be as the Israelites: grace-filled, merciful, and redemptive.

So: After reading what the Bible really has to say about slavery, please tell me again how it proves that God is evil?

Did God tolerate slavery under very limited circumstances (just as He mercifully tolerated other evils, such as divorce)? Yes, indeed. Does that mean He condoned it, approved of it, ignored it, whatever else modern anti-biblicists accused Him of doing? Absolutely not. To argue this demonstrates a reprehensible misunderstanding of what Scripture says about who God is and what He is like.

Coincidence? I think not ...

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Mon, 13 Mar 2017 17:09:00 +0000

How did this photo of Donald Trump and
Kellyanne Conway get here, anyway? I certainly
didn't post it. And, please observe two things:
1) Her Nazi-esque salute; and 2) the way her eyes
follow you, wraith-like, wherever you go!

With all the attention recently being paid to conspiracy theories, and the slow, dawning realization that one can assert that they are true without having to provide any proof whatsoever and thus capture the attention of the world, I was starting to feel left out. Hence this morning (in the shower, where all my good ideas flow down from above, then disappear, never to be seen again), I had an epiphany: I need my own conspiracy theory! And it must be bigger and better than all the rest. It must be YUGE!

So, here it is. And, I assure you, everything I am about to tell you is completely, unverifiably true.

Well, at least it's true to me ... or perhaps I should say, it is an alternate fact.

Anyway, I digress ...

It all started about this time last Spring. Spring sprang forth on Saturday, March 19, 2016, three days after my 59th birthday. (Coincidence? I think not. Please consider the fact that three is the number of Deity ... you've heard of the Trinity, right? ... and 59 is divisible by three 19.666 ad infinitum times, which means those sixes go out into infinity, which can't actually be practically verified but is what ad infinitum means, so I guess it's theoretically true; so, what I'm trying to say is that's sort of like the Mark of the Beast multiplied by infinity, which naturally points to the unverifiable reality that a great battle between the forces of good and evil began on that day.)

I was blissfully unaware of this alternate fact, of course. In fact, I was safe and secure in a job I enjoyed for a wonderful company, we had just paid off our house, and I was experiencing that sense of financial security which led me (about a month later) to make a large purchase decision, thanks to the encouragement of my pastor, of a new RV. Because of the collusion of my pastor, I assume this must have been a godly decision.

But, I digress. Or I digress into the future ... (is there a word for that? To pregress? I think not.)

So anyway, back to Saturday, March 19 ... as I said, it seemed a new spring day, like any other. Sure, Donald Trump had already announced (a little more than nine months earlier) that he was running for President of the U.S.A. But, in the light of that new spring day, it still seemed a laughable prospect. Donald Trump? President? You have to be joking, right?

But something else happened that day, which barely made the news at the time. A dual Iranian-Turkish national named Reza Zarrab was arrested when he flew into the Miami International Airport. Zarrab had been accused of violating sanctions against Iran when he apparently convinced Turkey's president, Tayyip Erdogan, to use illicit funds to provide weapons, financing and logistics for jihadi groups in Syria -- including ISIS!

And, it just so happened that I had been tweeting vigorously about the need to treat refugees with justice and compassion. I now realize that Zarrab must have used my tweets as cover to attempt to enter the U.S. illegally. And then he was caught at the Miami airport and arrested! Did he have a cellphone with him, containing tweets I had written? It's reasonable to assume. Then he was arrested! With my tweets in his possession! I was set up. Ohmygoodness, how could I not see this at the time?

Coincidence? I think not.

Unfortunately, as I alluded to, at this time I was completely unaware of this alternate fact. And so I continued, as usual, tweeting about refugees, and the need to be nice to them. And I also began tweeting, more and more frequently, my distaste for the prospect of a Trump/Conway presidency.

Then on Thursday, August 2, came the fateful tipping point. I tweeted: "You can blame the Republicans, Hillary Clinton, and the media ... but if @realDonaldTrump wins, it will be through the power of #fear."

The very next day, Friday August 3, 2016, I was laid off from my job. Coincidence? I think not!

Moreover, let's look at those numbers again ... there's a "three" there, we've already talked about that. But, if you divide 2016 by three, what do you get? That's right ... 702! Work with me here. If you subtract (working backward, kind of like backward masking, only with a calendar) 702 days from August 3, 2016, you arrive at August 12, 2015. And what happened on that day?

You guessed it. That was the day things really began to go south for Hillary Clinton, the day she handed over her email server to the Justice Department; and also the day Bernie Sanders overtook her, for the first time, in the New Hampshire polls. Ultimately, of course, she became the nominee; but even Hillary blamed these events for her ultimate loss to none other than Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

Anyway, I digress ... let's fast forward to my post-layoff life:

Since August 3, I have been haunted by the sense that I am being watched. It started with my SmartTV. I would change channels, looking for something good to watch. CNN? Kellyanne Conway was there, her lips moving inanely as she tried to avoid answering whatever question she was being asked by a reporter. NBC News? Donald Trump stared out at me balefully from my screen, just daring me to tweet out another pro-refugee message as he assured me that Mexico would pay for The Wall. Fox News? Kellyanne Conway again. (How can she be two places at once, anyway? That woman gives me the creeps.)

One day I thought, this was a good time to get up off the couch and go get a beer, right? (If I ever become an alcoholic, at least I can blame Donald Trump and Kellyanne Conway.) But as I did, I looked back over my shoulder ... and there were Kellyanne Conway's eyes, wraith-like, following me to the kitchen!

She WAS watching me. I knew it!

So, I turned off the SmartTV. (Now I just watch British period dramas with my wife. If I ever see Kellyanne Conway on one of those, I'm moving to Canada.)

Then, in October, I began driving for Uber. Now, you must understand that I have to keep the Uber Driver app running while I'm driving. That's the way it works. (I wonder who made it work that way? I'm willing to bet Kellyanne Conway had something to do with it ... it's probably no coincidence that her last name is a compound word formed by the verb "to con" and the noun "way.")

Anyway, normally the "way" the app works is that you switch into driver mode, which indicates you are available for a fare, and drive around aimlessly for awhile while it tries to "con" you into chasing this elusive thing called a surge cloud; and sooner or later you get a ping that somebody wants to be picked up (though NEVER in the surge cloud since no one in their right mind would pay prices equivalent to riding in a taxicab, would they?), and you accept the ping if their name isn't either "Donald" or "Kellyanne," and then the mapping software leads you to their location.

So far, so good, right? But I began to notice, while I was driving around chasing digital clouds, that sneaky little notifications began to pop up over the top of Uber driver app. Most of them were from CNN (which I soon began to suspect really stands for the "Conway News Network") and began with phrases like "Donald Trump attacks ..." or "Kellyanne Conway asserts ...." These little notifications appeared at the top of my smartphone screen along with soft little pinging sounds, drawing a quick glance when it is safe to do so, and by the time I realized in horror what was happening and was able to look back, the notification had disappeared as quickly as it had sprung up.

Coincidence? I think not. Donald Trump and Kellyanne Conway were spying on me, through the Uber app in my smartphone!

(And why not? Just yesterday Kellyanne Conway asserted that it's possible to spy on someone through the camera in your microwave oven. Which was a real revelation to me, as I didn't even know my microwave oven had a camera! But I digress ...)

I couldn't avoid using the app while driving, of course; but I began turning my phone face-down on the bathroom counter each night, where I plug it in to recharge for another UberDay. But, just as I was dropping off to sleep, I would hear that insidious little "ping" and see the soft edges of bluish light glowing there in the bathroom, and soon in my mind's eye I could just imagine Kellyanne Conway's face hovering there over my bathroom bathroom sink, mouthing alternate facts. So soon, sleep began to elude me.

And inevitably, the two of them invaded what few dreams I had left. Donald Trump attacking. Kellyanne Conway asserting. Was there no place I could hide?

Well, I realized one day, after not having slept a wink for a solid week: if you can't hide, you can fight! So, I began to use social media to fight back. I began launching my own attacks, and making my own assertions.

Twitter and Facebook were my tools of war. I tried to use them to alert all my friends to what was happening.

And, I had a lot of friends to alert. (After all, at World Vision I was a social media guru ... the "Dark Lord of the Web," they called me. I had over 11,000 followers on Twitter, and over 1,000 on Facebook.)

For years, my social media numbers had been growing. But, let me tell you, as soon as I began my campaign to fight back and assert myself against the ubiquitous Donald Trump and the wraith-like Kellyanne Conway, my follower counts began to drop. The numbers began to ebb. I knew that this could not POSSIBLY be because there were people out there who might actually vote for Donald Trump / Kellyanne Conway. Well, I did know one or two who publicly admitted that they might, but they had mostly stopped following me on Facebook already, so I assume they were too ashamed of themselves to use social media.

But still, my social media numbers, which had inflated contrary to all logic and reason for years, began dropping. Coincidence? I think not.

Three weeks before the election, my wife was saying something to me while I was tweeting. "That's nice, dear," I asserted, and kept tapping away at my screen. Then she shouted something. "Don't worry," I assured her, "I'll take out the trash as soon as I'm done here."

Then suddenly, she grabbed my hands and yanked them away from my phone. When I didn't look up, she slapped me across the face. Hard.

Well, not really, But she did get my attention with these ominous words: "You need to stop tweeting about Donald Trump and Kellyanne Conway. NOW! Or soon, we won't have any friends left at all!"

Well, I try to ignore most people because I suspect they may be stooges of Donald Trump and Kellyanne Conway. But not my wife! One cannot ignore my wife and experience any hopes for survival and a happy life. And so, I agreed. I stopped tweeting about Donald Trump and started tweeting about mushrooms instead. On Facebook, I stopped asserting myself against the wraith-like Kellyanne Conway, and instead began posting photos of my granddaughter, cuddling with kittens and ducklings. (My granddaughter, unlike Conway, is VERY cute, by the way! As are kittens and ducklings.)

The slide in my follower numbers magically stopped sliding. My Facebook follower count stabilized at three. (My wife was still following me, bless her heart. Of course somebody needed to make sure I actually followed her instructions.) And my Twitter account also stabilized at three. One was my friend John, who is a faithful supporter of Donald Trump, but who cares about me enough anyway not to unfriend me.

The other two? It's a mystery to me who they are (as I've never really been aware of who two-thirds of my social media "friends" are anyway), but I rather suspect they are stooge accounts for Donald Trump and Kellyanne Conway, who are no doubt following that sage advice: "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." And waiting for me to make one more misstep. One more nice tweet about refugees, or even a link to two self-contradicting "alternate facts" uttered by either of them, and I'm sure I'll find myself on some terrorist watchlist and detained the next time I Uber somebody up to SeaTac airport. (I've told my wife that if I disappear, she can look for her red Prius up in the Uber waiting lot north of the airport, hidden amongst 253 other red Priuses all driven by men with turbans who will no doubt also abandon their vehicles the moment an ICE agent appears.)

Oh dear. Three Facebook followers. Three Twitter followers. There's that number again. And what about 253? Let's see ... divide it by three: 84.333 ad infinitum ... yes! There is HOPE! Good will ultimately prevail in the battle against evil!

So, that's my conspiracy theory. I'm sure this post will be continued, even if I'm not here to continue it. (I wonder if they'll let me keep my smartphone at Guantanamo?) If you'd like to respond (and yes, I'm speaking to you, Darlene, John, Donald, or Kellyanne), please post a comment, which will be reviewed and hopefully approved by 253 men in turbans who are currently sitting up in the Uber waiting lot north of Seatac airport with nothing better to do.

Coincidence? I think not.

Laboring in the Chick-Fil-A Vineyard

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Thu, 09 Feb 2017 21:12:00 +0000

I think one of the more interesting parables of Jesus' is the one found in Matthew 20.

In it, a vineyard owner goes out to hire workers to harvest his crop. Early in the day, he hires a group of workers, and promises to pay them a certain wage (a denarius), as he puts them (gladly!) to work.

But about noon, he decides he needs more workers, so he goes and hires more to complete the second half of the day, also promising to pay these a denarius.

Finally, with only about an hour left before quitting time, he then goes out a final time to hire a final group of workers. These he also graciously promises a denarius to join the (labor) party.

At the end of the day, when all the workmen gather around to receive their wages, those who started first are (someone understandably, to my twisted way of thinking) unhappy about the fact that those who only had to work an hour, were paid the same as they. But you know the story: The vineyard owner says, "Why are you grumbling? Didn't I pay you what I promised? Isn't what I pay those others my own business?"

