the judge

I haven’t heard the words ‘accept Christ’ for years. I thought that that terminology was dead. It’s not part of the language of the world we live in today and it’s not post Christianity which is where most people live these days. 

Last night I heard someone say that they wished so and so would accept Christ.  I’ve used those words myself a long time ago and I assume they meant that they want someone to say Jesus’ name with their lips.

I’ve been thinking about this all day. Here are my thoughts about speaking Jesus’ name with ones lips. It comes from the Bible verse in Romans - “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” I don’t think we can judge others and their hearts. How the heck can I say that this person or that person knows Jesus? How can I say that? And then add in the element of time, and maybe they do or don’t confess His name today but maybe it switches tomorrow? So, although I personally like this verse, I don’t think it was intended for us to make mental lists of who does and doesn’t do this. We cannot read other people’s heart or their heads, only God can and when we try to do that, we are trying to be like God. I don’t know who around me truly seeks a living and moving omnipresence. I am not the judge (especially after reading the Shack); I don’t want to be and well, am just not the judge for others when it comes to who has and who has not accepted Jesus.

the gala

Last night Michael and I went to the Doernbecher Gala. We had a lot of fun and came home with a few auction items that we purchased. I got a ceramic gift certificate, a pampered chef basket and a pear bowl. 

Here's the table. There were about 500+ people there with tables for 10 all around the room. They did a dynamite job with the decoration. It hardly looked like a convention center. 

Here's Michael and I in front of the Corvette that was auctioned off. Michael ended up wearing his suit which turned out to be kind of a mistake. Every other man there was in a tux. O well, we'll have him in a tux next time. I still thought he was the most handsome guy there. 

Here's our table. We had steak for dinner and really enjoyed ourselves. Only, next time Michael will be in a tux. I still love you though babe!!!

This is a black-tie event.

Michael and I are going to the Doernbecher Gala on Saturday. The Gala is at the Oregon Convention Center and is raising funds for their pediatric emergency department. Currently, they have a doctor who specializes in pediatrics available from 11:00 am – 11:00 pm. Their goal is have one 24 hours a day. They also are hoping to make some improvements to their pediatric wing at OHSU.  

The invitations states that this is a black- tie event. Michael and I were going to donate $150 to the cause. A tiny sliver in their bucket of need for 5 million dollars, but every cent counts right? Well, it’ll cost us $150 to rent Michael a tux for evening and so we’re faced with the obvious – Do we rent Michael a tux and forgo the tiny donation or do we dress him up in a nice suit (that we already have) and give the $150 to Doernbecher?

I normally would just give the money to Doernbecher. Of all the Gala's Michael and I have been to, we've never rented him a tux before, no matter what the dress code was but this time it feels like we need to just because we're sitting with some major players and they will be in tuxes. Not everyone will be in a tux and my boss won't, but it's kinda stressing me out a little bit. I didn’t think it would be as big of a deal. I do not want to offend anyone by our dress but I feel the money should go to the children and not to Men’s Warehouse. Make sense?

Investors, Brokers, God, and the Regular Person

Investors like results. They want the market to go up. They understand that a healthy market goes up and down but they expect in the long run for it to go up. Ever since the market starting to tank, investors have been nervous and now they just want out.

Brokers understand that there must be money in the market for the market to get more money. When investors pull their money out, it’s bad news for the market, so a broker is going to tell an investor to keep their money in the market. 

Investors have ultimate control over their money and since most of them have type A personalities, they want to do things the way that they want to do them. If they want out, they’re gonna get out.

The rest of us don’t really want to have anything to do with wall street. It is frustrating enough to witness the greed and to watch a ton of people dressed to the hilt throw money around as if it weren’t real money.

In the middle of this sinking ship, witnessing panic on people’s faces, reading about some people take their own lives instead of face whatever is next, hearing reports of uncertainty, knowing friends who have lost jobs, and knowing that there is no guarantee in this life, what is the regular person supposed to do?

