You’d think I’d learn by now. I mean it’s not that complicated, really.

It all started because Gorgeous said I needed to start thinking about getting healthier. She was right, as usual. I’ll be cresting the big 4-0 this year and I’m finally beginning to recognize my own physical mortality.

So we started adjusting our diet a bit. More fresh plant life and fewer burgers. Cutting back on the fast food in general. Even though I’m pretty much a convenience eater, that part was pretty easy.

Then we set our sights a little closer to our cravings and said we’d cut back on the deserts and sweets. Used to be we’d never consider sharing a desert at a restaurant. Now it’s kinda fun.

A couple weeks ago the whole healthier diet thing took a painful turn for me. I like coffee. Lots of coffee. Historically I’ve consumed mass quantities of the stimulating beverage every day. But I know it can’t be good for me.

So I’m working on a consumption reduction program where coffee is concerned.

One ingredient in my new healthier beverage program is to start each day with a cup of caffeine free tea. Sometimes I have a steamy cup of something that promises to “detoxify” me. Hey, I figure after nearly 40 years of consuming junk I could stand for some detoxifying.

The Problem

And that is what brings me to my apparent learning disorder.

I am very much a creature of habit, especially first thing in the morning. I don’t really wake up all that quickly so routines help me get functioning more smoothly. My morning rituals are designed to help clear the cobwebs out while still moving in the forward direction.

And it seems I’ve gotten myself into a bit of a dumb rut. Each morning I get to my desk, fire up my computer, and set my mug down with that first cup of tea, bag in, still steeping.

The hard part comes in getting the dang tea back out of the cup before I start drinking. I typically don’t have a plate at my desk. There’s too much clutter to find a place to set one nearby. So once I fish it out with a spoon I want to make sure I get most of the water out of the bag so I don’t start staining my desk top, or the clutter that it would have to soak through to get to the desk.

That means I get my fingers down and dirty squeezing out the bag.

The problem I run into is that water is hot. Every morning. On my fingertips.

You’d think after the 17th morning or so of doing this that I would come up with a better way. But each morning I do a little hot finger dance at my desk, grumble, amazed at my own apparent inability to learn and change or overcome such a simple small obstacle in my day.

Yet I seem to insist on nearly burning my fingertips day after day. Why is that?

I mean I don’t think I’m stupid. Am I?

Eventually I figure I’ll come up with something. If you’ve got any ideas, I’m open. I know I’m trainable.

The recent discussions with Marcus highlight an interesting challenge for Christians. How do we discuss the things Jesus said about truth when talking to folks who have a fundamentally different understanding of what truth is?

Folks like Markus don’t believe that there is such a thing as absolute truth and even if there was, there is really no way we could ever know it anyway. Because Christians belong to another school of thought that says that truth is absolute, fixed and can be known, we can come off appearing intolerant, judgmental, and even bigoted.

Now some of those labels have definitely been earned by some folks on our side of the discussion. But the question remains how do we have meaningful discussions when we don’t even agree on the terms we are discussing?

Many folks seem to think that this shift by many away from the idea of absolute truth is something new because it is part of postmodern philosophy. But differing understandings of truth have been around at least since Jesus’ day.

There is an interesting exchange recorded in the Bible between Pilate and Jesus during his trial. Take a look.

Pilate said, “So you are a king?”

Jesus responded, “You say I am a king. Actually, I was born and came into the world to testify to the truth. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.”

“What is truth?” Pilate asked. Then he went out again to the people and told them, “He is not guilty of any crime.

Pilate asks Jesus what truth is. But it doesn’t appear to be a sincere question. He certainly doesn’t put any effort into getting it answered. It is almost dismissive, like Pilate is saying, “Look, Bub. All this blah, blah, blah you keep spouting about truth is a waste of time. We all know truth not something fixed that we can actually know. Besides truth isn’t important here anyway.”

Jesus took a different view of truth. In the four gospel accounts, Jesus is recorded saying the word “truth” over 100 times. Most often he says it in the phrase, “I tell you the truth” when he prefaced some particularly important point, for example when he says, “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes has eternal life.”

Jesus also said, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

To him the subject of truth was fundamentally important to those who would follow after him. He said that not only was truth knowable, but when we found it, truth would be the very source of freedom for us.