I guess my struggle with this scenario has been the seeming inequity of it. A workman is worthy of his hire, after all. It seems unfair of the vineyard owner to pay some more than others, to pay some people a full day's wage for just an hour's work, when others have worked hard all day for the same amount.

I think the source of my discomfort comes from the fact that the workers are working for the vineyard owner. And we realize that, in this scenario, the vineyard owner is God. Does God truly reserve the right to distribute His grace unfairly?

One Long Night at the Chick-Fil-A

Recently our friends Jason and Hannah Comerford told us about an opportunity to win 52 free meals at Chick-Fil-A. The Christian-owned fast food operation (known for its solid Christian values) just built a new restaurant here on South Hill, and they always celebrate such openings with a promotion called #CFAfirst100. The first 100 people to show up before 6 a.m. on the day they open each get 52 free meals with a discount card good for up to a year! Sweet.

Jason and Hannah love Chick-Fil-A and they were excited about being among the first 100. The trick was, typically, people start lining up 24 hours in advance of the Grand Opening, which is when they open the Chick-Fil-A's parking lot and bathrooms to campers who get in line.

Jason and Hannah wanted to be sure they were in the first 100, so they showed up before 6 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 8. (Grand opening was 6 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 9.)

You may recall what Feb. 8 was like ... it was cold. And wet. Piles of mushy snow still on the ground. So, picture sitting in these miserable conditions for 24 hours, waiting for Chick-Fil-A to open, just so you can win free chicken meals for a year! But, that's what they wanted to do. So they packed up a tent, cots, sleeping bags, and lots of warm clothing and claimed their spot in the cold, wet, Chick-Fil-A parking spot. And they found themselves within the first 10 winners!

Later that day Martin and I were planning on having lunch, and on my way I stopped by to see how they were doing. When I arrived, shortly before noon, I learned that the usual crowds hadn't materialized and there were still about 50 slots open in the #CFAfirst100 promotion! Since I was hungry and the smell of mouth-watering Chick-Fil-A filled the air, I decided to grab my camping gear and join them.

After lunch, I arrived with my gear at about 2 p.m. and became #CFAfirst100 winner #52. Now all I had to do was survive about 18 hours of bitter cold, wet weather. (Mind you, by this time Jason and Hannah had already been on scene for more than 8 hours!)

Later that night, about dinnertime, we learned there were still a dozen or so slots available. So we began "phoning friends." One of them, Rebekah McKenzie, said she would like to join, but it wouldn't be until later that evening.

We joked about how seemingly unfair that would feel ... now that we had suffered through hours and hours of cold, wet temperatures (6 hours in my case, and 14 hours in Jason and Hannah's). That's when Hannah first said: "Yeah ... that would be kind of like Christ's parable of the vineyard workers, wouldn't it?" The lightbulb began to go on ...

... then it went off until 5:30 a.m., when loudspeakers began urging us to arise and claim our final prize. When I dragged my sorry carcass out of my warm (but slightly damp) sleeping bag and headed for my place in line, there was Rebekah! And also Samantha Naron! They arrived about the time I bedded down the evening before. And Rebekah said she was winner #100!

So Rebekah and Sam had to put up with about 8 hours of nasty conditions in order to get their 52 meals. I had to put up with about 16 hours ... but Jason and Hannah were there 24 hours!

As we talked about that, it occurred to me how starkly like the true parable of Christ's that was. In some senses, us hanging out in Chick-Fil-A's parking lot was work. But it was also fun. And, it was definitely a blessing. They had games, and good food, and there were great people to hang out with. I renewed several old acquaintances and made some new friends as well. (I'm still amazed at how many people Jason and Hannah already knew in that parking lot!)

Perhaps even better was the sense of grace and blessing. Rather than be jealous for Rebekah and Sam's good fortune (relatively speaking), I found myself excited for them. We all got the exact same reward, no matter how long we had persevered.

Jason and Hannah were there a lot longer than I was, of course ... which also made me realize how blessed I was to get the 52 free meals without having to actually suffer the full 24 hours of "parking lot life" for it.

It's not really about the work, is it?

This new analogy of God's grace has given me a renewed appreciation for Christ's parable. I really don't think His focus was the same as mine was, on "the work" completed by the vineyard workers. In reality, the day's wages was a blessing for all who received the denarius. And work itself is a blessing from God! Rather than grumble about the seeming disparity, the earlier workers should have been grateful to the Lord of the Harvest for being included in the party at all. And the newer workers of course should have been overwhelmed with blessing at their good fortune.

Grace all around!

Eat more Chickin'!

This event has also given me a new appreciation for Chick-Fil-A. This wonderful business is bearing witness to the culture in so many ways. Everything they did during those 24 hours was excellent and "in order." We even got to go indoors for a few hours, where it was nice and warm ... to pack meals for local homeless! (They supplied the materials, and the venue, and we supplied the labor. It was A LOT of fun! Not to mention their nice, clean, warm, spotless bathrooms!)

And the entire time, they had music and entertainment going. I noted with interest that the music seemed to mostly be instrumental versions of popular worship songs that I enjoy! Interesting.

Something else my new appreciation for Chick-Fil-A is doing for me ... it's making me hungry! Time for lunch. Chick-Fil-A, here I come!!! One down, 51 to go.

* * *

P.S.: Here's a fun article in the Puyallup Patch about the "First 100" event. The photo features my good friend and World Vision colleague Jack Laverty, who just happens to be the son-in-law of Elimites Gordy and Linda McCoy!

(So, if you want to eat more chickin', spend some time hanging out with the McCoys, and maybe it will happen! Don't come a-knockin' at my door, though ...)

P.P.S.: I apologize to Rebekah that in an earlier version I got her arrival time wrong ... I blame sleeping standing up. (And I'm still not exactly sure when Sam arrived!)

Uber Vs. Lyft

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Tue, 07 Feb 2017 04:33:00 +0000

I have been driving for Uber since October 2016 (nearly five months now). Recently (about three weeks ago) I was accepted to also drive for Lyft. Simultaneously, I was certified to drive in King County, Washington, as well as my native Pierce County, for both Uber and Lyft.

Many people have asked: Which do I like better, Uber, or Lyft? And what's the difference? I thought I might use this blog post to try and answer that question.

Driving for Both Uber and Lyft

I can drive for both Uber and Lyft because I am an independent contractor, a driver for hire. Each company has very similar requirements, though in this county, Lyft is probably more stringent. (They require licensing in both Seattle and Tacoma, whereas Uber just requires Tacoma. Lyft also requires a Washington State business license; Uber does not. Both require a federal defensive driving course certificate, and also city knowledge courses, as well as passage of a vehicle inspection and background security check.)

The Seattle business license is more than twice the price of the Tacoma one. But now that I have a driver for hire business license in both Tacoma and Seattle, I can pick up riders in both Pierce and King Counties. Which means I don't necessarily have to "deadhead" it back from an airport fare, but can pick up riders on the way back. (This sounds great in principle, but I have yet to find any riders returning from the airport. There is a long queue for both Uber and Lyft drivers at the airport.)

Both Uber and Lyft use sophisticated apps for drivers. It is easy to tell the app you are available for riders. I typically turn both apps on at the same time, and wait for my first rider. If the pickup is within 20 minutes, I accept the fare, and turn the opposite app off for the duration.

What I Like About Driving for Both Uber and Lyft

Both services give you a great deal of flexibility. If you want to work, you simply turn on the app. When you are done, you just turn it off, and that's that. As an independent contractor, you are basically your own boss.

With both services, I've found you have the potential to make between $10 and $20 per hour. They both advertise that more is possible, but I have yet to figure out how to actually make more. So much simply depends on the luck of the draw: The fares you get, how quickly you get them, how far away they are (your drive to the fare's pickup location is totally on your own dime), what kind of gas mileage your vehicle gets (you pay for your own gas), whether or not the fare is picked up in a "surge" area (more about surging later), how far the fare is traveling, etc.

What I Don't Like About Driving for both Uber and Lyft

My main frustration about both services is that neither tells you (until your fare is in the car) exactly where you are taking them. For all you know, they're going to Montana, and once they are in your vehicle and you discover this, you are pretty much committed to taking them there. This is (obviously) a major problem for drivers.

One Sunday afternoon I wanted to do a little driving. My first fare was to the SeaTac airport, a 45-minute ride up from Graham. I got paid (minimally) for the 45 minutes up, but the 45 minutes back were at my own expense. (This is called "deadheading.")

My next fare wanted to go to Seattle. I made a little bit more on the ride up, but now the deadheading back took an hour.

I decided to take one more fare, and prayed it would be local. It was nearly dinnertime and I was quite tired. But they wanted to go to a restaurant north of Seattle. It took more than an hour to get there, and at least that much time (unpaid) back.

I had invested more than 5 hours of driving the three fares. I made a little over $100, but my gas was probably $30, so $70 for 5+ hours of driving. Barely over minimum wage, and I was exhausted.

What's worse is when you drive out a half hour to puick someone up, only to discover they want to go 2 miles. (They could have walked.) You make the five or ten-minute drive with them, get paid about $5, then have to drive a half hour back to your point of origin. You've invested over an hour (plus about $5 or $10 in gas) for a $5 fare.

This could all be prevented if both Uber and Lyft would simply tell you (before you accept a fare) their destination. But neither do, because they want you to accept every fare, even if it means you as the driver get the shaft in the process. Both services obviously care more about riders than they do about drivers.

Pros and Cons of Each

This major drawback is partly alleviated by something Lyft does which they call "destination mode." If you go to the airport, you can move into "destination mode," which means you tell it you only want fares that are heading your direction (home). You get far fewer fares, but at least you don't wind up with someone who wants to go north of Seattle while you are trying to head south toward home (and dinner).

But, in this county at least, Lyft has far smaller market penetration than Uber. This means you get fewer requests, and that you have to travel further for the few you get. I frequently get pings from Lyft to ask me to pick up a fare a half hour away. My personal cutoff is 20 minutes, but I have no way of telling either Uber or Lyft this, so I end up denying a lot of requests, and they chastise you for this (if your "acceptance rate" is "too low").

However, most drivers (and riders too) seem to like Lyft better than Uber. I think this is because their customer service is a little better, and there are a few things they do that make more sense for both drivers and riders (like allowing drivers to filter according to destination).

Lyft also allows riders to tip using their credit card, and Uber does not (although we drivers can accept cash tips from Uber riders).

Because Lyft's market penetration is lower (at least here in Pierce County), that also means Lyft riders experience longer wait times for a ride than Uber riders do. Which is probably frustrating, since they are paying a little bit more than Uber riders.

Surging

"Surging" happens when a supply-and-demand algorithm determines that there is a higher demand for drivers than there is supply in a given area, and therefore prices for the riders increase. I have seen surge pricing go as high as four times the normal fare, and I've heard it can go even higher than that under extreme circumstances.

In this area, Uber surges daily. I have yet to see Lyft surge anywhere.

But even Uber's surges are very unpredictable and temporal in nature. Surges often last just a few minutes, much quicker than you can typically get there. And by driving into a surging area with your app on, you may change the supply-and-demand balance. I've frequently seen surges evaporate in front of me as I drive into surging areas with my app on.

Also, the services inform riders about surge pricing, and they are often savvy enough to know that if they wait a few minutes, the surge might evaporate. So I've had the frequent experience of driving through a surging area, only to get fares as soon as the surge has ended.

This experience leads me to believe that surging is primarily a gimmick to entice drivers to get out there and drive. It's a rainbow to chase, that you can rarely catch. I have (by sheer luck) gotten one or two surge-priced rides, but such things are rare. So, mostly I've learned to ignore surging, and just drive when I am available to drive.

Conclusion

For me, the jury is still out. Both services are so similar, though there are slight advantages (in different respects) to each. As a driver, I'm perfectly happen doing both Uber and Lyft, at least for the time being.

Summary of Apocalypse (Part 1 of 3)

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Sat, 17 Dec 2016 20:49:00 +0000

A lot of people have been asking me what "Apocalypse" (the science fiction novel I am working on now, currently writing on chapter 4) is about. It's been more than a decade in the planning, and I still struggle to summarize it, elevator-speech fashion. So I thought I would take a break from the writing to try and present a brief summary here.

(The challenge, of course — in addition to being brief — will be to not include any spoilers!)

This blog post covers only the first third of the novel, which is subtitled simply ...

Apophis.

Apocalypse starts with the end of Planet Earth as we know it. NASA and other space agencies have been tracking large, civilization-threatening asteroids (near-earth objects, or NEOs) for some time. One which briefly caused them concern as a potential existential threat, way back in December of 2004 when it was first discovered and calculations showed it might come perilously close to striking the earth in 2029, was 99942 Apophis. But further orbital dynamics measurements and observations quickly determined the threat from Apophis was minimal, that it would miss earth in 2029 by a comfortably large margin.

