Author: Tim

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Don’t Lose Sight of the Big Picture

About 7 months after joining the Air Force, I washed out of SERE Specialist training. My knees couldn’t cope with the physical rigors of the job, and I wasn’t allowed to continue to the next level of training. I’m not gonna lie, it was a rough time for me. It was probably the first real time in my life that I failed to achieve something I’d set out to do.

Fast forward through all the self pity, and I decided to stay in the Air Force but train to do something else. I decided on a role in intelligence. After the paperwork came through, I transferred from Fairchild Air Force Base (AFB) in Washington State to Goodfellow AFB, Texas.

It was a tough adjustment. Everything about the change was difficult. I went from an environment where I had been given a lot of freedom, trust, and responsibility to an environment where I was given virtually none of that. Most of the students at this base were fresh out of Basic Training, and needed a high degree of supervision, whereas I did not. The water in the area (and as a result, everything cooked in or prepared with the water) tasted gross. We were in the middle of two wars at the time, and in order to maintain sufficient student throughput the training programs involved multiple shifts of teaching each day. The base’s population seemed like it was maxed out. There weren’t enough dorms to put all the bodies, so they had to re-open old ones or put off shutting down dorms that were scheduled to be shuttered. Chow halls were open at midnight to accommodate those in class at night (or preparing for class to start). Students were sleeping, exercising, and attending classes at all hours of the day to try to maximize the facilities available.

I eventually adjusted, but it wasn’t a fun place to be. Goodfellow AFB is in a town called San Angelo. This place is about three hours from any big city. It’s a fantastic place to live if you’re raising a young family or enjoy a slower pace of life. Like, no kidding, people just pull out camp chairs and hang out in the Walmart parking lot on Friday nights (or at least they did when I was stationed there). The locals there love the military, and are truly wonderful folks. Most of the Airmen that came to Goodfellow, however, came there because the Air Force sent them there to learn a new job, and most of those people were young, single, and got bored easily. When young single people get bored, it usually leads to trouble. We had people get in trouble for underage drinking, breaking curfew, “inappropriate relations,” leaving base when they weren’t supposed to, and just about anything else you could imagine. One of my classmates even attempted suicide.

Between my time spent in college and the time I’d already chalked up elsewhere in the military, this was about year number five of dorm life for me, so you can imagine how it was getting old by this time. I figured out early in my stay at San Angelo that my sole purpose, the only reason in the world that Uncle Sam had sent me to this place, was to learn the core skills and knowledge I’d need for doing my job once I got to subsequent duty stations. As far as I was concerned, it was in my own best interest to hunker down, do well in class, and graduate on time. All else was secondary, and graduating was the fastest way to get out of there. I had already done a lot of the growing up that many of my fellow students still needed to do, so I saw things differently than many of them did.

Since the weeks were spent in an oppressive military environment, I spent a lot of time on weekends away from the base, at the nearest skydiving drop zone I could find. The drop zone was about an hour and a half away. Since there wasn’t much else to do except hang out with someone that would probably end up getting in trouble, the long trips weren’t such a bad thing. It would have been easy to just sneak away and not tell anybody what I was doing, but I had seen so many people get in trouble over stupid stuff that I decided it was better to just play by the rules. I went and got permission from our squadron commander to go skydiving. Every Friday before my weekend excursions I would go and get the same stupid safety brief from people that had no idea what kind of safety tips to brief me on when it came to skydiving. I got the dumb paperwork saying that I had received the brief and kept it on file. I did it right.

By the end of my time at Goodfellow, I had numerous classmates that had gotten themselves into some kind of trouble. One had some kind of security violation. Another one got administratively punished for violating something or other. One got pregnant and wasn’t sure for awhile who the father was. Because of my mindset that I was only going to be here for a short time and that the best course of action was to focus on my purpose for being there, I managed to avoid a lot of the headaches and hassles that a lot of other people got caught up in. I forfeited a lot of the “good times” that others took part in, but in hindsight, I really didn’t miss out on much. There was plenty of time for fun stuff after moving on from there.

A lot of Christians remind me of my former classmates in certain ways. They forget why they’re here and start focusing on things that don’t have lasting impact. Being a Christian isn’t just a Sunday morning proposition. After getting saved, we’ve really only got one objective in our lives: glorify God by taking part in the purpose He’s placed us here for and equipped us to do. I know that task often lacks clarity. It usually ends up being a question that takes patience to receive an answer to. That’s why many stop asking.

There are a lot of rules in the Bible (do this, don’t do that, strive for this, etc.), but they’re there for a reason. I’m not advocating for legalism, but if you live according to the way scripture says you should live, you usually lead a life that isn’t full of complications, which enables you to focus on your objective better. It would have been easier for me to just drive off base on Saturday mornings and go skydiving without having to jump through all those administrative hoops, and I probably would’ve gotten away with it most of the time. All it would’ve taken was one time getting caught, and it could have resulted in restriction to base or other privileges being revoked. Those hoops were a headache, but they weren’t hard. Doing the right thing was worth it, because it allowed me to pursue my goals while staying out of trouble.