And here’s the kicker. Jesus said that truth wasn’t some abstract set of thoughts or ideas that we had to hunt for and try to assemble. He rocks our understanding of the whole concept of truth by claiming that he himself is that truth. Jesus said of himself, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

Philosophers go around hunting for truth as though it is a collection of ideas, when in actuality the thing they are looking for is a person. Is it any wonder so many miss it?

When you read through the gospel accounts with an understanding that when Jesus speaks of the truth he is really speaking of himself, statements like the one he made to Pilate above take on a whole different level of meaning.

And that also may explain why folks like Marcus may be offended when we quote scriptures such as the one I mentioned in The Source of Wisdom, which says, “Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools.”

From the perspective that truth is relative and unknowable, than any statement that claims to state truth in absolute terms must be offensive.

But that still doesn’t answer the question of how to have a meaningful dialogue with someone whose understanding of truth is fundamentally different from our own. Is it even possible?

It doesn’t appear Jesus made too much headway with Pilate. Should we even try?

Or should we simply state the truth, allow others to take it or leave it, and move on?

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Update: Marcus has posted a very well thought and reasoned response over at his place, titled simply Truth, that deserves your attention. Head on over. Check it out. Maybe even drop him a comment giving your two cents.

Note: This post came out of a comment thread from the other day. Marcus took issue with what I had to say about the Source of Wisdom. Marcus has been a regular commenter here at CREEations and really challenges me to refine and better understand my own views. Yesterday he brought up some good points and, since my reply started to get rather long winded I decided to bring it out in a whole post. (I hope that’s OK, Marcus.)

Marcus,

If I sound pissed, I again apologize. It is definitely not the case, and I know it does nothing to detract from the stereotype of the “angry Christian”. I have a tendency to express my opinions strongly and can come across as angry when it is just the New York in me and the strength of my convictions coming out. My wife will attest that this phenomenon is much more pronounced in person! (”Its not so much what you say, Chris. It’s the tone.”) Really I’m not angry. I’m working on that. Sorry if I come across that way.

And I certainly agree as you mentioned that the followers of various religions all believe they have found the truth. And I really do respect differing beliefs, even though I disagree with them. It is one thing for various individuals or groups to believe they have found the truth. But there is no way we can stand on the outside, look at these different beliefs and say, “They are all true.”

Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, Lao Tzu, Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and L. Ron Hubbard (to name only a few) all said different things from each other that they each claimed to be true and have adherents that also claim that what they said is true. They each have given vastly different “instructions” on what it takes to have a fulfilled life and to be prepared for the afterlife.

But, Marcus, you and I appear to have a fundamentally different understanding of what truth is. Either that or maybe we place an entirely different value on truth.

I look at a diverse declaration of truth like that and say, “Because they make differing claims, they can’t all be right. Let me do my best to find the one who actually has the truth.” For me, my path to religion was a rocky search for truth. I wanted to know God no matter how much it challenged my understanding. And I looked at a lot of options before I landed on Jesus.

I’m not sure whether you are coming from a place where you see that they could all be right or if you are trying to say that it doesn’t matter what folks believe, because if it works for them it must be true.

When you boil it down to their essence, most all belief systems out there at their core are some flavor of “do the best you can (or follow this code) and hope it works out OK in the end.”

Then there’s Jesus. What he said was radically different in part because he said there is no way your best can possibly be good enough. He said that the standard for pleasing God is simple: absolute perfection. In order to please God we have to be just as perfect as God himself. Because there is no way any of us could possibly measure up to that perfect standard we are all doomed.

But, just as in any great epic story, after he hits us hard with the idea that it is impossible for us to ever measure up, Jesus says there is another way.

And this is where it gets really nutty because Jesus says some totally outrageous stuff. Basically he says that we’re in luck because it just so happens that he himself is God incarnate and if we follow him we’ll be OK because his God perfection can substitute for our impossibly flawed imperfection.

I mean, Marcus, here’s a guy that looks just like you and me (only more Jewish) who flat out says that he is God and we should follow him. It is totally preposterous, goofy, insane, and not much different than the leaders of most cults. Downright evil, really.

Unless it is true.

So after years of dismissing Jesus’ claims (mostly because people I knew who were Christians were so messed up and treated me poorly) and looking at many other options, I eventually decided to take a closer look at him. The evidence I found was really surprising.