That all changes on September 11, 2027, when "something" (or someone?) unseen provides an explosive nudge to Apophis, way out in the asteroid belt as it is inbound toward the sun ... and its chance of striking our planet suddenly changes to 100%. Its new course has the civilization killer plunging into us dead-center on April 13, 2029.

What's more, while Apophis would be devastating even if it struck the earth dead center, it might not be a civilization killer ... UNLESS it hit a dormant supervolcano (like Lake Toba in Indonesia, where it is now pointed dead center) AND unless it had been accelerated to a velocity that would have otherwise taken it out of our solar system. Apophis' acceleration had nearly tripled to about to nearly 50 kilometers per second. Scientists knew that most of the asteroid presuming it was made of what they thought it was ... rock and ice ... would disintegrate before impact. But the portion that would not would create a devastating explosion, and release an enormous volume of magma that would add a deep "nuclear winter" to the world's other impact-related problems.

And now the world has only six short months to do something about it, as the asteroid speeded from its present position near the outer edge of the asteroid belt on the side opposite the sun from the present position of earth's orbit ... and also, to deal with the unseen enemy who apparently wantrf us dead.

Apocalypse follows this story through the lives of three very distinct individuals, who are dealing with the coming catastrophe in far different ways, and who will ultimately be brought together under the most unlikely of circumstances:

Mitchell Feofan is an American astronaut, of Russian descent, who is working on the International Space Station with the Orion interplanetary exploration program when sudden preparations for an urgent voyage to intercept Apophis (and to "deal with" the adversary who nudged it) are drawn up. He leads the three-person, one-way mission into the unknown, which is humanity's only hope for surviving the catastrophe. His ship, the Orion-class USS Menelvagor, is loaded to the hilt with the most lethal weapons ever devised by humankind, in hopes of stopping the fate coming at earth like a titanic steamroller.

And of course, in addition to dealing with the more skin-crawling aspects of their deadly payload, Feofan also has to put up with the antics of Rigel, their onboard artificial intelligence.

Fadi Tanzilur is, in almost every respect, Feofan's antithesis. He is a Middle Easterner who has been cultivated by terrorists to stop the European Space Agency (ESA) from completing its mission to deflect Apophis. The organization he represents believes the apocalypse must happen first in order for a new civilization to be rebuilt under Sharia Law. And Tanzilur and his accomplices are in position to execute their bombing of ESA headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany, when something truly extraordinary begins to shake the foundations of his life and cause him to dramatically change direction.

And then there is Ukwambulu Liyana, who lives in a world far apart from the struggles either to stop Apophis or profit from the disaster it brings. An impoverished victim of abusive power, she has risen above her own disempowerment and now works to help HIV-afflicted women living in a shantytown in Durban, South Africa. Along with an Anglican priest who changes her life forever, she finds herself on the day of disaster on the beach which is closest to the asteroid's projected point of impact in the Indian Ocean. There she catches a glimpse of a key role that she will play in the unveiling of a new era for humanity.

What’s Your Exploitation Quotient?

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 17:40:00 +0000

In recent days I’ve felt particularly vulnerable to the possibility of exploitation. This wasn’t something I considered when I got laid off in early August from my 22-year job with World Vision. But being jobless, and the prospect of approaching a time (in the near future) when our income may be considerably smaller than it is today, leaves one with certain feelings of vulnerability.

And the thing that has been a shock to me, which I didn’t expect at all, is all the people and organizations “out there” who seek to exploit that vulnerability for their own ends.

My first real taste of this came about two months ago. I was looking for a new job, hard and fast, and using a legitimate employment site was contacted by a company in San Francisco that was supposedly looking for a Social Media Director. The job seemed a good fit. After an hour-long interview (which I felt went well), the hiring manager offered me a job. The bad news is, it turned out to be a total scam. The good news is, I got suspicious before I actually lost anything. (Read more about this story on my blog.)

I reported the scam to the FBI, but never even got a call back. Someone told me these type of scams were so common they don’t even, apparently, get investigated. This was just the first of many attempts to exploit my current vulnerability. I receive multiple emails daily from insurance companies, employment sites, and others offering me work-at-home “jobs” which are too good to be true. I now realize the vast majority of these are attempts to exploit people who are in a vulnerable position because they have been laid off.

I’ve had lots of time to think about why this happens. People seek to exploit us daily. Sometimes it’s obvious; other times it’s very subtle. Sometimes strangers are the culprits; other times it’s people we know, trust, and love.

Yes, it’s true — we often seek to exploit each other. Even in the Church, sometimes I think we fall victim to this. It might come in the form of trying to “guilt” someone into serving or fulfilling a particular ministry need. Or perhaps it might come in the form of pressuring someone to give to a specific financial need, for reasons other than their best interest.

Or sometimes we might attend worship services or other church events, or participate in small groups or ministries for what WE will get out of it, how it will benefit us, rather than engaging from the core motivation that others might be blessed by our presence, service and participation.

Upon reflection, I also realize that interpersonally we often seek to exploit the people we love, even perhaps without really thinking about it. We might manipulate a spouse or a child or a parent or a friend into doing something we want them to do for us, that isn’t necessarily in their best interest. But because WE want it, we might manipulate the relationship, sometimes without even thinking about it, to exploit their vulnerability to make it happen. Or we might treat them in such a way as to make them feel “smaller,” so that we can magnify ourselves by comparison and “feel better about ourself.”

In 2 Peter 2:3, the Apostle had strong words for those who would exploit others:

And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

You’ve heard the saying: “Don’t use people and love stuff — love people, and use stuff!” One of the remarkable things about Jesus’ life is that there was no trace of exploitation in it. While others frequently sought to use Him for their own personal ends, His every thought, word and deed was for the ultimate good of the people He loved and was sent to serve. 1 John 4:10 says:

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

This verse acknowledges the stark reality that we are lousy at loving. And God is very, very good at it! So much so, that it is said of Him, “God is love.” (Sadly, I am not aware that anyone has ever said, “Larry is love!”)

So my question and my conviction is, “How can we get better at loving others?”

I don’t think there’s an easy answer. Christ constantly urged His disciples: “Love one another. By this will all men know that you are My disciples, because of the love you have for one another.”

Not a word about exploiting one another in any of that, is there?

So, I guess I will leave you (and me) with this challenge: What’s your exploitation quotient? Are you (perhaps unintentionally) acting in such a way that exploits those around you, even those you love, rather than loving them unconditionally and seeking to build them up?

If you need help loving others the way Jesus loves us, you’re not alone. I think it’s a challenge that confronts all of us. Let’s seek to prayerfully and honestly stimulate and encourage one another to “love and good deeds,” as Scripture commands.

How do we look at faithfulness?

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Fri, 21 Oct 2016 21:51:00 +0000

Reprinted from "The Last Word," the leadership blog of Elim Evangelical Free Church.

Cheryl Weller is very faithful to remind us elders when she needs a Last Word from us. Last week, she told me, “You are on schedule to write the Last Word for next week. Can you have something to me by Tuesday?”

“Sure!” I said, then promptly forgot about it. (I almost said, “of course,” but we’ll talk about that in a moment!)

Last night (Tuesday at 10:20 p.m.) she emailed me and (very graciously!) said: “Hey Larry, do you have a Last Word? I needed it today, as I’m publishing tomorrow. Any chance of getting that by noon ready to publish? Thanks! Cheryl :)”

The bad news is, I didn’t receive her email until this morning. I would hit myself in the head with my shoe, but that’s happened too many times before and my head is already sore from yesterday’s abuse. So here I am, pounding it out guiltily! (Referring to the Last Word . . . not my head.)

The good news is, I have been thinking about “faithfulness,” and this whole situation gives me great ammunition. I in so many ways fall short of God’s standard of faithfulness, and this is just another example. As I’ve been reflecting on this, I’ve been listing in my head reasons for my unfaithfulness. They start out as excuses, but end up migrating toward real-life examples of my own sinfulness.

My memory is terrible! That’s a big excuse I use a lot for blowing people off when I promise them something (like a Last Word done by Tuesday) and then fail to deliver. I’m a busy person! I have too much going on! Blah, blah, blah. The truth is, I don’t sufficiently value my word, so that when I promise something, I don’t make it a high enough priority to deliver.
I de-prioritized delivering on that commitment because I had higher priorities come along. Cheryl has given me grace before, and I knew she would give me grace again. See #1 above!
I didn’t really mean what I said when I said it. Jesus said, “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.” I interpret this to mean, “God’s faithfulness is known by His Word. Your word should be golden. Tell the truth, mean what you say, and do what you say.” Seems simple, no?
Selfishness and other sinful priorities. Here’s where it gets really uncomfortable. What was I doing yesterday that was more important than writing the Last Word? I made three Facebook posts. I did some training for a new job. I made a few bucks driving for Uber. I was tired and took a nap. For goodness’ sake, I apparently (without even thinking about it) prioritized my nap above my commitment to Cheryl to finish this Last Word yesterday! When I look at the topic of God’s faithfulness, I frequently think it’s a no-brainer. Of course God is faithful, I reason. He has a perfect memory. He has all the time in the world. He has the wisdom to prioritize properly. We may simply take it for granted (I may take it for granted) that God will do what He says!

Obviously, this speaks far better of God than it does of me, but here’s the truth: We should never take God’s faithfulness for granted. It’s a matter of life and death for us! Let’s take a look at some of the promises Scripture gives, related to God’s faithfulness:

Psalm 26:3 – For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in your faithfulness.

There are 170 references to the words “faithful” and “faithfulness” throughout Scripture, and many of them tie God’s faithfulness to His steadfast love for us. His faithfulness is proof of His love, as it were. And it’s His faithfulness that creates a path for us to navigate the challenges of daily life.

1 John 1:9 – If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Without God’s faithfulness to forgive us, we would be condemned to pay the penalty (of death) for our own sins!

1 Corinthians 10:13 – No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

Because God is faithful, we can resist temptation, knowing there is ALWAYS a way of escape.

Psalm 86:14; 119:75 – But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. . . . I know, O Lord, that your rules are righteous, and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.

God’s faithfulness establishes His mercy and grace as constants in our lives; even when we are “afflicted” (sometimes because of God’s discipline), we can bank on God’s faithfulness to us!

Psalm 89:14 – Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.

God’s faithfulness, once again acting in concert with His steadfast love, is based upon the foundation of His righteousness and absolute commitment to true justice.

2 Thessalonians 3:3 – But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.

Like Job, we may be assaulted by the onslaughts of the evil one. But God has promised to establish and guard us in the midst of those assaults. Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world!

Psalm 31:5 – Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.

These were Christ’s very last words as he died on the cross and gave up His spirit into the hands of the Father He loved, whose faithfulness He trusted so deeply. At every moment, and at the very end of our lives, each of us will be confronted with a choice to do the same. Do we trust our souls to the One who created us and promises to redeem us for all eternity?

When I think about it, neglecting to deliver a Last Word at a promised time may be among the least of my acts of faithlessness. Every time I cheat somebody something I owe them or am faithless to my wife with my eyes (by fancying a passing pretty girl a little too longingly, etc.), or “stretch the truth” in my conversation, I am demonstrating my own faithlessness.

Thank God He is faithful and just to forgive, and that His faithfulness is a sign of His steadfast love for me! Let’s pray together that faithfulness, one of the fruits of the Spirit presented in Galatians 5:22, would ever more clearly mark us out as those who are called children of the Father.

Nonprofits: Develop your social listening strategy, tools and tactics NOW

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Tue, 20 Sep 2016 18:33:00 +0000

I recently left (for financial reasons) a wonderful organization I'd been employed at for nearly 23 years. My history there: I started out at the nonprofit as a writer and editor, founded the organization's web presence (and created most of the products that now help it to raise about half of its billion-dollars-per-year in revenue online), and launched its most integral social media channels (such as its corporate blog, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube channels), which have also experienced unprecedented success.

My Introduction to Social Listening

During the last few years I served as a member of the organization's corporate social media team, and one of my key goals (in addition to providing social content, channel management, analytics and online customer care) was to "figure out" social listening. What is it? Who's doing it and what are best practices? How can it help a nonprofit organization like the one I worked for?

I participated in numerous webinars and did a lot of research, then jumped in.

Creating Your Strategy

The first task, once you understand what social listening is, why you should be doing it and how it can help our causes and organizations, is to develop a clear strategy. As with any strategy, it must be well-informed, realistic and achievable, but also ambitious and visionary. And it must take into account the various realities and the interdependencies of the organization you serve.