This life is a flash in the pan. It’s over so fast. I’m not saying you should stay home in a corner praying or only wearing clothes made from camel hair your whole life. Quite the opposite, our joy in Christ is supposed to be evident to all. What I’m saying is that God arranged for your life to be powerful and meaningful in its ability to bring glory to His name, and that it’s up to you how much of that potential you want to fulfill. Use the gifts and talents God’s blessed you with. If you ditch the distractions, you can run your race well and “graduate on time” (hopefully, “with honors”). There will be time for lots of fun and celebration, but that comes after passing the tests and doing the hard work. Don’t be distracted from doing what you were put here to do.

God, it is absolutely unbelievable how You’ve interwoven our lives and how the faithful use of our gifts can impact each other and the world. I know that the vast majority of us won’t live up to our full potential for Christian obedience to Your call, please forgive us for that. Help us be sensitive to the opportunities we still have left to honor Your name, and give us the clarity, wisdom, and boldness to pursue what You’d have us do. I ask these things in Your name, Amen.

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What’s the Difference Between the Rapture and the Second Coming?

The world is generally out of control right now. We’ve got wars in Ukraine and Israel, mass looting in cities, economic uncertainty in lots of countries, the breakdown of law and order, dissolution of America’s southern border, and general unrest all over the place. It’s natural to wonder if we’re in the period the Bible refers to as the Tribulation.

Well, the short answer is that unless a ton of people have already up and vanished without a trace, the answer is “no.” If you’re not one to do a lot of Bible reading, or even to connect certain parts of the Bible, it’s easy to jumble together a lot of the events related to the natural end of time (the part where God decides He’s had enough and shows up in a big way).

There are two major cataclysmic events at the end that will stop people in their tracks. The first is the Rapture. This is where Christ comes back from Heaven to pull His people (the Church) out of the world. This is a removal of the faithful, sparing them from the turmoil that’s about to take place. If some major fraction of humanity has up and vanished and that fraction doesn’t include you…no matter what sort of explanation is provided (I’m guessing aliens and UFOs), take a closer look at who’s disappeared. There’s sure to be a lot of confusion initially, but when the dust starts to settle and a clearer picture emerges, you’ll see that they’re all Christians. I’d guess that this linkage will try to be hidden, so you may have to go looking for evidence to connect the dots on your own. Yes, there will be church-going people, even clergy members, that did not disappear, and they’ll be hit with a hard truth: they did not have a saving relationship with Christ as Lord of their lives. People of other religions, along with other people of fine morals, good people, will also remain. The Christians’ disappearance will hasten the downward spiral of humanity. The churchgoers are the ones slowing humanity’s decay right now (October 2023), but once they’re gone, it’s a whole new chapter in the progression of unspeakable evil. It’s as though God says “I’ve been telling you for millennia how to live, and you rejected me this whole time. You know what? Fine. Have it your way. See how that goes for you.” The good news here is that there’s still time to embrace Christ.

The second event is Christ’s Second Coming. Moments after the Rapture all the Christians will have disappeared, but by the time of the Second Coming, seven years after the Rapture, more people will have become Christians. They’ll still have to endure some very difficult circumstances, but they’ll have the hope of Christ. For everyone else still on the planet, they’ll face a reckoning. At this point everybody starts to realize the jig is up, that there’s no getting out of this one, and that they should have paid more attention to what they heard earlier about Christ forgiving sins. Now it’s too late to change their minds.

There’s no question that these two events are easy to get blended together, but here’s a list put together by the late Dr. Norman Geisler to help separate them out. They give the reader a better picture of some of history’s final events. I have to warn you that some of these are a little tricky and don’t say much at first glance, but a study bible helps see beyond the face value, the deeper meaning, of the verse in question.

If the rapture hasn’t happened yet, study these verses and the ones near them so you can better understand what’s happening as events unfold. If the rapture already took place and you’re still around to read this, it’s even more important to get your hands on a bible (preferably a study bible that has additional notes and context on what the verses mean). If you believe the entire bible, you believe that Satan and his fallen angels exist. Well, they can read it too, and they know what’s coming. In my mind, I believe that’s why UFO activity has been ramping up in the past few years. These fallen angels are setting the stage to have a plausible explanation for the mass disappearance of a significant percentage of humanity. “They were abducted! They had to have been abducted, there’s simply no other explanation!” It’ll be quite the coincidence that a lot of those abducted people loved Jesus. Once that common thread gets out, don’t be surprised if you also hear things like “see what happens to people that follow Jesus? Let’s round up all the bibles and other commentaries about it and destroy them before this happens again!”

Anyway, we’re not in the Tribulation yet, but it increasingly seems like it’s not too far away. Think of this as an opportunity to focus your studies of God’s word on what’s coming.

Lord, if this blog is still around after the Rapture has occurred, I pray for those reading this. They’re dealing with mass fear, confusion, and many types of hardship that are turning or will turn their lives upside down. I pray that this post will help point them to You and the truth, that they would embrace You as Lord. As they approach the end of history, may You be glorified, God. I pray these things in Your name, Amen.

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Every dog has its day. We do, too.

I know a married couple that has two dogs. One of the dogs, Maggie, is on the older side at this point and was rescued from the streets earlier in her life. She lives in a safe environment now, but you can still see echoes of that dark phase (she doesn’t do well with loud noises, she’s quick to bare her teeth when she feels even the slightest bit insecure, etc.).