Jesus validated his claims by performing a variety of different miracles including changing the nature of matter (turning water into wine), controlling the weather (calming a storm at sea), healing people of numerous infirmities and even raising people from the dead.

Impressive for sure, but the written record of miracles performed two thousand years ago by some guy was not enough for me.

But then, after he says all those crazy things about being God, he dies in a way that is pretty much beyond his control and that is accurately predicted in Bible passages from the Old Testament hundreds of years before. Interesting. But maybe it was luck? Perhaps. But looking at his life I found there are several things about him that were accurately predicted which he could not possibly have controlled, even things like where and when he was born, who his parents were, and the circumstances of his birth.

That’s even more impressive, but it’s still not enough for me.

Then Jesus takes the whole “I’m God” thing to a whole other level by refusing to stay dead after he is horribly executed. Even his enemies acknowledged that he was no longer dead in their bumbling attempts to cover it up. If he really was still dead, all they had to do was produce his body and the whole thing ends right there.

But he wasn’t dead any more. Hundreds of folks saw him alive after thousands saw him executed. It was no clever parlor trick or deception on the part of his followers. He really was alive.

This one fact of history is what sets Jesus completely apart from all the others. There is no cult leader yet who has raised himself back to life after he’s died.

I used to think that, well his followers made the whole thing up and then wrote about it a hundred years or more later and put down the stories in such a way as to make it seem true. The trouble is that modern archeology has put some of the New Testament writings to within 30 years of Jesus’ death. That means there were still people alive at the time who lived through the events and would have refuted them if they were not true.

Then there’s the lives of his followers. Would they have all gone to gruesome deaths, almost to a man, and hold to something if they knew it not to be true? I mean we are talking about horrific things like crucifixion (even upside down), beheading, being boiled or burned alive - no “humane” lethal injections for that group. No way they’d all face that horrible an end for something they knew not to be true.

Anyway I bring all this up, simply to point out why Jesus’ claims are different than the claims of others, before and after him. I don’t expect to convince you that Jesus is right. I just felt I should explain where I am coming from and why I believe his outrageous claims about himself.

But that brings up another interesting question. Should a person share with someone else information that he understands will vastly improve that other persons life, even if it conflicts with what the other person is currently believing?

Let’s say I see that you have some problem. It doesn’t matter what that problem is, a cocaine addiction, you eat too much and are obese, you spend money like a drunken sailor and are drowning in debt, or maybe you just drive without a seatbelt and are at a higher risk for getting smeared on the highway. It doesn’t matter.

If I see that there is a simple solution to your problem (and yes even something as overpowering as addiction has a simple solution. Abstinence may not be easy, but it is simple.) am I a better friend if I point out the problem you are having and offer up a solution? Or am I a better friend if I just let you wallow in your issue and eventually cause serious harm to your own life?

I would say the better friend is the one who speaks up and offers to help his fellow man.

Now that offer of help may be rejected outright. And it might even make the fellow angry. “How dare you say that I have an addiction! I can quit any time I want.”

But the rejection of that help doesn’t make the helper any less caring. And it certainly doesn’t make him hurtful or judgmental of his friend heading for trouble.

That’s the same way followers of Jesus perceive the issue of truth. Only it is even more urgent than a life and death issue. We are talking not only about a better life here (along the lines of a life free from addiction) but we are talking about the hereafter, which goes on for all of eternity. And forever is a long time. Too long to be wrong.

So when I get a little passionate about sharing what I understand to be true, Marcus, please understand how urgent I see the issue to be. As a former military guy I understand the importance of life and death issues. Eternity is the one issue that make life and death stuff look like choosing what clothes to wear to a party by comparison. Compared to forever, to me, life and death is small potatoes.

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Do you ever wonder why the world is such a mess?

There is a reason for it.

Do you ever scratch your head at some of the inane things that are often said by highly educated folks in places like New York or Las Angeles? Or how is it that so many folks living on either coast so completely don’t understand the vast majority of the rest of our country living in the “fly over” states?

How is it that so many of the folks who head up so many of our educational, cultural, governmental, and corporate entities seem able to come up with such bizarre stuff? And then, if someone might happen to disagree, either look at them as though they are ignorant children or portray them as nasty folks for daring to dissent with what everyone knows to be true?