I wrote a one-pager that outlined what I thought our strategy should be. My supervisor presented it to senior management and they loved it. The bottom line was: If we did social listening right, using some of the cool new tools out there to help us sort through and make sense of "big data," we could position our organization well for continued growth and success by: 1) informing senior management and key stakeholders of social trends and sentiment of our customers as it was occurring; 2) Become far more responsive to our customers (or, in our case, our donors') concerns and opinions; 3) alert us to vital "risk" concerns early in the game; and 3) Equip our own customer service specialists with the data they need, right at their fingertips, to interact effectively with our customers/donors.

Now It's Time To Talk Tactics

After numerous RFPs and interviews, we engaged a firm that one of our national offices had already been working with, Tracx, because we liked the simplicity of the interface they offered, how well they were connected with and seemed able to sift through "big data" sources, and the apparent simplicity/clarity of their customer interface and reporting system. They also worked the hardest of any of the firms we interviewed to get our business, and gave us a preliminary (first-year) price which truly was a good deal. They wanted the account, and seemed like they deserved it.

My management then tasked me with implementing the strategy I had outlined, tactically. I was to create a daily (informal) reporting system that made key stakeholders, specifically those who needed to be aware of risks in the social arena, aware quickly of either general negative sentiment or very specific negative attacks on our organization occurring out there in social space. These stakeholders included the "risk" group within our PR department, social media management, and key representatives from our donor service area. These would assess the relative risk of the information I presented (by email and phone, if urgency demanded) and escalate as appropriate, to our legal area, or senior management, or other stakeholders.

The next reporting tactic was a weekly social listening report, which I prepared in digital and paper form and presented to a group of content management specialists and key organizational stakeholders. This weekly report graphically summarized sentiment analysis for our organization's social interactions, and for those of some key competitors we had identified and were tracking. It also presented conversation trends (in "word cloud" fashion) for key words and phrases we were following, most importantly our own brand terms. And it tracked general trends related to social conversation on our channels and those of our competitors.

If social media followers were engaging with our competitors over specific issues, it was very helpful to understand this and jump in with ideas about how we could provide content to help us become a part of this conversation. Or if content we had provided was really spiking social interest, in contrast to other content we had "out there," it was extremely helpful to give this feedback to the appropriate department in hopes they could "do more of the same."

Because I was responsible for customer care in association with our key social channels, and in collaboration with those channel managers, I also had my finger on the pulse of how our customers were sharing their concerns with us on channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and how they were feeling about our products or core offerings and our content. I therefore included a section at the end of each weekly report to share highlights of key customer feedback and trends, and I made sure our more "traditional" customer service departments (such as our call center, mail center and email correspondents) were hearing me and paying attention.

Finally, I aggregated these weekly reports together into a monthly report which I "prettied up" a bit so my management could send it on up to senior management and give them an easy, visual way to keep in touch with social sentiment of our donors and of those interacting with our competitors. These highly visible monthly and quarterly reports were designed both to equip senior management ... and keep our own department's bread buttered, so to speak!

There are so many reasons social listening, which is being practiced well by today's most responsive business organizations, is an essential skill for nonprofits who want to be successful in the competitive environment they are operating in.

Taking It the "Next Step" — Integrating Social Listening Into Your CRM

One of the things I was hoping would happen while I was still with my organization, but which they have not yet gotten traction on (due to the complexity of the project), is integration of our social listening data with our back-end customer data, or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.

A call center representative accessing the CRM account for a donor who calls in upset about something needs to be able to answer such questions as: Does the complainant have a significant social media following? Are they now airing (or are they likely to air) their concerns on their social media channels? If so, does more damage control need to be done? Beyond simply safeguarding the organization's reputation with this donor and keeping them happy, what would be the public engagement benefits of "going the extra mile" to make sure we hear and address their concerns? Etc.

I'm sure you can see the potential, right?

Integrating a social listening system with your CRM on the back-end is no simple task, but the world's best in class organizations are doing it now. So we should be thinking about it!

I'm Listening ... To YOU!

I'd love to hear how your organization is implementing social listening strategy and tactics. What are you learning? Is it worth it? What are the pitfalls and obstacles you are encountering?

And where do you think it's all going from here?

Yes, it's embarrassing ... but this week I was the victim of a sophisticated employment scam

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 19:53:00 +0000

As I think most of you know, I am currently between jobs. I was laid off of from World Vision on August 3. I have six months of severance pay (which is very generous of them), but I do have to pay for my own health care (which is ridiculously expensive) and by the end of six months I will need to have something in hand that can help pay the bills.

Darlene has a good part-time job with the Puyallup School District (as a school nurse), though the pay isn't awesome. (Hey, it's the school district.) Our house is paid off, and we do have a solid nest egg set up for retirement, so it's not an emergency. But I do feel some pressure (at my relatively young age!) to find something, and not just anything, but specifically what God has cut me out to do. I've been hard at work investigating jobs in writing and editing, and social media and web innovation, as well as looking at some other areas that might fill the need temporarily. I've also been doing a lot of writing ... working on blogs, on my next novel, and on a magazine article or two. And I've been developing a business idea. (Yes, you guessed it ... related to exotic mushrooms!)

So, I've been busy. I've been working with an outplacement company, and have lots of resumes and applications out there, seeking interviews for various positions. This week (as part of this process) I was taken in (for a brief period of time) by a very sophisticated employment scam. And of course since then I've been dealing with the fallout, trying to protect our assets and help the authorities catch the criminal(s) running the scam, if I can.

I'm embarrassed that I was taken in, however briefly, and it's painful to share about. But I felt I should tell the story so others would be aware and might learn from my mistakes. And also, as you will read more about below, to protect myself if possible.

Laying the Groundwork

It all started out last week, when I saw and applied for a job posted on Indeed.com (a legitimate employment website) for a social media manager job at a (legitimate) smallish/newish business-to-business firm called Filmless, in San Francisco. The posting described basically what I would be good at doing and offered $35/hour for full-time work-at-home efforts, plus expenses.

This amount didn't work out to what I was making at my last job, but was better than what I need to survive and what I'd already been offered elsewhere. And the work-at-home part was very attractive. So I applied, via the Indeed site.

Day One ... Monday, Sept. 12

I received a contact email in the afternoon from someone purportedly named "James Townsend." The form was a standard Indeed email form and my response that I was interested triggered to their website.

Day Two ... Tuesday, Sept. 12

About 8 a.m. Tuesday morning, I received a very officious-sounding message from James which said:

"Hello,

We at Filmless are glad to let you know we have accepted your resume from Indeed for the position of a Social Media Manager and you can proceed now to get started with your interview for the job. This Position is Mon- Fridays and pays $35/hour, full time hours guaranteed if desired with salary increase.

To proceed you must first undergo an online assessment/job briefing and you will be needing a Gmail (Google Hangout Instant Messenger) on your Pc/device, using your Gmail account to gain access to Hangout Messenger. Contact your interview Manager and request to get started with an interview using your job code as verification."

The part (other than a few sloppy typos) that should have been my first clue, which I didn't pay sufficiently close attention to at the time, was his email address, filmlessworkers948281@gmail.com. Note that it has the word "Filmless" in it, but it's actually from the Gmail domain, and not a legitimate Filmless.com email address. But, I completely missed that at the time.

So, I followed his instructions and connected with him via Google Hangout, which I am familiar with as a result of using it extensively on my last job. His account had the official-looking Filmless logo which was on their (legitimate) website and Google Plus account. So I assumed (yes, another assumption) that I was talking to the legitimate Filmless Google account.

Once we connected on Google on Tuesday morning, he said, "Okay, are you ready for your interview?" I was somewhat taken aback, assuming an interview would be something that would have to be scheduled. I was sitting there at my computer in my pajamas still, so I responded: "Well, I'm not prepared for a video interview, we should schedule that if that's the case. But if you wanted to interview by chat I suppose we could do that now."

He simply responded, "Yes," and started off firing interview questions. (By the way, this became an MO for him. He typically didn't respond either completely or clearly to my questions, which should have been another clue. It was as if his attention was divided while we were talking online, and now I suppose it was — probably running his scam at multiple levels simultaneously — but at the time I supposed he was probably just a busy guy and not a great communicator on chat. Many people aren't, and one reason is they don't type as fast as I do!)

The interview took about two hours, and he asked lots of questions about my social media skills and experience, which I realized at the time were canned questions, but I figured he was probably HR and asking a lot of people standardized questions. Hence I was quite surprised when, at the end of the interview, he began talking as if I had the job.

Another red flag was that as he did this, he immediately launched into financial details. Did I want to be paid by check, or online? If online, what bank did I use? And he began talking immediately about providing me with the funds to purchase the software I would need to do my job at home. Some of the items on the list were familiar and I had used them before, others were new. But I realized the way such software worked was, as a user on a company account I wouldn't actually have to pay to purchase "software," but the company would simply add me as one of its available user seats.

One other thing that had happened during the interview (prior to this point) was that I had tried to interrupt his stream of questions (at what seemed like an appropriate moment) to ask a list of questions of my own about the company: their history, their culture, their values, their financial details, etc. The only one he actually answered was to confirm they were located in San Francisco (which I already knew from Googling them), but he ignored the rest of my questions. Also a red flag.

But at this point I was still processing the fact that it sounded like, counter to my expectations, he was offering me a job. So I asked for clarification: "Are you offering me a job?"

Yes, he said he was. He confirmed the salary and we talked a bit about benefits. He mentioned that they did have a retirement plan, but when he copied me a list of benefits, nothing about a retirement plan was on it. Another red flag, but I wrote it off as a misunderstanding.

Another red flag was a comment he made that I was "lucky" to be selected for this job — not something a real HR professional would probably say. But I excused it, thinking, "Well, he's probably new. The company's only two years old, after all."

Then he continued talking about the process of getting me a check, and when I was available to start? I told him I was flexible. He said he wanted me to start training on Monday, and that for the sake of speed they would email me a copy of the check (as a PDF) so I could deposit it in my bank account.

At that point I told him I was not yet ready to accept his offer, that I needed to speak with my wife about it and also close the loop with some other applications I had in process first. This response seemed to upset him a bit, and I received a curt: "Well then, message me back when you've made up your mind." Should have been another red flag.

Shortly after the interview ended (about 1 p.m. or so) I received a text (I had given James all my basic contact information, which is a part of my resume) from someone who identified herself as Angela Perryman from Filmless. The number the text came from was 858.683.7846. I didn't recognize the area code but assumed it was San Francisco. (I didn't research this until later, and found out it was a San Diego area code. Not that that in and of itself is anything of a huge red flag.)

By the way, I'm putting names I was given (probably all phony) as well as the real (disposable, no doubt) email addresses and the text number that I have here, in this blog, because I know Google will index this information and it will become available to anyone searching the web for information on these scammers.

Was I full of reservations at all these unusual red or yellow flags? Yes, absolutely, and I talked those through with Darlene after she got home from work Tuesday evening. She agreed they were weird. But I had also spent a lot of time researching Filmless, and they seemed to have a spotless reputation. (At this point I didn't really consider the possibility that Filmless itself wasn't a part of the scam.) It was clear that the company was more or less virtual; though it had a small physical office in San Francisco, it was clear on their website that all their producers were freelancers, and with such a new-ish company it made sense that most of their staff would telecommute.

Other than reservations, however, there was one other thing I had. Let's call it by a term that is frequently used, but difficult to define: A "check in my spirit." I stayed up late Tuesday night, my mind spinning, difficulty going to sleep. I prayed, and I watched a movie to try and get my mind off the sense of nagging anxiety that something wasn't right. But even as I finally went to sleep, well after 1 a.m., and when I woke up at my usual time at 6:30, it was still there.

Day Three ... Wednesday, Sept. 13

I reconnected on Google Hangout with James on Wednesday morning at 8 a.m., as I'd promised. I said, "Before I accept your offer, I have a list of questions for you." I fired all my questions at him (one at a time) from my prepared list. And he responded to them quite well. I also was sure to be clear that he was very aware of my Christian faith, which I know might be off-putting for some. But it didn't seem to phase him. Once again, we talked for about an hour.

My final question was, "Why do YOU enjoy working for Filmless? What makes you go to work in the morning?" (I had also asked him who Angela was ... he said she was his secretary, which in hindsight should also have been a yellow flag, since nowadays such folks are called admins, not secretaries. And I asked him if they worked in the office or were remote. It would have been smarter for him to say "remote" as this would have made it harder for me to verify with Filmless, but he said they worked in the office.) We bantered about the traffic in San Francisco, and he told me the reason he did the job was for the money, and that he had family in the area. I was expecting more of a PR-ish answer than that, but it seemed honest and so I kind of laughed it off. And stuffed down my sense of anxiety, thinking, "Well, I can certainly put the breaks on this at any time if I need to."