For the other one, “massive” is the best way to describe him. Murphy is a bull mastiff. He’s so big he doesn’t even realize how much room he takes up and how his size affects others. He’s lived in a safe place his whole life, and between his secure upbringing and his sheer mass, there’s not much he’s afraid of. He’s a confident dog.

Murphy’s size dictates what others in his life can do nearby.

The two are an odd pair, but from a security perspective, they do a great job. If Maggie even thinks she hears something outside, she starts barking away, hanging back from whatever’s happening but alerting everyone else to it. Murphy, curious to see what Maggie’s barking about, silently gets up and walks to investigate, moving directly toward the potential danger. I’ve personally seen a distracted delivery driver recoil in surprise as he dropped off a package near the door, only to look up and see a  175+ lb monster looking back at him with a cocked head through the storm door.

Maggie starts barking because she’s afraid. Murphy walks toward the danger because he’s not afraid. Imagine having that kind of confidence.

For most of us, I’d say we’re probably not often afraid of physical dangers. We’re more afraid of things that might happen. Particularly in our spiritual walks, it’s easy to be distracted by things that simply aren’t true. “What if God stops loving me?” “What if I lose my salvation because I can’t stop sinning?”

I don’t really believe it would be in our best interest to impersonate a bull mastiff, but we can take a lesson from the traits he displays. Our confidence and assurance are not to come from ourselves, but from one we can depend on even more than ourselves. Here are some Bible verses to help remind you about the confidence you’re entitled to as a Christian:

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. -Hebrews 4:16

But let us who live in the light be clearheaded, protected by the armor of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our salvation. -1Thessalonians 5:8

so that we confidently say, “The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What will man do to me?”-Hebrews 13:6

In the fear of the Lord there is strong confidence, and his children will have refuge. –Proverbs 14:26

By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. -1 John 4:17

For You are my hope; O Lord God, You are my confidence from my youth. –Psalm 71:5

This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. -1 John 5:14

For the Lord will be your confidence, and will keep your foot from being caught. –Proverbs 3:26

Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. –Hebrews 10:35

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. –Philippians 1:6

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Explainer: Government Shutdowns and House Turmoil

The news cycle is so short these days that this post already feels like old news. It’s been in the headlines a lot lately, but what exactly is a government shutdown? You may already know a lot of this, so if you’re pretty up to speed on the subject, feel free to skip ahead a bit.

It’s not totally realistic to compare a federal budget to a household budget, but we’ll start there. Whatever sources of income you have…that’s the money you have available to spend. If you spend more than you take in, you’re running at a deficit and you end up going into debt if you keep it up. For the average Jane or Joe, you can’t just continually spend at a deficit and go further into debt without running into some serious problems. If you die with debt, the debt still exists somewhere and gets passed along somehow. The federal government, so the argument goes, never actually has to pay off its debt because unlike a normal citizen, the government doesn’t actually die. The thinking here is that you can keep running at a deficit indefinitely.

That might be true if the debt was kept at reasonable levels or if you have years every now and then where you pay some off. Unfortunately, our government loves to SPEND money. We spend money on things that are necessary (interstate highways, a military, disaster relief, etc.), and we spend money on things whose value is more difficult to identify. We spend a lot of money on special projects that don’t benefit anyone other than constituents of specific political districts.

Our politicians, like others around the world, do what they have to do in order to remain in power. In our case, the House of Representatives is in charge of putting forth the budget every year. Representatives in Congress run for reelection every two years (meaning they’re constantly either in a campaign or are preparing for one), so they look for opportunities to throw extra money at organizations in their Congressional district in an attempt to gain favor, and to have something positive to point at in their next campaign season. We’ve got 435 Representatives, so you can imagine how, with each of them trying to throw a little extra green at their home district, this quickly adds up to numbers that extend way beyond the basic budget.

Now, here’s a curveball. Most of the drama leading up to a shutdown is intentional. Everybody (especially those in Congress) knows that there’s wasteful spending in the federal budget. You could argue that the fairest thing to do is to cut all the extra pork out of the budget, but that will also affect representatives differently. Because it’s a complicated issue, most Reps opt not to change what’s already been decided. Our Representatives in the House know that if they avoid taking meaningful action until very late in the process, it builds pressure on the entire body to approve temporary extensions (called “continuing resolutions”) that continue funding the government at the rate it’s been using. It does nothing to modify spending levels or remove any wasteful spending, it just keeps doing what it’s been doing for a little longer.

Here’s where the brouhaha from last week comes in. In the last election cycle, Republicans won back control of the House, so they obtained the right to decide how to lay out the budget (though the Democrat-controlled Senate and White House both have to sign off on any budget proposals). Republicans ran on the idea of reigning in DC’s out-of-control spending. The way they planned to do it was by passing individual bills for the obviously necessary parts of the budget (the Farm bill, funding for the Department of State, the Department of Defense, etc.), meaning that funding for a large amount of the current wasteful spending would simply disappear. If this had happened, this would have saved us a huge chunk of money as a nation.