We trust God. We trust that He is faithful and will deliver on His promises of eternal life and no need of worry. I think sometimes we trust God with yellow caution tape strapped around our trust but I think this is a good thing. A lot of people thought that God was blessing them when they were approved a few years ago by a bank for a home loan. A home that eventually would foreclose on them and would foreclose on their faith as well. A lot of people thought that God was blessing them with income that they spent on items they didn’t need only to lose their job this week and not have any savings. I think the caution around trusting God is good, because well, this might sound a little weird but, I think that a great goal of the evil beast or Satan is to shade our perspective so that we either think we’re right in our faith or we think we’re trusting in God when we’re not. I think the caution around trust in God is wisdom.

When investors don’t have money or aren’t making money, money stops circulating. When money stops circulating, everything slows down. I’m not a Christian who thinks God wants us to slow down. I think that God has no problem keeping up with a fast pace. It’s just how the economy works.

I work best when I put my trust in God. I think for me that my biggest trust in God is when I am obedient to authority that I disagree with. I'm not talking about being a door mat, I'm talking about trying new things, learning that my personal experience isn't sufficient to guide me to all of the right answers. I must rely on others and I must rely on God and I want to. I enjoy life when I accept and am content with where I am, so that's what I, as just a regular person, am hoping to do at this point in our history when things are looking bleak and looking like they are only going to get bleaker. 

The Shack by William Young

I got to read the Shack on Saturday. Michael was in training all day for ski patrol and I was on the mountain with him so I had about 8 hours to occupy myself with. I had heard that the book was good enough to read in one sitting so I had been waiting to start it until I knew I had the time to finish it. 

The book was really interesting to me. I definitely liked it, but I feel like I need to read it again to understand more of what it was talking about. I would say that the main drift of it was for the reader to have a broader, non Christian understanding of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit and it really does deliver. The book also talks about something that it calls 'the great sadness.' The great sadness has come over this one man who lost his young daughter to a horrible murder in a shack 4 years before returning to it to meet God. I could really relate to 'the great sadness.' There's so much hurt in the world and this man had every right to be living in a great sadness after what happened to his daughter. His journey thru knowledge, understanding, and eventually peace was an incredible read. I also liked the way God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit interacted with him and with each other. I feel like I learned a lot which is probably why I want to read it again. 

The Bailout Dilemma

I am against the bailout.

I’m not against giving money to high profile businesses, nor am I against having ideas like this on the congress floor, nor am I against keeping our economy booming.

I am against giving money away that we don’t have to begin with; I’m against the debt. If we had this amount cash sitting in our treasury, I would be all for this bill. I like the bill itself, if we could afford it.  

 

Once this bill passes (and it will eventually) we will have a short future of economic growth. The stock market may be dramatic for a while, but over a few years, it will slowly creep up. Business will go on as usual and some profits will be made. People will start spending money; life will move along steadily.

 

And then a black day will come. The day when China (or whichever nation is lending to us at the time) wants their money back from us, at a high interest rate and we will not be able to give it to them. And if we aren't borrowing the money but just take $700 billion from our own dollar, than our nation's inflation will be outrageous. The great depression seemed dramatic? Try the great reversal. We will be the developing nation. It will happen overnight with high profile people and then slowly trickle down to everyone else.

 

So, what do we do with the bill? There will be some major economic consequences if this bill does not pass. Major. I am not arguing that. But this is part of a free market. Regardless of the causes that got us into the situation that we are in today, we’re here. We (us who caused it and us who did not) need to pay the consequences of where we are at.

We need banks and loans. I do get this. We have to have the option of borrowing for economic growth; without a bank, a country will not prosper. TIME did a recent article on why India has seen some economic success, compared with African nations and why they have not seen success. The answer in the article was simple- India set up a banking system and Africa has depended on Foreign Aid. (Which BEGS the question of how much good foreign aid actually does.) Banks are what we must have and I do believe this bill will help the banks, but there has to come a point in time where we stop depreciating the value of the dollar with enormous debt and start being real with money again and start to ask what can we really afford?