I did still have reservations at that point, about all the seeming yellow and red flags, and also about the job description itself, which seemed a bit unrealistic, but Darlene had said: "Test him a bit. Maybe ask for flexible hours and see if he agrees. If so, they probably do really want you and are willing to be flexible. And you could always quit if it doesn't turn out to be a good fit."

So, I told him I was willing to give it a try, if he agreed to my flexible hours request, which he did without hesitation. I asked what the next step was. He said they would pay for my training next week, and that he and I would also need to get some details taken care of before then, so I would need to be available online for a few days. I asked him who would do my training. He said he would, which I also found slightly suspicious. I asked him who my supervisor would be. He said that would be determined after the training. Hmmm. You mean there isn't actually a hiring supervisor? Weird.

Then he again started talking about how to get me a check for me to purchase things I needed. At this point I stopped him and said, "Okay, yesterday you said the check was for software, but my understanding is that's not really how the software situation should work, especially if your company already has relationships with the software vendors" (he had told me earlier that I was replacing another social media manager who had left the company, so it made sense this was true).

But then he replied, "No, it's not for the software, it's for purchasing the equipment from our approved vendor." And the amount of the check made sense for equipment. However, I KNEW the day before he had said it was for software (twice), so this was another red flag. But by this time, I'd taken the bait, and I wrote it off to the fact that he was evidently a pretty sloppy communicator.

In hindsight, it's amazing to me how you can create and use all kinds of internal excuses to try and explain unusual behavior, red flags which should really stop and make you say, "Hold your horses here." But it's a powerful thing, when someone approaches a person who is vulnerable due to need with a seeming way to meet that need. You want to believe that they are telling the truth, so you rationalize things in your own mind to try and make you feel more comfortable and less edgy.

I used to make fun of people who were dumb enough to fall for scams proffered by Nigerian princes. Now, I'm going to be a little more empathetic.

That sense of edginess, I realize now in hindsight, is a valuable thing we should listen and pay attention to. I had SO many red flags, I was already reasonably convinced there was a 50% chance that this was some sort of a scam. Despite this, I continued down the path with this scammer. (Or scammers, I'm not sure.)

I didn't have a virtual check deposit app set up with my credit union (didn't actually even realize they had one, which is a nice thing to have), so I set that up. He then PDF'd me a copy of the check with instructions to print it out and then scan it using the app, for deposit.

I called my credit union (ECCU) and talked this through with them. They said they weren't sure it would work, printing and then scanning a digital copy. But he assured me, "Sure, it will work, it's basically the same thing as scanning the original." Which made sense to me. So I tried it. Repeatedly. About a dozen times. I kept getting error messages from the credit union's system that the scan wasn't clear. James kept bugging me, "Have you deposited it yet?" (Which also should have been suspicious.) And making suggestions about how to make it work: better lighting, etc.

I finally got the scan to go through, by following one of his suggestions and cutting out the printouts in the approximate size of a real check, then placing them on a dark background for the photograph. And the app acknowledged my deposit.

James then asked me for a screenshot of the acknowledgement message to verify that the check had been deposited. But by that time I'd closed the app and couldn't get the message back, and told him so. "Well," he said, "just log on to your account and send me a screenshot of your transaction history." I looked at my account and the check I'd submitted wasn't reflected there yet, and I was still sufficiently suspicious that I wasn't ready to provide account numbers or any sensitive financial information to him, so I told him that deposit wasn't yet reflected in my transaction history and I would send verification whenever I could get it. He then let that go.

And, in hindsight, yet more red flags: The check that he emailed me wasn't made out from Filmless and didn't even had Filmless' name on it. (Or James'.) It was from a "Diversified General Credit Union," signed by a "Demi B. Atwood" and it had the name "James Beckham" in the memo area. Moreover, the check itself wasn't sent to me from James' email account, it was sent from the email account of someone named "Ben Dawson" at inteltechoffice4181119@gmail.com.

But there was one more thing he wanted. "To set up our payroll, we need verification of your account. Is there a branch of your credit union nearby? We'd like you to go have them make out a $5 cashier's check, to you, then scan and send us a copy of that. You can then cash the check for yourself when you're done."

It seemed an unusual request (another red flag), and I think it pushed me over a tipping point of sort. After all, at this point the thought of NOT having to work with this weirdo was becoming rather appealing. I decided to "play along" but to seek the credit union's advice about the situation. I told him, truthfully, "My credit union doesn't have any branches in my area, but there is another credit union I belong to here, Harborstone, where I can have them make me out a cashier's check."

"Do it," he said, "and let me know when you are able to scan and send a copy of that to me."

So I headed for the credit union. When I got the Harborstone branch office on South Hill. I had a very helpful conversation with a teller who listened well, talked to her supervisor, and came back and agreed that the whole situation seemed quite suspicious. "A $5 cashier's check made you to you? We've never heard of that before and don't understand how that would help them set up payroll. It doesn't have any of your own account numbers on it. Perhaps it's for some sort of a security or credit check?"

"I don't know," I said, "but I can ask them." So I messaged James back and asked him to call me because I had questions.

He didn't respond right away, so I left the bank and ran a few errands. While I was out I also did something else I had intended to do much earlier: I had gotten Filmless' main office number off their website (where they also had email and chat contacts listed). So I called it, intending to ask them about James Townsend and Angela Perryman. But an answering machine picked up the call, so I left a detailed message describing my dilemma.

Meanwhile, James responded to my message asking him to call me: "What questions?" was all he said. (Another red flag was that he never did give me his phone number, even though I asked several times.)

I told him what the credit union had said, that they didn't understand why he'd want me to do this. He gave me some lame and muddled explanation about needing it to set up payroll. So I returned to the credit union and showed them his response. They read it carefully and said, "That doesn't make any sense at all. This really does sound fishy."

I had also brought a copy of the $3,400 check they had sent, which I had already deposited to my credit union, so at this point I asked if they'd be willing to take a look at it. They said, "Of course. We can do even better than that. We can run its numbers to see if it appears legit or not." So the teller typed the numbers into the computer, then immediately shook her head. "Nope," she said, "it's coming up as a bad check."

The gig was up. On their advice, I immediately called ECCU and told them what had happened. They said they would put the check I had deposited into a special research hold and try and figure out what was going on.

After stopping for some lunch, I headed for home. As I did so, James was messaging me: "Did you get the cashier's check? Can you send the scan soon?" His urgency to do these weird financial things was another red flag that I should have really paid attention to earlier on.

I ignored his messages until I got home, and then decided to put him off while I tried to figure out what to do. I messaged him briefly and told him I'd developed a bad migraine (which was true!) while waiting at the bank, and that I was going to bed for the rest of the day (not exactly true) and would talk to him tomorrow. He asked again about the check, but I ignored this, and also a 4:30 message asking me if I was feeling better.

Immediately after this I got onto the FBI's website for internet crimes, called the "Internet Crime Complaint Center" or IC3, and made a full report of the crime. I told a few close friends who had been praying about what had happened, but asked them not to share it publicly, as I didn't want to tip him off that I was onto him. And I also went back on Filmless' site, sent them an email with the whole story, and also tried their chat technology, which said they weren't available to chat. I left a message that I was going to call the San Francisco PD on Thursday if they didn't get back to me. (At this point I still wasn't sure whether they were in on the scam, or not.)

Later Wednesday evening I did get a gracious response from Filmless. They told me that over the past two days they had been the victim of an employment scam, and they apologized, and suggested I ignore any communications about a job offer. A little late, of course ... I wanted to advise them that next time they should say something about it on their website, which would have clinched it for me earlier. But, I can understand that they were inundated putting out the fire. (I've been there, in my job at World Vision.) They also told me they were working with Indeed.com to resolve the situation.

Naturally, I was upset about all this. I felt foolish, and was frustrated about wasting my time, and being victimized, and disappointed that what had seemed like a nice job didn't pan out. Nonetheless, my spirit was at rest, and I also had a great sense of relief. The only open question mark was "Why?" What were the scammers hoping to gain from all this?

I went to bed early and slept like a log on Tuesday night.

Day Four ... Today, Thursday, Sept. 15

James was messaging me via Google again before 8 a.m. this morning. Then, shortly after 8, he sent the following message:

"Hello.
I see you on hangout now , Larry what is going on And the funds you deposited have cleared The bank just informed me"

I was, of course, reasonably certain that was a lie. I knew that even under normal circumstances, a check like that took days to clear. And these weren't normal circumstances; ECCU had said they had put a research hold on this particular check. But, I called them anyway, just to make sure.

While I was waiting to talk to someone, I checked my web balance online, and was startled to see it list in my transaction history the deposit of the $3,400 check! However, when I looked at my available balance, the check amount clearly wasn't reflected in that.

When the operator came on, I started at the beginning and described the situation, then said: "I'm concerned because my transaction history shows the check I deposited yesterday, but my balance does not." The gentleman I spoke with looked at the situation and told me that the deposit was indeed flagged for research, but that as a normal part of their process they were showing the transaction in my history and that they had actually released $200 of the $3,400 check (per their policy, I assume) to my account. He said he would reverse this and that they would contact the issuing bank to be certain. He said if the check was a phony it would be rejected at that point.

Okay, I told him, but I had two concerns: 1) I don't want a single cent of this guy's money in my hands! Yesterday when I talked with you, I assumed the check would be rejected, because I told you what Harborstone told me, that it was a fake. But even if it's not, I don't want him accusing me of cashing his check! And 2) I didn't want to incur any fees for this bad check, if possible.

At this point, after reading James' message this morning, I realized with a chill what the point of the whole scam might be. He would probably come back and say, "Hey, you cashed my check. You owe me that money back!" And of course he'd want it in the form of a cashier's check, or some such. (Possibly the reason he had me prove I could get a cashier's check? I'm not sure.)

Or perhaps the check is one he's stolen from someone else? Or perhaps it was forged on someone else's "real" account? And now of course the bank of the victim would have a record of me trying to cash the stolen or forged check. Perhaps this might be a blackmail attempt of some sort?

This feels ugly ... here's why I'm telling you this

Whatever it is, it feels extremely ugly. So I'm telling the story here, partly in an effort to protect myself, just as I've told it to the FBI (through their IC3 website ... though I really wish I could talk to a human being there).

Naturally I'm hoping for justice. And I'm hoping to stop this guy so no one else is victimized. I feel bad for what has happened to Filmless.com, and to Indeed.com, as a result of this scam. And possibly to other people (possible innocent victims?) I've named in this blog.

In the meantime I've learned some lessons about trusting my own heart, and about being more cautious and getting verification earlier in the process when things don't seem right.

I also have a message for James, if he bothers to read this (and he might, I'm not sure): While you have tried to hurt me, for the sake of your own greed, I am not angry at you. In fact, I forgive you. This is because there is One who has already paid the price for every sin you have ever committed and ever will commit. Jesus gave His life on the Cross to forgive you and set you straight!

I will continue to pursue justice, and hope that the FBI catches you and stops you before you hurt anyone else. But even as you sit in jail (since as an interstate crime, this is a federal offense and a felony), I will pray that you find peace, and true purpose, and recognize the freedom that comes from being forgiven.

As for the rest of you: I'll continue to post updates (as comments to this blog) and let you know how things develop from here. Please do pray for James, and for anyone victimized by his greed. And thanks for listening!

Is disrespecting your country a legitimate way to protest wrongs?

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Fri, 02 Sep 2016 16:24:00 +0000

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has made the news big time for his decision to not stand during the playing of the National Anthem, as is traditional in the sport. You can read Kaepernick's explanation for his decision here.

Despite refusing to stand for the anthem because of what he says is the need for changes to end racial oppression in the U.S., Kaepernick has sought to show support for veterans in other ways. ESPN says that during a game with San Diego he "applauded veterans and active military during a first-half break with Lee Greenwood's God Bless the USA playing and stood for a rendition of God Bless America, clapping at the end of that as well."

Whether you agree or disagree with what Kaepernick has decided to do (and many disagree, as he has been loudly booed by fans as a result of refusing to stand), you have to admit he has been successful at one goal, and that is drawing more media attention to the issue of racial disparity and oppression in America.