The problem is that they couldn’t get it done in time. There was some brinksmanship, some games, some intentional pressure-building, and in the end they said “hey look, we want to continue with this ‘fund the essentials’ approach, but we ran out of time. Let’s pass a 45-day continuing resolution to give us the time we need to pass about a dozen of these bills that will fund the stuff we really need.”

Toward that end, the Republicans passed an extension of a Democrat-designed budget (including very high spending levels for the priorities laid out by Democrats) in order to try to enact an approach that requires the agreement of a bunch of people that don’t truly want it to succeed. A few of the Republican reps in the House said “we have to draw the line somewhere,” opposed the proposed bill, and then lashed out against now former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy when he framed the budget to gain support from some Democrats. This week McCarthy was voted out of his Speakership role and has announced he does not want the job again.

Now all real work in Congress (including work on those multiple bills that will fund the crucial parts of the government) stops until the House can vote in a new Speaker. Last time they had to pick a speaker, it took four days and 15 rounds of voting before McCarthy got enough votes. The clock is still ticking on those 45 days, and many of the House’s representatives are just fine with bumping up against that new November 17 deadline without a permanent budget in place, because it increases the chances they’ll pass another continuing resolution to keep funding the pet projects that are meant to make people in their home districts happy.

The sad truth is that our government consistently spends more money than it takes in, and the national debt has reached mind-boggling levels with few politicians willing to do anything about it. While all the focus has been on the debt ceiling, the national debt has ballooned to unsustainable debt-to-GDP ratios. We have so much debt at this point that, due to debt and high interest rates, we now have to use almost a fifth of our budget to service our debt. A fifth! If you had to use 20% of your income to pay off credit card bills, imagine the financial freedom and new possibilities that would open up to you if you didn’t have that expense. The government is using our tax dollars very inefficiently, and as our credit rating keeps dropping, it will affect all of us at the personal level by having a higher floor for interest rates. All the folks in DC get to shrug their shoulders and point at someone else.

So that’s what we’re dealing with. Hopefully the House will be successful in passing some clean bills this month or next so we can start paying back some of that debt.

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What’s Going on Behind the Scenes?

Let’s pretend for a little bit that you and I are democratic strategists. Our chief goal is to retain control of the White House in November 2024.

Despite unprecedented legal problems for a presidential candidate, Donald Trump looks like he’s shaping up to once again be the Republican nominee. He’s so dominant in the polls, in fact, that he’s skipping debates and doesn’t appear to be suffering for it.

How confident are you that our horse can beat Trump in a rematch? This early in the election cycle, with polls tied in a statistical dead heat, we’re not confident at all. The incumbent normally has an advantage, and if the two are tied in the polls with more than a year to go before election day, it’s not looking good for Biden.

So what should we do? If you’re a democratic strategist working for Biden, your main focus is to try to fend off a primary challenge. Biden certainly has the advantage in being the nominee this coming cycle, but he has to demonstrate he’s still got enough spring in his step to handle the job. His gaffes have become more prominent in the news lately, and as ambitious potential candidates smell blood in the water, it’s going to get tougher to get the whole party to fall in line. The contenders most likely to pose a legitimate threat to his nomination need to be brought into the campaign or otherwise buy them off to prevent them from causing a problem.

What if, however, you’re not a democratic strategist working for Biden, but rather are focused on keeping the White House under democratic control with or without Biden? The media is starting to turn on Biden, his disapproval rating is at a record high, he’s dealing with a possible impeachment, and his son is nothing but a headache. It’s becoming impossible to conceal his cognitive decline. If we want to win, we’re going to have to get rid of Joe.

So what’s the play? Who do we have on the bench? Kamala’s a non-starter; she’s unelectable. Nancy Pelosi? No, if we want to attack Trump’s age, we can’t have someone older than him. Try Hillary again? I don’t think so. Governor Gavin Newsome of California? Maybe. There are a lot of unknowns there; that’s why we’re doing this Newsome/DeSantis debate soon, as a test run to see what kind of reaction he gets on the national stage. He’s from the far left wing and might be too radical to be a good presidential candidate, but we could be surprised. Biden’s so old and frail that anyone would look energetic by comparison. Let’s use this coming debate as a test to see what kind of traction he can get.

If all else fails, we could pull Michelle Obama off the bench. She had a very high popularity rating, played well on high-profile stages, and doesn’t have a whole lot of negatives. It’d be a dream come true for progressives. The big question is: can she be convinced to run? You have to be both very ambitious and a glutton for punishment if you’ve already spent eight years in the White House and want to go back for more. The White House has a way of making you claustrophobic. She’s never held an elected position before, so she’d have to be paired with a running mate that knows the system and probably one that’s viewed as a bit more centrist. Maybe we can find a democratic governor or senator that fits the bill. If that’s the play to be made, we can’t keep a lid on it for much longer; the deadline to file for the earliest primaries is early in 2024, and we can’t parachute her in until after Joe announces he’s decided not to run, and he still needs some convincing.