Did you know there is a reason that so many people think followers of Jesus are a bit loopy. (I mean besides the fact that so many of us have turned Christianity into nothing more than a list of do’s and don’ts and rail on anyone who isn’t keeping our list. That’s a topic for a rant of its own.)

Paul talks about this very topic in the Bible. It is a long passage. But take a moment and read the whole thing.

But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who push the truth away from themselves. For the truth about God is known to them instinctively. God has put this knowledge in their hearts. From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God.Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. The result was that their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they became utter fools instead. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people, or birds and animals and snakes.

So God let them go ahead and do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies. So they worshiped the things God made but not the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever.

The truth is that in spite of how poorly many of us Christians represent the person of Jesus, in the end folks won’t be able to use that as an excuse. The reality of God’s existence is evident in the world around us. People who insist on having “proof” that God exists before they will acknowledge him only need to open their eyes and look around.

Of course when you’re looking for an excuse, any excuse will do. For someone who doesn’t want to believe it doesn’t matter what “reason” for not believing they fix on. One excuse works just as well as another.

But after reading that bit from the Bible, is it any wonder that so many different religions have sprung up here in the last two thousand years? We humans have been hard wired with the desire to worship something, anything, even if it is ourselves. When folks reject God it is not uncommon for them to eventually begin to make up their own ideas of what God is like.

Many of the newer religious sects claim for their authority the fact that their founder was visited by an angel who delivered to them a divine message. Yet Paul has strong words about that too.

Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including myself, who preaches any other message than the one we told you about. Even if an angel comes from heaven and preaches any other message, let him be forever cursed.

You may think that the idea of someone bowing down in worship to a statue of a bird or a snake is silly, something that never happens anymore. Fair enough. Yet, if you think about it, how many folks do you suppose place inordinately high value on the world around us? There are definitely some who place a higher value on earth, and the other living things on it than they do on other people. They focus their energies on protecting these things at the expense of people’s welfare in the interest of caring for “Mother Earth.”

Some really do choose to worship the environment. How else do you explain inane statements like cigarette smoking is a significant contributer to greenhouse gases? I mean I’m no fan of smoking, but that is just silly. It seems to be a statement from someone who is claiming to be wise but has become an utter fool instead.

When we choose to reject God and instead focus on disproportionally emphasizing the things that God made, God in his mercy lets us go off in that direction. He could by rights strike us dead when we reject him, I suppose. But instead he chooses to continue to give us opportunities to change our mind and follow him.

The Bible says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding.”

James even lets us know how we can get more wisdom if we find we are lacking it.

If you need wisdom–if you want to know what God wants you to do–ask him, and he will gladly tell you. He will not resent your asking.

Rejecting God is a very dangerous business. We may believe we are doing the smart thing by doing so. But the irony is, the smarter we feel we are getting, the dumber the things we do and say as we get further from the wisdom of God.

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I’m around a person quite a bit who seems to complain a bunch about her with poor health. And I feel bad for her because she is obviously suffering miserably much of the time.

She struggles with keeping weight on and every day talks about her headaches, lack of energy, and sinus issues. And I suspect she may have some more serious things going on that I don’t know about.

She also smokes multiple packs of cigarettes a day. I don’t know how many but to me it seems like a lot.

Now I suspect that there is a strong correlation there. I’m no health expert. And I’m not really anti-smoking from a regulatory sense. But I do know that every time she lights up on her way outside to smoke my own sinuses react as they try to purge the junk I just breathed in from my body. It’s spooky how fast it happens to me. Wham! Before the door even closes behind her I’m having trouble breathing. By the end of the day my contact lenses feel all crudded up too. And sometimes I’ll get headaches myself from it.

If the tiny little bit of smoke I get makes me feel so cruddy, I can’t imagine what the mass quantities she is throwing at her body are doing to her.

I asked her if the doctors ever said anything about her smoking being related to her health issues.

“Oh, yea.” was all she said.

So I gently probed a little further by asking her what she thought about it.

“Well, there’s a big difference between knowing you should quit and being able to actually do it.”

And that is when my heart really ached for her.

You see she genuinely doesn’t believe she can quit.

And that is a lie from the pit of hell designed to keep her suffering until her life is cut short from some entirely preventable disease that she’d never encounter if she never was exposed to the smoke.

The truth is thousands of people successfully quit smoking every day. I know it isn’t easy. But it is possible. For her too.