I've been thinking about what Kaepernick has done because I realize that, in addition to the issue of racism, there are many other evils happening in America today which could certainly be protested or highlighted in some way if one was willing to take a step to disrespect our country. What about abortion? More than 55 million innocent unborn children murdered in America since 1973 certainly deserves some discussion. Not to mention our government's (and the UN's) support for this heinous practice. What about the fact that as taxpayers we are forced to give a half billion dollars of our hard-earned money each year to the evil Planned Parenthood organization so that it can continue to kill unborn children?

And I'm sure if you looked hard enough, in addition to these two horrible things (racial injustice and abortion) there are lots of other evils that you could justifiably blame America for, and in so doing, find justification in showing disrespect to our country, if you were so inclined. So, should we be?

Respecting Rome

I believe the answer to this question, for Christians, is a clear "No!" ... and here's why.

The first Christians (those who lived in the generation or two after Christ lived, died, rose again and ascended to the Father) experienced government-sanctioned evils as horrible as any we here in America are experiencing now. In 64 A.D. Rome was the greatest power the earth had ever seen, but its emperor, Nero, was feeling threatened by the rise of a new religious sect called Christianity, which claimed fealty to a Kingdom not of this earth. He began a government-sanctioned campaign of persecution of Christians that was horrible beyond imagination. Christians were fed to the lions in the arenas for entertainment, and in his own garden he tied them to poles, coated them with pitch, and lit them on fire to serve as pleasant evening lights.

The Apostle Paul was a Roman citizen who ended up being executed in Rome by the governing authorities, most scholars think in May or June of 68 A.D. Nero himself committed suicide on June 9, 68 A.D. Paul would have doubtless been aware of all Nero's many atrocities against Christians.

So, what was Paul's attitude toward his government? Did he advocate disrespecting it because of its evil?

Paul's letter to church at Rome, written about 10 years before his death, offers an interesting perspective on this question:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.

Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

Romans 13:1-7

His statement in verse 6 about paying taxes is interesting. I've considered before the question of whether Christians should withhold a portion of our taxes in objection to being forced to support Planned Parenthood's slaughter of unborn children, in particular. (THAT would make a statement ... get the government's attention very quickly, getting you in all kinds of trouble with the IRS, and you could probably get on the news by doing this if you wanted to.) But would it be the right thing to do? Paul's counsel above would suggest that it would not be.

Rome and the USA: Some Sad Similarities

Some might object, "But Paul says 'rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.' But this obviously wasn't true of Nero, and it isn't necessarily true of our leaders either." And it's true that while Nero was in power when Paul wrote his words to the Romans, he didn't actually begin seriously persecuting Christians until a decade later.

But Rome was involved in plenty of other horrific evils before then. This article in "Ancient Origins" details some of the more gruesome archaeological discoveries of mass infant killings in the Roman Empire. And I quote:

During Roman times, it was not uncommon for infants to be killed as a form of birth control. It was not a crime, as newborn infants were viewed as being ‘not fully human’. In most cases, a Roman woman who did not want a newborn would engage in the practice of “exposure.” She would abandon the infant, either to be found and cared for by someone else, or to perish. According to the beliefs at the time, it was up to the gods to determine whether the infant would be spared or not.

But the author, M. R. Reese, notes as she continues that the hundreds of infants killed at the site under an ancient bath-house in Ashkelon did not die of exposure; rather they were healthy babies, none more than a week old, who died as a result of being thrown into the sewer pit beneath what is speculated to be a brothel as well as a bath-house. She says "It is possible that the infants were born to prostitutes or laborers who worked at the bathhouse."

This is the culture Paul claimed citizenship in when he wrote his letter to the Romans. Such horrors as we also experience here in the U.S. today with our government's support for late-term abortions — near-term babies having their spinal cords snipped with the scissors of abortionists — or the prevalence of incidents of people murdering others because of their skin color, would not have been something terribly out-of-place in the governmental context for Paul's writing.

And yet he urged respect for the governing authorities, and for paying taxes.

The fact is, God expects us to respect those authorities who govern us, regardless of their evils. Such authority has been established by Him, and He will ultimately hold them accountable for what they do with the authority He has given them stewardship over.

Does this mean we are to stay silent in the face of such atrocities? Absolutely not. We in particular have the privilege of living in a country where we have the legal (First Amendment) right to speak out, and God forgive us if we don't exercise this right. In this current election cycle, I find the two primary contenders exceedingly immoral, and so I have not hesitated to use my voice (on social media and elsewhere) to speak out against them. And frankly, there is no way I will support either with my vote. This I also think would be a grievous wrong, to adopt a "lesser of two evils" mentality and thus give my support to either.

But, if either is elected, I will respect them, as I have respected President Obama. This does not mean I won't speak out against the evil that they do, and it doesn't even necessarily mean that I won't respectfully disobey the governing authorities in those situations where obedience would mean myself committing evil. This was the pattern established by Peter and John in Acts 5 when the governing authorities ordered them not to talk about Jesus, under threat of imprisonment and possibly death: “But Peter and the apostles answered, 'We must obey God rather than men.'" And they continued to preach the Gospel in respectful defiance of the orders of the governing authorities.

Putting Our Money Where Our Mouth Is

Personally, I think the most praiseworthy thing that Kaepernick has done to share his concern about racism is not the thing that he's getting all the media attention for. He told the press he plans to "donate the first $1 million he makes this year to help communities in need as part of his plan to take a more active role in combating racial inequality."

Kaepernick's stance has created a lot of useful conversation about racism in America, but putting his money where his mouth is an especially effective (and also respectful) way of making a difference about those issues he's concerned about. Are we willing to do the same thing with the issues we care about?

You and I are very different!

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Thu, 11 Aug 2016 18:15:00 +0000

I was reading some of Old Testament books written by minor prophets, and I was struck by a fundamental truth that has been both very challenging and very freeing for me:

YOU AND I ARE VERY DIFFERENT. And it's okay!

The Jews had been in captivity in Babylon for 70 years. The books of Nehemiah and Ezra (two prophets) tell the story of the return of a remnant of Jews to the city of Jerusalem, to rebuild the walls around the city and safeguard the Temple. After the wall is successfully rebuilt, the books detail some of the challenges that this remnant of Jews was facing. One of them was intermarriage with the other (non-Hebrew) people living in the land. Such intermarriage was always considered a no-no among the Jews, as it resulted in a dilution of Jewish teaching, faith and culture.

Ezra 9 tells the story of how the prophet discovers the disgraceful practices being employed by the returnee Jews. "When I heard this," verse 3 says, "I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled hair from my head and beard and sat down appalled. 4 Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel gathered around me because of this unfaithfulness of the exiles. And I sat there appalled until the evening sacrifice."

Chapter 10 continues: "While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself down before the house of God, a large crowd of Israelites—men, women and children—gathered around him. They too wept bitterly." And it goes on to share how the Israelites who were practicing these things repented and changed their ways.

Nehemiah tells much of the same story, but the approach of this prophet is clearly very different than that of Ezra. In chapter 13 it is revealed how the Israelites are comingling with Ammonites and Moabites, which is expressly forbidden by Scripture due to the role these peoples had played earlier in antagonizing Israel. Starting in verse 23, Nehemiah says: "Moreover, in those days I saw men of Judah who had married women from Ashdod, Ammon and Moab. Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or the language of one of the other peoples, and did not know how to speak the language of Judah. I rebuked them and called curses down on them. I beat some of the men and pulled out their hair."

These two prophets had very different styles. It strikes me that Ezra pulled out his own hair in grief and repentance over the sins of the Israelites. Nehemiah, on the other hand, beat and pulled the hair of the guilty parties!

Both shared the same godly concerns, but what they did about it was expressed in very different ways.

Another interesting example of this phenomenon exists when you compare the books of Haggai and Zechariah. Both are written after the renovation of the Temple stalls, due to external threats and internal dissent among the remnant. Like Nehemiah, Haggai is very brief and to-the-point. His exhortation is fundamentally a kick in the pants. Chapter 1 reports: "Then the word of the Lord came through the prophet Haggai: “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses, while this house remains a ruin?” Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways. You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.” This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways."

The entire book of Haggai is only 2 chapters, 36 short verses.

But Zechariah (one of my personal favorites) is VERY different. He goes on at great length. He has mystical visions and peers through the telescope of time. His exhortation is very inspirational, a pat on the back rather than a kick on the pants. (Yay for we longwinded, poetic, people-pleaser types!)

But his message to the Jews who had stalled is fundamentally the same: God is coming! Let's prepare the way for Him and get His house in order!

All these men were effective, in their different ways. And this leads me to ask: Why does God create (and use) people who are so different from one another?

I think part of the answer is found in 1 Corinthians 12, where Paul reveals that although we are one body in Christ, that body is made up of many very different members. He likens our situation to a physical body when he says:

If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. (1 Cor. 12:15-20)

We do have a tendency to think everyone should be just like us, don't we? But when you realize that God created us very different, and the reason he did so, aren't you glad? Would life be a total unmitigated disaster if everyone was just like you, or exactly like me?

God has created each of us with different functions, gifts, talents, skills, passions, personalities, working styles. This is how the Body of Christ was designed to get things done ... God things, the task that He has set out before us to accomplish!

And when you realize this, and how desperately we need each other, you also must realize how God expects us to respect (and work with) one another. Especially if we are different!

Yes, you and I are VERY different. Aren't you glad?

Here comes the worm, and there goes the shade tree

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Mon, 08 Aug 2016 20:57:00 +0000

A few weeks ago, Pulse (our young adults group) was studying the book of Jonah. Most people focus on the part of the story where the reluctant prophet gets swallowed by a whale; but I felt particularly drawn to the fourth and final chapter in the story.

And as usual, God gave me a poignant, real-life illustration of the principles in His Word.

The fourth chapter finds Jonah, having (finally) fulfilled God's command by walking back and forth among the streets of the ancient world's largest city, Nineveh, proclaiming:

"Forty more days Nineveh will be overthrown."

It was a very simple message God had given him to deliver. God had said in chapter 1, "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." And in chapter 3, after Jonah got barfed up on the beach facing Nineveh, He added: "Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” So that's what Jonah did. And of course the amazing thing that happened as a result was nothing short of the greatest revival in history. Tens of thousands of Ninevites repented of their sin, "from the least to the greatest." Even the king got into sackcloth and ashes. And God in His compassion and mercy decided to spare Nineveh from the promised calamity.

And Jonah was not a happy camper. Chapter 4 details his expression of anger against God for being so gracious to Israel's enemies. Remaining convinced that surely God was mistaken and the repentance was false, he sat up on a hillside above Nineveh to watch and see what would happen.

What happens next in chapter 4 is fascinating, and the point of this blog. Verses 6 through 8 report:

Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”

Why would our gracious and loving God both provide great comfort to make Jonah happy ... then take it away to make him miserable? What was the point?

It's easy to conclude from reading this passage that God is more interested in developing our character than He is in our comfort and happiness. Note that "God provided" both the blessing (the shade tree) and the curse (the worm that chewed it). He used Jonah's resulting discomfort and frustration as an object lesson both on how "the Lord gives and the Lord taketh away" and why compassion is such a key part of God's character (and should be a key part of ours as well).

My Shade Tree

Right before leading this Bible study, I was called to a meeting in our human resources department and informed I was being laid off. For nearly 23 years, God had provided me with a marvelous shade tree, my job at World Vision. I loved it, I was good at it, it brought me great joy and satisfaction, not to mention a decent living. I had planned to retire in about three years or so, after I had accomplished a few more milestones. All was good.

But then, bam, God sent a worm to chew on my shade tree!

So, after studying Jonah 4 I've been asking myself, "What is it in my character that God is seeking to work on through this event?" I'm grateful to God for the many years of beautiful shade. I must be grateful as well for the worm. For both come from His hand.

I've blogged before about how the Hebrew word translated "worm" in chapter 4 is "Tolah," the crimson worm which throughout Scripture is used to represent the Messiah. (For instance, see the Messianic Psalm 22.) Jesus was in some manner in Jonah's worm, which reminds us that He gave up the comforts of heaven to be born as a human baby, to struggle with all the things we struggle with, and ultimately to give up His life on the Cross for our sins.

I'm grateful that God is present in both blessing and comfort, as well as in adversity. Thank you for your prayers as we seek to discern His will in this next phase of our lives together.

Anger

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Tue, 07 Jun 2016 04:45:00 +0000

We're living in a day and age where an outflowing of national anger and disillusionment with broken government promises, increasing bureaucracy and taxation is having a significant impact upon presidential politics. Whether that impact will be negative or positive for our country is hotly debated, and beyond the scope of this Last Word.