To win we’ve got to win over the independents. We won them last time by having a COVID death counter on the news all the time, but that only worked because we were able to make COVID the issue everyone cared about. This time it’s the economy, and that’s a tougher sell. Joe’s been out pushing Bidenomics, but he’s not getting real far with it. People just don’t believe that they’re better off in this economy than they were three or four years ago, and that’s a problem. The southern border is a similar issue; we overplayed the sympathy angle and now even democratic mayors of big cities are tapping out. We can use both of these topics to our advantage to oust Joe; we can hang the economy around his neck, “evolve our thinking” about the immigration issue, and admit that we need a different approach, and that opens the door to bring in someone new.

We also need some new lever issues. We’ve been pushing the insurrection angle pretty hard, but it’s running out of steam. People are starting to realize that even though the insurrection happened in January 2021, we waited two years to pursue any charges, and the timing looks suspicious. The Defund the Police and Black Lives Matter movements have largely stalled, and we need something fresh. Though there’s corruption in both parties, one potential angle is make a big show of rooting out corruption, giving us the moral high ground. We’ll start with Senator Bob Menendez. He’ll put up a fight, but we have enough dirt that we can lean on him hard enough to make him go. By the time he’s gone, more information about Biden’s involvement in his son’s influence-peddling scheme will be public, and we can express regret as we show Joe the door, gravely announcing that there’s no room for corruption in the Oval Office and hoping to turn some independents from Trump in the process using this show of “walking the walk.”

See? It can be kind of fun to take an alternative perspective. I don’t know how much of this is true, but it’s useful to look at things through someone else’s eyes every now and then. If Biden and Trump end up being the two nominees again, I’ve got to think Biden will lose, even with Trump’s legal problems. Joe’s fading in the polls already. That’s why there will likely be efforts in the coming weeks and months to prevent both Trump and Biden from becoming the nominee.

Whoever you vote for in your state’s primary, don’t let someone else tell you how to vote. If you’re all in for Biden or Trump, vote for him. If you desperately want someone…anyone…other than one of those two guys, cast your vote for that person. It’s your vote, not someone else’s. Let your voice be heard.

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Annual Performance Review: Be an Overcomer

I’m sure it irritates folks that are hostile toward religion, but there are still some things in our culture that stem from Judeo-Christian beliefs. I like that we still have “In God We Trust” on our money, but at this point I think we’re probably kidding ourselves about its accuracy for the nation. Maybe the one that will stick around the longest is a seven-day week. Those aren’t the only examples though.

Strangely enough, it appears some of our corporate culture is modeled after Jesus Christ’s example.

If you’ve ever spent time in a work role that involves giving or getting formal feedback, you’ve probably seen this firsthand.

If you’ve ever been a supervisor, you’ve probably had to have some uneasy or unpleasant conversations. When I was in the Air Force, practicing this very thing in a class, all of us got to do a hard one. I think I had to sit down with a fake subordinate and let them know that they needed to shower more frequently or something like that. Not such a fun task.

Usually giving feedback isn’t quite so drastic, but there are times when hard conversations need to happen. If you’re dealing with a stellar performer, you want to let them know you see how great a job they’re doing, but you always want to give them some kind of constructive criticism. If you’re dealing with someone that’s barely avoiding a pink slip, the conversation is harder. The model typically followed is:

  1. Start with something positive about their performance.
  2. Call out the ugly.
  3. Chart a path forward for getting back on track.
  4. End on a positive note.

You may ask “this model is in the Bible?” Why yes it is.

The book of Revelation is the last book of the Bible, most famous for its cataclysmic account of history’s culmination. Less flashy is the part early in the book where Christ provides feedback for seven kinds of churches (chapters 2 and 3). These seven churches were actual churches in named cities in the first century, but I imagine most churches that profess Christ as Lord today fall into one of these categories. They are the loveless church, the persecuted church, the church that compromises, the corrupt church, the dead church, the faithful church, and the lukewarm church.

All seven of the churches are initially commended for their works, suggesting that pretty much all churches do stuff that’s looked upon positively. Some of the churches in these two chapters are commended more robustly than others. “I know your works.” “I know your works, tribulation, and poverty.” “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil.”

Five of the seven (not the persecuted or the faithful church), however, have some kind of flaw that needs to be addressed. “Nevertheless I have this against you.” “Nevertheless I have a few things against you.” “But I have a few things against you.”

Then Christ gives instructions for correcting the flaws. “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.” “Repent, or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth.” “Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.” “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.” Repenting is a common theme. In the modern workplace, it’s akin to the person receiving feedback acknowledging that yes, there is a shortcoming of some sort and a correction needs to take place. This blog post isn’t that long, so it seems like I’m glossing over the whole “hey, get your act together and start performing like you know you should” thing. This is obviously where the hard work begins and where the bulk of the feedback actually occurs.

After that, though, it’s very possible, or even likely, that someone’s on the defensive (or if they’re humble and acknowledge the discrepancy, are saddened) and needs a little encouragement. Finally, the Lord ends each session on a positive note. Listen to the emphasis that’s placed on ‘overcoming’ the challenges of life in these seven passages. It’s as if Christ understood that the Christian life, as hopeful as it is, is a hard thing to lead. “To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.” “He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.” “To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it.” “And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations…” “He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.” “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more.” “To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.”

So in all circumstances, you’re facing a charge to correct your actions/thought processes, you’re a little bit broken by the realization of your shortcoming, or you’re gearing up for some challenges ahead. God would have assigned someone else to the task if you couldn’t remain faithful to what you know you’re supposed to do. Don’t be disheartened. Be an overcomer.