I’m not sure any amount of talking on my part would convince her to make a change that would have such a significant positive impact on her life because she seems determined in her choice to believe a lie.

What we choose to believe determines our reality.

Read that sentence again. In fact I’m going to change it to big bold words so no one can miss it.

My smoker friend believes she can’t quit smoking. And you know what? She’s right. She can’t. Even though she seems to really want to, as long as she continues to believe that way she’ll never be able to.

But if she was to change the way she thought about it and began to believe that, yes she could quit smoking, she’d find something amazing happen. That belief would likely change over time to thoughts about how she would quit smoking and eventually get to the point where she started to believe “I will quit smoking.” Not long after that she’d put the cigarettes down.

The Bible has a lot to say about believing. There are nearly 300 references to the various forms of the word believe and just about as many references to faith. The vast majority of those references are in the New Testament when Jesus came on the scene.

Here’s how the Bible defines faith:

What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.

Faith and belief go hand in hand. There was an incident in the life of Jesus that prompted him to explain how powerful belief really is.

In the morning, as Jesus was returning to Jerusalem, he was hungry, and he noticed a fig tree beside the road. He went over to see if there were any figs on it, but there were only leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” And immediately the fig tree withered up.

The disciples were amazed when they saw this and asked, “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?”

Then Jesus told them, “I assure you, if you have faith and don’t doubt, you can do things like this and much more. You can even say to this mountain, `May God lift you up and throw you into the sea,’ and it will happen. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

What we choose to believe determines our reality. Some may ask where the limits are on that principle. I really don’t know. My subjective self says, “Come on! Make sure you are realistic about the things you choose to believe.”

But how realistic is it for a mountain to be thrown into the sea? Not exactly something rational to believe, is it?

Yet that is the example Jesus chose to make his point. I think as humans we draw the line waaaay too far over to the rational side limiting side of our willingness to believe.

What do you believe about belief?

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I’m working on setting up another blog because I want to explore a specific topic in detail that I don’t think fits here in my general personal blog (where I look at what I call practical life philosophy.)

I just started putting things in place yesterday, and there is quite a bit involved with getting things the way I want them to be. Fortunately I’ve learned a ton from messing around here at CREEations.

That experience is helping the process go much quicker with the new blog than it did when I was transitioning from my old Blogger format to this one here.

One of the things I wanted to get done as quickly as possible with my new blog was get a sitemap submitted to Google so the Googlebots know where to find the new site. It takes those creepy little critters a while to get around to crawling through a new site. So it should be no problem submitting my new blog before I really have completely things up and ready.

Besides, if I wait until it is ready to go, it will only take that much longer to get the dang thing indexed.

There is a groovy little dealie I can use to create a sitemap for my blog with just a click of a mouse. (Google Sitemap Generator WordPress Plugin) I even have it set to do its thing automatically here so I don’t have to think about it. The trouble is it didn’t want to work with my new blog for some reason.

I kept getting some error about the program not having permission to do what it was supposed to do. Apparently me yelling (very softly - Gorgeous was still sleeping) that yes it did have my permission because I was the one who clicked the mouse and I own the site wasn’t the authority it was looking for. I mean it was never a problem here at CREEations!

Stubborn program.

If there was anyway I was going to get what I wanted done I was going to have to do some digging to find out what goofy thing it was asking for.

And I did eventually figure out the problem after about an hour of (quiet) frustration.

But here’s the best part. In the process of figuring out how to fix my “permission” problem with my sitemap I also figured out why I haven’t been able to back up CREEations here. I didn’t get an error message when I’d try to back up. I would just get an empty file as a backup output with no explanation.

Now being fairly anal and a big fan of redundancy and backups, I was not at all happy about that state of affairs. My backup system has relied heavily on prayer.

Well I’ll keep praying. And now I’ve got some temporal redundancy in place, which can’t hurt.

What’s the lesson here?

Sometime we don’t come up with solutions problems that are in front of us until we are forced to. And sometimes answering one question causes other dominoes to fall in place for us.

Pretty cool the way things work, isn’t it?

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Why are new things often so challenging for us?