What I am concerned about here is the impact that anger has on us personally. And I speak from that of which I know. I was raised by Christian parents, but the general mood in our household was often very angry. My parents fought a lot. Usually they were angry with each other, for a variety of reasons; and sometimes they were angry with us kids. I remember once my mom was very angry with my brother and I about something (I don't remember why; I'm sure we deserved it). She went for the belt to administer a whipping, which she rarely did. As the oldest, I was unfortunately first in line. And she was so angry she didn't realize she was holding the wrong end of the belt when she hit my backside with it. The first (and as it turned out, only) blow landed with the metal buckle coming in contact with the target.

And my mother was instantly horrified when she realized what she had done in anger; she burst into tears and ran off sobbing. It was the last time she ever took a belt to any of us five kids, as far as I know.

The fortunate part of the story for me is that my mom wasn't very strong, and even in her anger the metal belt buckle, while it stung a bit, didn't do much damage!

Some of this anger transferred to me. I had a hard time as a young father not being goaded to anger by my kids, particularly my son, who was very good at doing that. By the time he was 17, he knew exactly what buttons to push to get me pretty much out of control. Once he sent me into a blind rage, and I was so angry I grabbed a telephone (the cordless kind) and launched it at him with all my might. Fortunately he had good reflexes and ducked the missile, which punched a hole right through the drywall of our staircase.

He grabbed some things out of his room and left the house, announcing that he was going to report me to CPS. I probably would have deserved that. I was appalled and dismayed and spent three days just pleading with the Lord to help me get my anger under control. At the end of that time, realizing that through the Lord's empowerment I indeed did have control, if I only had the discipline to exercise it, I vowed I would never be goaded into that kind of anger again. And I have kept that vow to this day, some 15 years later. As a result, my relationship with my son has vastly improved. (Not that he hasn't occasionally tested those limits!)

I realize now (and I probably realized then, to some extent, at least) that my anger was holding me back from becoming the kind of father, and the kind of disciple, God wanted me to become. I am so grateful to be able to look back and see how God has helped me get some victory over this particular broken and sinful aspect of my life. I am hoping that it has not only made me a better dad, but also a better husband, employee, brother in Christ, and citizen. (Now, on to the next big project!)

A Prophet With a Problem

At worship on Sunday I mentioned what I am learning from the book of Jonah. Jonah was a prophet who had a problem with anger. And the Ninevites deserved his anger! They were among the most brutal people ever to inhabit the planet.The records of their horrific brutality, if you read about them in the history books, make you feel ill even now, thousands of years later. I won't go there; I'll just assure you that whatever your imagination can conjure up, what they did to their enemies was worse.

And they didn't like the Hebrews. And the Hebrews didn't like them. Which is why many people think Jonah ran the opposite direction when God told him to go and deliver His message to Nineveh. Wa-a-a-ay in the opposite direction.

But the real reason Jonah ran is revealed in chapter 4:1-4:

But it [God's mercy on the Ninevites after they repented] displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry.² And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”⁴ And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”

The answer to the Lord's question was, of course, "No." But instead of answering, Jonah just sulked. He went and staked out a position on the hillside overlooking the huge city of Nineveh, hoping against hope to see God rain down fire and brimstone on it while he ate popcorn.

It's amazing, when you think about it, that the reason for Jonah's anger was the kindness, grace and mercy of our steadfastly-loving God! In his anger against the Ninevites, Jonah wanted vengeance. He was only all-too-happy to preach God's simple message: "40 days, and Nineveh will be destroyed!" No love lost there, as far as he was concerned.

So Jonah set himself up on the hill, and verse 6 says "the Lord God appointed a plant" that provided shade over Jonah and gave him relief from the heat. And Jonah was glad for the plant. (He'd apparently had enough of discomfort after spending three days and nights in the gastrointestinal tract of a large fish!)

But then our merciful, gracious, and loving God did something very interesting. Verse 7 says that at dawn of the next day, God "appointed a worm" that attacked the plant so that it withered, and Jonah lost his comfy shade. (For the fascinating biblical story behind the worm, check out this blog post.) After the sun rose, "God appointed a scorching east wind" to make Jonah really uncomfortable. And once again, Jonah was angry and "asked that he might die" (You can almost hear him thinking, "I'll show God! We'll see how he feels after His prophet has died of heat stroke.")

The discomfort was of course intended by God as an object lesson for Jonah. "Do you do well to be angry about the plant?" God asked him in verse 8. And Jonah replied, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”

I hope Jonah saw the divine humor in this. God was under no illusions that the Ninevites were model citizens. His view of them was that they did "not know their right hand from their left." Not very flattering, eh? And to drive his point home, God adds: "And also much cattle." Come on, Jonah, at least feel for the cows!

(Something about this reminds me of that strangely hilarious scene in O Brother, Where Art Thou?: "Oh, George! Not the livestock!")

I continue to be blown away by a recognition which I probably share with Jonah that God is so good at love, and I am so bad at it. He is indeed "a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." Thank God He often (probably more often than we know) "relents from disaster," even though we certainly deserve it!

What to do if you struggle with anger?

Do you struggle with anger? Be honest. I don't think I'm alone in this one. We know there is a "righteous anger," an anger at sin and its effects on innocent people, and injustice, and man's inhumanity to man, and so much else that has resulted from the Fall. But how often can our anger truly be counted in this category? Or how often is our anger instead a result of the fact that we haven't gotten what we want or think we are owed? Our anger blinds us. We think we are concerned about a mote in someone else's eye, when our anger has blinded us to the log in our own.

And our anger separates us from the blessings God wants to bestow on us, and through us, to others. My advice is: Deal with it! Lay it before the Cross. Recognize how the blood of Christ absorbed the righteous anger of God, anger at the sin we so willingly partake in. If you need help, get it. Ask brothers and sisters around you to pray for you and hold you accountable. Get professional help if you need it. Please don't wait for God to give you a loving sunburn to drive His point home, as He did with Jonah!

Wanderlust

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 22:30:00 +0000

"Wanderlust" is one of those words I have very mixed emotions about. On the plus side (I think!), I am one of those people who feels drawn to the idea of exploration and road trips and hikes in the wilderness and camping and all those sorts of things. There is a sort of romantic, gypsy feel to the lifestyle of a wanderer. As the popular saying goes, "All who wander are not lost."

On the other hand, half of the word "wanderlust" is not so nice. We usually don't give a positive connotation to the word "lust," do we? (Although I readily admit I unashamedly lust over chocolate!)

One of the young men in Pulse is a young professional with a serious case of wanderlust. Oftentimes he just launches out in his car, driving he knows not where. He usually ends up in another state .. the coast or forests of Oregon, the mountains of Idaho or Montana, or sometimes even further. He just loves to wander. He says it helps him process life. (And eventually, thankfully, he comes back!)

During Jed's maiden voyage to Lake Chelan.

I've confessed to several people that I'm getting to the point in my professional career where I can see a light at the end of the workaday tunnel ... that light which is sometimes called "retirement."

One of the recent symptoms of pre-retirement, for me, is wanderlust. I spent several months researching and then purchasing a nice motorhome (a Jayco Melbourne, built on the popular Mercedes Benz "Sprinter" chassis), and I've been getting it equipped to take on the road. Its maiden voyage was mushroom-hunting in Eastern Washington with my son Nathan, then my wife and I took it to an RV resort in Ocean Shores. For our third trip we visited Gordy and Linda McCoy at lovely Taidnapam (on Riffe Lake), where they serve as camp hosts. They made us breakfast, and we plan to return the favor by going back there tonight and making them dinner.

But I have dreams of going much further. Ultimately we'd like to make our way lazily over to Pennsylvania, for a month or two at a time, where our daughter Mandy, her husband Mike, and our granddaughter Annabelle live. Pennsylvania in the fall is beautiful (full of mushrooms), and there is plenty of space for Jedediah (that's what we named our new motorhome, after the explorer Jedediah Smith) on their small farm there.

From there, we could even explore the eastern coast of the U.S., or divert up into Canada on our way home ... or maybe Iceland ...

Mandy inherited my sense of wanderlust. She and I spent a good portion of the summer of 2006 exploring several nations in Southern Africa, including the Congo. We had a blast, and she went on after that to wander through India and Nepal with a friend. She and Mike also frequently hike places like the Appalachian Trail, and when they visit here later this summer they want to hike a part of the Wonderland Trail around Mt. Rainier. (As do I!)

Where am I going with this meandering word? Well, I've felt vaguely guilty at times about my wanderlust. I know God calls us to be content with where He has placed us, and I love our home, our family, and our friends. I hate missing Elim, even one weekend service. So I've wondered whether my wanderlust may be a sign of ungodly discontentment?

But then I look at my model of godliness, Pastor Martin. There's a guy with some serious wanderlust. He thinks nothing about jumping on his manly motorbike and heading out into the open highway, bugs splattering thickly across his grinning teeth.

If Pastor Martin has wanderlust, it seriously can't be wrong, can it?

Pulse is currently studying the book of Jonah, which I'm enjoying very much. Jonah had a serious case of wanderlust. God said, "Go to Nineveh!" The great city was due northeast of where Jonah lived. So he headed out ... due west, to Joppa. There he boarded a ship for Tarshish, which was WAY west, actually out in Spain on the westernmost edge of the known world!

Jonah was fleeing God, which he discovered (while soaking in bile in the belly of a big fish, buried deep in the Mediterranean Sea) is actually not possible. As David says in Psalm 139:

Where can I go from your Spirit?
   Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
   if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
   if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
   your right hand will hold me fast.

In Jonah 2, the reluctant prophet says: "From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, and you listened to my cry."

If the belly of a big stinky fish in a storm in the ocean isn't "the realm of the dead," I'm not sure what is! Once the fish barfed Jonah out upon the beach, pointed toward Nineveh, he thankfully started heading in the right direction. (There's nothing like a little fresh air to clear your thoughts after three days and nights in the realm of the dead!)

I think the important thing for me (by way of admonition to those who, like me, have a bad case of wanderlust) is this: Are we running TOWARD God, or AWAY FROM Him?

There's nothing wrong with travel. But when we travel, are we making it a priority to connect with other believers in worship? Are we ensuring that our home church has our financial support while we are gone? And are we staying connected with those (at home) we are in community with, through whatever means are at our disposal? (Ahem, social media, cough, cough ...)

And is our motivation for running away, getting away from something that God wants us to deal with? Instead of simply dealing with it?

Christ frequently wandered into the wilderness, even amidst the pressing demands of ministry. But He was running TOWARD the voice of His Father, who was drawing Him to solitude for the sake of their fellowship together. Does our wandering have the same aim?

Three Hands, Three Strands

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 01:08:00 +0000

The associate pastor at our church, Brian Sharpe, has created a booklet called "Three Hands," with the help of some others on our communications team. The artwork on the cover is a bit goofy and I've made fun of it a lot (insert comment about living too close to Hanford Nuclear Reservation here), but the foundational idea, while simple, is incredibly important.

The booklet looks at the lives of some of those who were called, in the first century A.D., to "lean into" the task of taking the life-changing Gospel ("good news") of Jesus outward from their home villages and spreading it so that the world might be changed. This obviously took an incredible amount of passion, and conviction, and selflessness, and courage, all gifts brought from the empowerment of the Holy Spirit who fell upon Christ's disciples in Acts 2. Specifically, it looks at the Apostle Paul, and Timothy, and Barnabus, three men who made an incredible contribution to the spread of the Gospel. And more specifically, it looks at the relationship between them, and draws some simple ideas from what we see there.

Paul's mentoring of Timothy was obviously incredibly important. It was far more than the relationship between student and teacher; it was discipleship. Paul frequently said, even as Jesus did, "Those things you see me do, go and do those things." He modeled what New Testament life was supposed to be about, then encouraged others to follow the model.

And how does Barnabus fit in? One of the key things you see in Acts and beyond is that men like Paul rarely went out "on their own." They partnered with someone who could provide strength and encouragement. Ecclesiastes 4:12 says:

And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.

The truth is, we are too often alone ... and too often, inevitably, overpowered! The Christian life wasn't designed to be lived alone. It was designed to be lived in partnership with brothers and sisters. Too many Christians in this "cowboy" culture we live in here in the U.S. simply blow off "church." They don't need anybody, they can go it alone. But truth be told, our need for others is far more significant than we know. We need that brother and sister who can tell us the truth when we need to hear it, or can give words of encouragement when that is what we need. We need others to "stir us up to love and good works," as Hebrews 10:24 says.

A two-stranded cord is far better than one.