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Anyone Else Notice You’re Getting Less for the Same Money?

You’ve likely noticed that inflation has taken a big bite out of your income over the past couple of years. Unless your income is keeping pace, you’re probably getting a little squeezed. Hopefully this post can offer some practical tips.

There are two ways to gain disposable income: cutting expenses and increasing income. You can only cut expenses so much. If you’re getting squeezed and there’s nothing left to cut, the only other option is to bring in more income. While getting a higher-paying job or a raise at your current one would be great, sometimes that’s not possible. In those cases, adding a revenue stream or two may be the way to go. Do you have a hobby or talent, or simply extra time, that you can use to bring in some extra cash (babysitting, freelance yard work, having your kids pet-sit and contribute to the household out-to-eat or go-to-the-movies plan)?

I feel obligated to say that avoiding a credit card balance is one of the best things you can do to keep your debt under control, but I also acknowledge that it’s tougher and tougher for people to sock money away for a rainy day when it’s been raining so much for so long, and they’ve come to rely on credit cards instead of savings for a backup/emergency fund. By all means, pay off your monthly balance in full, but when you can’t do that, here are some other hacks for saving some money.

Kids grow fast. Like, real fast. Shoes and clothes don’t fit them for nearly the same length of time as they fit adults. When I’m doing yard work I wear jeans I wore 20 years ago. It’s not because I’m super fit, it’s because I don’t want to buy a new wardrobe. With such high turnover rates for kids’ clothes, thrift shops can save you a ton of money. Some things are better bought new, sure, but if they’re only going to be wearing a given pair of pants less than a year, they don’t need to be designer or top notch. Larger thrift shops have more options, so if you live out in the country, you may have better results heading to thrift shops in more populated areas. Just because other people pay for rapidly growing kids to have nice stuff doesn’t mean you have to pay the same prices; many shops will randomly have name-brand items. If the kids whine about not buying brand new, let them pitch in or pay the difference between what they want and what you can get it for at the thrift store. It’s easy to whine when you’re using other people’s money, but the tune often changes when you’re the one footing the bills.

Food is a big expense. The economy and supply chain have made for some anomalies where in some cases, it’s cheaper to buy a meal prepared at a restaurant than it is to buy the ingredients and prepare them yourself. This is not the norm and it probably won’t stick around for long. At any rate, if you’re pinching pennies, you should probably avoid dining in at a restaurant and opt for takeout instead. Dining in means you’re paying for drinks and paying more for a tip than if you call a restaurant to place an order, travel there, pick up the food, and then travel wherever you’re going to eat it (remind me again why people tip when they do all the work?).

If you regularly stop for hot drinks that have some kind of flavoring, foam, or shots of something in them, you forfeit the right to complain about not having enough money. Coffee, cream, and sugar. Want a treat? Try flavored creamer.

A lot of times we start subscribing to things and after awhile we stop thinking about whether they’re worth the price. For example, unless you’re some kind of super-user, you probably don’t need a phone plan with unlimited data. If all you need is talk and text with a moderate amount of data, you can probably ditch the major carriers and go with small companies that have the same coverage but plans that better fit your needs. For entertainment, do you really need all those streaming services? Do you still pay for cable TV? If all you really want are major networks, consider buying a digital antenna and getting TV for free. Admittedly, you get what you pay for, but if you’re in an area with decent signal strength and you buy a respectable antenna, you can pick up a lot of channels. Check out https://www.fcc.gov/media/engineering/dtvmaps to see what networks you can pick up in your area. And an individual channel often has multiple sub-channels within it, so if a particular channel comes in well, there are probably a few different shows playing on the channels that are affiliated with it. I personally get channels with more westerns, Spanish telenovelas, episodes of Walker Texas Ranger, Columbo, and old game shows than I know what to do with, but I’m also a fan of older, less stressful shows. If a digital antenna’s not really your thing, but you have good internet speed, pick up a Roku device. Different shows rotate through the available channels, you can usually get some live news, and the commercial breaks come with countdown timers. Still not seeing something you like? Check out your local library for shows and movies on DVD. We don’t normally even start watching a new show unless it’s finished its run on TV. There’s a lot of cheap or free entertainment out there, so take a look at your subscriptions and make sure you’re only paying for stuff that’s worth it for you.

Walmart is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it’s cheap and has lots of options. On the other hand, it’s very hard to walk out of the store with only the things you intended to pick up when you walked in. What you saved by going to the store got more than chewed up by picking up all the add-ons you tossed in the cart while walking around the store. Here are a couple of ideas to help manage costs. Don’t use credit/debit cards to pay for purchases; only use cash. When we use credit or debit cards, it makes it harder to appreciate the value of the money you’re parting company with. When you use cash, it makes you much more aware that money is leaving your possession, and it makes you think harder about whether a particular purchase is worth the price. Alternatively, place a Walmart order online. Shipping is free once your purchases total a certain amount, and as long as you’re not adding things to the cart just for the sake of hitting that mark, you can be more choosy about what items you’re willing to purchase to reach that shipping minimum. If you aren’t willing to wait for the shipment to arrive through the mail, use the “store pickup” option. Employees will gather the items you pay for and put them in a locker for you to retrieve. You might have to go into the building, but you don’t have to go beyond the registers. If you don’t go beyond the registers, your chances of escaping without making impulse buys go way up. Now you just have to dodge the Scouts selling cookies or popcorn outside the door.

Finally, let’s address the issue of tithing. Tithing, or giving 10% of your income to the church body you attend, is expected even when money is tight. God knows when it’s simply impossible for you to give that much, but He also knows when you’re milking the situation a little bit. Do your best to build tithing into your budget. You’re welcome to donate money to other charities, of course, but that’s supposed to be after you’ve given your 10% to the church you attend. Ten percent sounds like a lot, and it sure can be, especially if you don’t currently give anything. I’d offer that you live your life of following Christ in expectation that He’ll do bigger things through you than He’s doing right now. If that’s the case, this current stage of your life is a prelude to things that are yet to come. Be faithful with the smaller things, and He’ll entrust bigger things to you in the future. Tough stuff, I know. If you’re way under that 10% goal, start out by consistently doing better than you are right now, and keep working toward that goal.

There are lots of other tips, but I’ve already taken up a lot of space. Who else has suggestions? Please leave a recommendation in a comment.

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Talking About it Normalizes it

If you look at how the Bible says the world ends, one of the key components is a one-world government that’s run by a very charismatic and charming fellow that ends up running an authoritarian regime.

While I believe this prophecy is inevitable, it’s impossible to know a lot of the things that will happen between now and then. Just by looking around at how our country’s going, it seems like people are all too eager to grant more power to the state at the expense of individual freedom, which only makes it easier to be subsumed into a one-world government later.

Ever notice that undefended viewpoints tend to be ignored? If Christians don’t speak up about their beliefs, those beliefs will more quickly be overrun by some kind of legislation, executive order, or social branding. In many cases they’re already on their way. It’s not the job of thought leaders, pastors, missionaries, or some kind of religious professional…it’s yours. You should spend time with people that are not believers. (How else will you influence the world for Christ?) You may be the only Christian in your social circles. If that’s true, you may be the only live link to Jesus those people ever see.

I once heard someone discussing an unrelated topic. Whatever she was discussing wasn’t a mainstream viewpoint, but she wanted to get the perspective out in the public sphere. She said she wanted to talk about it because “talking about it normalizes it.” I don’t think I’ve ever heard it put that way before, but it makes a lot of sense. So then, in all the commentary and opinion that passes for news today, you probably don’t hear a whole lot that agrees with your worldview. The focus should primarily be Christian, but there are a few others thrown in. Maybe it’s up to you to talk about, and thus “normalize” your viewpoint. Here are a few examples:

  • “I am a Christian and I try to model my life off Christ’s teachings in the Bible. That is my choice, and it is a right guaranteed to me as an American in the United States Constitution.”
  • “People can identify with whatever gender they wish and pretend their chromosome combination doesn’t affect biological reality, but they can’t force me to play along with it. My right to freedom of religion (which includes embracing truth over lies), guaranteed in the Bill of Rights in America, trumps their desire to strong-arm others into seeing the world as they do.”
  • “Schools should ensure their students get really good at reading, writing, and arithmetic before they look to broaden their scope into other areas.”
  • “If you look closely at them, ‘Greenism,’ ‘Wokeism,’ and ‘Stateism’ are all structured in a remarkably similar fashion to the way religions are. They should be subject to the rules of separation of church and state as much as any other religion is.”
  • “Science and Christianity complement one another. There are many areas of science to explore, but if you consider the system of bytes of data (which relies on ones and zeros to denote characters), it’s tough to imagine a system like that just evolving itself into existence. It had to be designed. How much more unlikely, then, would it be for DNA to arise spontaneously? Consider the complexity of DNA, the fact that it reads four characters instead of two, how every three base pairs specifies which one of 20 amino acids to link to the last one, and that these chains of amino acids can link together to form proteins that serve different functions in life. There are actually people who believe this system, more complex than, say, 90% of our most complex technology, started from nothing (even before bacteria came along), but they refuse to even entertain the notion that maybe, just maybe, someone actually designed the system.
  • This is the most important one on the list. “It’s easy to divide people. What do you say we take a look at who’s trying to unite them? Christ came for the criminals, the law-abiders, the young and the old, uneducated and scholars, men, women, people that looked like Him, people that came from far-off lands, the rich, and the poor. We therefore cannot be selective about with whom we share the Gospel.”

If you’re a Christ-follower, the world is going to align itself against the way you think. That doesn’t mean you need to roll over and get steamrolled. Standing your ground in the face of opposition may be exactly what causes an unbelieving onlooker to reconsider their position. If this is an idea you find difficult to agree with, you’re making it that much easier for opposing viewpoints to engineer the terms of your suppression. Don’t be afraid to push back.

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. –Eph 6:13

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Quick Hit: One Look is All it Takes

The simple act of making eye contact with someone at the right time can be a powerful thing.