But wait ... that's not what Ecclesiastes says, is it? Oh, of course not! Duh. The third strand represents He who enters into our fellowship, and interweaves His life with ours. The Third Strand alone is unbreakable ... so any rope with it woven firmly into place is a rope that should surely hold under even the greatest pressure!

So, back to the three hands: On that goofy cover I told you about, one hand is reaching downward, one reaching upward, and one to the side. The hand reaching up reminds us that we all need to have a mentor who can disciple us and prepare us for what God has assigned. Even Paul spent something like three years learning from others and getting prepared for his public ministry.

And we should all be willing to pour what we have learned into others, for our faith is just one generation away from extinction and we must not be the ones who fail to pass it down! The hand reaching down reminds us that we should all have "Timothys" in our lives who we are pouring ourselves into. We should be showing (with our lives, not just saying with our lips), and we should be working toward a specific goal (as Paul did), to release those we mentor into ministry once they are ready.

And finally, we all need Barnabuses. (Barnabi?) I have a close friend in California named John whom I met my first year of college. Our friendship has continued to grow since then, and there has been many a time when we have needed and depended on each other. Often he is a Paul, and I a Timothy; and sometimes it may be the other way around. But always, we are Barnabuses, to whatever extent we can be, separated by 1,200 miles!

Brian asks, Who is your Paul? Who is your Timothy? Who is your Barnabus? There are no hard-and-fast rules, and this may be a season when all three relationships are not operating in our lives right now. But we should always be on the lookout for who God might bring our way. And we must never neglect "the assembling of ourselves together" and simply putting ourselves "out there" in places where we can impact (and be impacted by) the lives of others! Are you allowing God to weave that three-stranded cord in your life?

Lessons From Esther

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 19:08:00 +0000

Elim’s young adult group, Pulse, is nearing the completion of a study of Esther. In case you’re unfamiliar with the story, it takes place in post-exile Persia (formerly Babylon). Freed from captivity, about 60,000 Jews have emigrated back to the Jerusalem area to rebuild the Temple and pick their lives back up as God’s people living in their Land.

Esther denounces Haman, by British painter Ernest Normand.

But what many people don’t realize is that at least 10 times that many Jews willingly chose to stay behind in Persia. Why? After 70 years, it was home. They were used to it. They were rebuilding comfortable lives and businesses. Almost everything was going well.

Almost. There was a strong anti-Jewish sentiment among many of the Persians. The Jews’ “strange” ways, coupled with their business acumen, caused many to look down upon them in envy and disapproval. (Sound familiar?)

One man in particular bore a grudge. His name was Haman, and he was descended from a group of pagans who were almost wiped out more than a century earlier (at God’s command) by Saul. The fact that Saul compromised and didn’t completely obey God resulted in Haman later rising to power as prime minister to the king of Persia, Xerxes (or Ahaseurus), and harboring a secret hatred of the Jewish people who had almost wiped out his forefathers.

In ancient Persia, much as it is today, money translated to political power, and Haman had lots of it. And he used his capital to trick the king into signing a death warrant against all Jews remaining in Persia.

Mordecai and his cousin Esther were two of those Jews. And it just so happened that King Xerxes, after banishing a queen who had disrespected him, fell in love with the beautiful Esther and chose her to be his queen. Xerxes didn’t realize, of course, when he signed Haman’s paperwork, that he was giving Haman permission to put his own wife to death!

The book of Esther never even once mentions God, but it is a book full of “coincidences” that clearly show God’s power to order circumstances (even very difficult circumstances) to bring about His will. And His will was (and is) the protection and salvation of His people.

One such “coincidence” was the elevation of Mordecai to favor with the king, even as his death was being plotted by Haman, because of his role revealing a plot against the king by his bodyguards. Mordecai also revealed the plot against the Jews to Esther, and urged her to plead their case before the king. She knew that to do so was to risk death, for anyone approaching the king without being called would be summarily executed if he didn’t intervene. Mordecai challenges Esther with these famous words: “Who knows but that you have come to your royal position for just such a time as this?” And Esther’s classic, courageous response: “Tell everyone to fast for me for three days, and on the third day I will approach the king. And if I perish, I perish.”

The king spares Esther’s life, and she definitely gets his attention. Even so, she doesn’t immediately reveal her request; she waits. Why?

God’s timing is perfect! In waiting, Mordecai is elevated to power, and Haman is shown for the schemer he is. Once Esther finally reveals her request (that the king spare her life and the lives of her people), Haman’s plot is undone. He finds himself instead skewered upon the pole which he had planned for Mordecai’s demise. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

There are so many lessons in this book, it’s hard to choose one, but let me list three favorites:

When life’s circumstances become difficult, we can trust that God is behind the scenes, working, even if we can’t see Him. He is for us, and Paul's words in Romans 8:28 are true: “We know that in all things God works for the good for those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”
There is tremendous power in waiting upon the Lord. Esther waited until the moment was right and God said, “Go.” His power is seen in the perfection of His timing.
Like the Jews in Persia, in many ways we Christians have become a little too comfortable living in a land that is not our home. In the process, we have in some ways become a stench in the nostrils of the people of this land. There are Hamans here who seek our destruction, but God knows their hearts and will ultimately skewer them upon their own devices.

I am so grateful we have an all-powerful God who is for us, and who is working behind the scenes to secure our salvation from the plots of the enemy! May God help us to learn to wait on Him!

Reprinted from Elim EV Free Church's The Last Word leadership blog on March 3, 2016.

On peacemaking and self-defense

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Thu, 28 Jan 2016 06:56:00 +0000

Thank you to everyone for the kind words and gracious support of Jason Comerford and I as we co-taught on Matthew 5:9, "Blessed are the peacemakers," last Sunday.

I always feel, after preaching, like way more needed to be said about a specific passage than I actually had time and space to say. And I think I felt this more acutely last Sunday morning than I ever have before.

21 Ethiopian Christians laid down
their lives for Christ and were beheaded
by ISIS in Libya in early 2015.

After the sermon a friend challenged my assertion that "peacemaking sometimes involves the use of force." Now, I believe this is fundamentally true. Dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an incredibly violent act, but it brought a forceful end to a war that most historians believe would have dragged on for several more years, costing hundreds of thousands more Allied and possibly millions of Japanese lives in the process.

Jesus, the Ultimate Peacemaker, paid the Ultimate Price for peace between us and God. And that price was a violent death on the Cross. The cost of true peace is sometimes very high.

At the very end of our time together, Sebastian asked what Jesus meant by His statement, "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have come not to bring peace, but a sword" (Matthew 10:34). Is this a justification for violence? Are Christians to wage Crusades in order to propagate an enforced peace throughout the world? If the answer to this question is "Yes," then how are we any different than fundamentalist Muslims who believe that Sharia and the Caliphate must be ushered in by acts of terrorist violence?

I think the answer to these difficult questions lies in the Cross, and the example of Christ as He approached it. We must understand that the Cross was an incredibly violent and ultimately unjust act: sinful man crucifying an innocent and sinless God.

After He was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, seeing that Peter had pulled out a sword and was seeking violently to defend His Lord, Jesus said: “Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?” (Matthew 26:52-54)

Jesus said He had the power to call down at least "twelve legions" of angels ... and in terms of the Roman Army, a legion was at least 6,000 soldiers, and often more. So 12 legions of angels would be at least 72,000 angels.

The question is, how powerful is one angel? One clue can be found in Isaiah 37:36 ...

Then the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies!

You heard that right ... one angels singlehandedly defeated 185,000 soldiers in one night. Doing a little math therefore shows you that 72,000 angels should be able to successfully take on an army of at least 13 and a third billion soldiers!

No doubt this gave Christ a comfortable margin of error if He did indeed choose to fight that small handful of Roman soldiers rather than submit to the Cross.

And I think that's the whole point. Even though He had the power to defend Himself, Jesus willingly accepted the violence of the Cross, "for the joy set before Him" and because it was the will of His Father. True peacemaking is willing to pay the price!

Peacemakers don't go out and take up a sword in order to forcefully institute some sort of Kingdom of God on earth. Instead of taking up a sword, they take up a cross. They lay down their lives.

Armed with knives and guns, a group of ISIS terrorists marched a group of 21 Ethiopian Christian men out onto a beach in Libya in early 2015. They forced them to their knees, then beheaded them.

Who were the peacemakers in this scenario? Jesus told Peter, "Those who draw the sword will die by the sword." Those 21 Christian martyrs entrusted their lives to Jesus.

I have a close friend, the husband of a coworker at World Vision, who was kidnapped by Communist rebels in Ethiopia when he was a young man in a Christian high school there. He and 90 other Christian students were lined up along a ditch, their hands tied behind their backs. Terrorists pointed machine guns at them and ordered to recant their faith in Jesus. "Deny the name of Christ, and live," they were told.

Eighty-one of the students recanted. My friend was one of nine who refused to do so.

Thank God it was a false threat. These young people were beaten and tortured, but not killed. Later, the government of Ethiopia, at the urging of the leadership of that Christian school, found and rescued alive those 90 students. Today my friend is an evangelist who preaches Christ to crowds in the tens of thousands in his homeland of Ethiopia. In obedience to the Gospel, he was willing to lay down his life for the name of Christ, and Jesus chose to give it back to him to use as He saw fit.

Blessed are the peacemakers. My friend is one of the most blessed people I know.

How about us? Jesus may give us the power, the capacity, to defend ourselves against evil. Will we use it? Or will we choose to "take up our cross" and trust Him instead? That's what true peacemakers do.

Blessed

noreply@blogger.com (Larry Short) — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 22:09:00 +0000

"Father blessing son at The Wall." Available at
www.blueandwhiteart.com/shop/html/783.html

We Christians use the word "blessed" (or a form of it) frequently. "Have a blest day!" we shout across the fence to our neighbor. If a co-worker in cubicle-land sneezes, we automatically intone "Bless you!" often before we even know who has sneezed.

It's one of those Christian-ese sort of words that we may use a little too easily without really even thinking about, or perhaps understanding, it's meaning.

This may partly be because "blessing" falls halfway into that category of "old-fashioned" words, like caterwauling, gobbledegook, willy-nilly or supercilious.

But it's also a word you'll find frequently in Scripture, at least in most versions, and it appears repeatedly in the first nine verses of Christ's famous "Sermon on the Mount" in Matthew 5.

(By the way, the "Sermon on the Mount" wasn't really a sermon, or something preached, so much as it was something taught. Rabbis typically stood up to preach, and sat down to teach, and Matthew 5:1 says that after Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on the mountain and sat down, and His disciples came to him. We don't know how large the crowds were, and whether they all followed him up the mountain or not; but we do know he had at least 72 and perhaps as many as 500 or more disciples.)

In the Greek, the word translated as "blessed" in Matthew 5 is makarios, which literally means to be happy or blissful. Some versions even use "Happy are you" rather than "Blessed are you." However, one still walks away with a general sense that "Blessed" is far more than simply experiencing happiness. The Amplified Bible defines "blessed" as "spiritually calm with life-joy in God's favor." I like the addition of "life-joy in God's favor" to the "blessed" equation. I also like the way "spiritually calm" conveys a sense of inner peace and tranquility.

I've never been to the island of Cyprus. World Vision has an office there and I'd love to visit sometime. The Greeks associated the island of Cyprus with makarios, because of its geographical location, perfect climate, and fertile soil. It was thought that anyone living on Cyprus had it "made in the shade."

To the contrary, says Harvest Fellowship's Greg Laurie, the biblical sense of makarios is independent of one's circumstances and surroundings. This is self-evident even within the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5:10 says "Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness. The circumstance of persecution is a highly negative one. Surely one could not associate the word "happy" with those Christians who were used as human torches in Nero's gardens.

For Christ, peacemaking entailed a horrific cost (death on the cross). And yet, as the ultimate Peacemaker, he was blessed! Hebrews 12:2 tells us that, "For the joy set before him, [Jesus] endured the cross, despising its shame." The Cross itself wasn't a happy thing, it was instead a thing to be endured and despised. But the joy that was set before him was obedience to the Father and the knowledge of what would happen as a result of Christ's sacrifice — that his blood would be the price paid to reconcile you and I to God! He purchased for Himself a people. The joy set before him was the long view, the result of his peacemaking sacrifice, the knowledge of what the cost he was willing to pay would purchase.

The point is that true blessing isn't always "happy happy, joy joy." It sometimes comes with pain. But that pain can be endured if we take the long view and behold with solemn faces the reward that is promised as a result of the beatitude.

Peacemaking isn't by nature fun. It can be very difficult and very painful and very costly. But it is worth it, and the result is blessing: self-contained "life-joy in God's favor" as we trust Him to bring it to fruition in His good timing.