There are different types of situations where a short bout of eye contact can convey a lot without saying a word. I’m thinking particularly of instances where someone in authority over you, a coach or a supervisor for example, looks silently to you during a high-pressure scenario, as if to say “I know what you’re capable of, and I’m looking to you to do it now.”

Whether you come through in the clutch or you let someone down, those are the kinds of moments that stick with you for a long time.

Christ told His followers the world would hate them, but He also told them He was relying on them to carry out the great commission and spread the good news. This charge extends to Christ-followers of today and tomorrow. Having perfect knowledge of how history will unfold, the Holy Spirit empowers each Christian with gifts to be used for the glory of the Lord’s Kingdom. Now, at a time when our nation is frighteningly divided, the Lord is looking at His followers, some of which were created specifically to address this challenge, and saying “I know what you’re capable of, and I’m looking to you to do it now.”

I urge you, fellow Christ-follower, get out there and do what you were created to do. Become who you were made to be. Although the Lord is completely capable of providing compassionate or encouraging looks, it’s important to remember that He’s also capable of shooting looks that remind us of our shortcomings in our service to Him, and it’s our choice whether we’re on the receiving end of that look or not.

Then the Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. And Peter remembered the word from the Lord, and how he had told him, “Before a rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” So he went outside and cried bitterly. Luke 22:61-62

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An Apology to the Taxpayers

I’m sure you’ve heard stories of some kind of wasted taxpayer money before. Well I’m sorry to say that some wasteful federal spending once happened because of me (at least on a smallish scale).

This is back in 2004, and the Air Force was paying my salary at the time. I was stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base, near Spokane, Washington. While I was waiting for some paperwork to go through, I supplemented the folks teaching water survival.

It was a cool gig. I don’t remember what happened each day of the week, but one day out of the week was a course where they simulate being in a helicopter that crashes in the water and rolls over as it sinks. Two other days out of the week was a course where they taught students how to signal from the ocean, how to use rescue devices that were dropped from aircraft, how to use radios and distress beacons, and the course culminated in a big production in the indoor pool where the students climbed into a big aircraft simulator that then “crashed” into the ocean. There were two already-inflated life rafts lashed to the side of the pool (with ice water inside). The lights were all shut off, a thunderstorm soundtrack played from enormous speakers up in the rafters, and strobe lights simulated lightning. As the students evacuated the “aircraft” and jumped into the water, my job was to spray them using a fire hose while on a catwalk up above. I’m not gonna lie, it felt crazy to be getting paid for stuff like this.

These courses were pretty messy and took some time to set up. We used the other two days out of the week to clean up all the wet gear and reset it to prepare for the next course. Those were good days to schedule medical/dental appointments and any other type of official errands that Uncle Sam mandated.

This goober is modeling a pair of fully inflated LPUs

On one of those days, I was at some kind of appointment at the beginning of the day, then returned to the pool to help with prep. As it turned out, while I had been at my appointment, one of the instructors taught my colleague (someone that was supplementing, like me) how to pack LPUs, or Life Preservation Units. An LPU is a piece of survival gear that some aviators wear. When you’re descending toward the water while dangling from a parachute, you can pull the tabs on your LPU and two big high-visibility pontoons will inflate in a flash, providing more than enough buoyancy to keep you afloat.

Well, when I got back to the shop, my colleague showed me how to pack an LPU. Each LPU had two CO2 canisters that, when punctured by pulling the inflation tabs, quickly inflated the pontoons, even if completely submerged. Packing the LPUs meant unscrewing the old canisters, resetting the pull switches, screwing in new canisters, and then folding up the big orange/pink balloons into small compartments that could be easily worn by an aviator.

Packing LPUs

Unfortunately when my buddy showed me how to pack LPUs, he didn’t show me the right way. The two of us packed tons of LPUs and set them on the shelf, thinking they were ready for students in future classes to use. When they got pulled off the shelf and used during an actual lesson, students that ran off the diving board expecting their LPUs to inflate midair had to end up swimming for it.

While that’s obviously embarrassing for the water survival instructors, that’s not the part I owe taxpayers an apology for. The way the LPU puncture mechanism worked, it wasn’t physically possible to properly reset the mechanism without removing the new CO2 cylinders, and it wasn’t possible to remove the unused CO2 canisters without puncturing them. We had to intentionally pull the inflation tabs, knowing it would waste two perfectly good cylinders per LPU. Each cylinder that was improperly installed in an LPU had to be unscrewed and tossed on the floor, shooting all over the place like a corkscrewing balloon while turning ice cold from the sudden expansion of compressed gas.

Considering all the LPUs we packed and a rough guess that each CO2 cylinder cost about $10, we’re talking hundreds of dollars of wasted taxpayer money. It would’ve been far better to each waste a pair of cylinders by doing a quality control test after packing just a pair or two of the LPUs rather than the way we did it.

Yep, they all need to be packed

So for those of you that dutifully paid your taxes back in the 2003/2004 timeframe, I’m sorry I wasted some of your hard-earned money. The Government is funded by the people, and you deserve better than that. I wish I’d known to correct the mistake sooner! It’s been almost 20 years since I’ve been around LPUs, but that lesson has taught me to keep an eye out for ways to head off the wasteful use of resources (even if it’s as simple as making my kids finish the food on their plates before they can be excused).