I am getting things lined up for a new endeavor, trying to get my ducks in a row before I kick things off so that the ride will have as few bumps as possible. I woke up early to have a little extra time to work on a few things for the project. When I came into my study and turned on the little desk lamp, the bulb blew. It’s a weird size and we usually don’t keep spares for it. And I don’t like having the big overhead light on. Well, at least until I wake up a little.

The more I think things through, the more I realize how many other things could go wrong. I feel like a mountain climber looking at a towering peak wondering if he’s got what it takes to make it to the top.

There is risk involved because I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

I have to admit that even though I really am a new creation, I still have some messed up thinking patterns. Truth be told I am still pretty much a skeptic. Steve Pavlina suggests I should kill my skepticism.

He makes a good point.

I said it the other day. Before the event desirable outcomes are just as possible as undesirable ones. So in theory I could chose to expect the desirable outcomes rather than the undesirable ones.

Really what it boils down to is fear. Fear is a toxic paralyzing force that keeps us from moving forward. They say that courage isn’t the absence of fear but rather continuing on in spite of the fear. And I don’t disagree with that.

But one of the surest ways to be rid of fear is to have a firm understanding of what to expect. When you are in a team environment that plays itself out in the trust that is built up with your teammates, knowing they will do their part when the time comes.

If I fear moving forward it could be because I don’t really completely trust the God who I feel is moving me in that direction. John said it this way

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

It could be that deep down I still have some lingering fear that God is not trustworthy, that He might be setting me up to fail. Because I think I deserve to fail then God must be planning to give me what I deserve.

Don’t get me wrong, it is completely twisted thinking. I know that. But those are some of the thoughts I’ve had this morning.

My desire is to get to the top of that mountain. And not just to say that I made it, either. I sincerely want to be in a position to help other folks get up there too. I think my motivations are along the right lines even if my thought patterns still need a lot of work.

Funny. As I was working through all this and typing this out just now the desk lamp came back on. By itself. Coincidence? Some might say so and then offer up scientific explanations about how the bulb really hadn’t blown or there is a loose connection somewhere, blah, blah, blah.

But I think God decided to communicate with me in a way that would be uniquely crystal clear to me.

“Keep going, son. You’re on the right mountain path this time.”

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I got a call from one of our clients yesterday afternoon asking if we’d be able to inspect some cargo. They were a bit under the gun as the ship it was for was loading at the time and they were getting to the point where needed to load the piece.

Now normally we do our inspections a day or more before a ship starts loading so that there is time to correct any problems we see when we do our inspection so it was a bit of an unusual deal.

And that’s one of the many things the company I work for hires me out to do. When I sign off on a piece of cargo, I’m certifying that in my expert opinion the cargo is secured properly to make it to it’s destination in good order (with the usual caveats of normally expected conditions, blah, blah, blah.)

Well I took one look at these particular pieces and I knew there was no way I was going to put my signature to any kind of approval unless there were significant changes made. I’m not going to go into all the technical reasons. Let’s just suffice it to say that it wasn’t anywhere near a close call.

I believe my exact words were something like, “My recommendation is that these pieces aren’t even moved the way they are.”

The client thanked me for my opinion, but the cargo really had to go and they were going to load it then, regardless. It’s no problem for me. My company will get paid for my services either way. That’s one of the nice things about my job. When you get right down to it I’m not the one who makes the decisions. I spent years in operations jobs where I was the guy making the call, right or wrong.

Now I tell folks I’m kind of like Joe Friday, “Just the facts.” I report what I see and it is up to the client what is done with that information.

Yesterday they ignored my advice.

Then about an hour later I was heading back out to the port to do a follow up inspection on some cargo and I was stopped as I approached the gate by a police officer.

“Where are you trying to get to?”

The main intersection just inside the gate was blocked. It seems someone was moving some cargo and it was so high it caught on the main power lines into the port and took them completely out. Blacked out a good portion of the port. Even started a fire in the grass beside the road. Fire trucks with lights flashing and the whole 9 yards. No telling how many business on the port lost their power.

It was one of the pieces I’d just recommended not be moved. (You saw that one coming, didn’t you.)

I tried to call my boss and our client to let them know what had happened. Even the power to the cell towers was out. No phone service.

Ignoring your hired expert can be costly.

There is a story in the Bible about the cost of not listening to the experts.

King Solomon was one of the wisest men who ever lived. (He was also one of the richest. Interesting how wealth seems to follow wisdom, eh?) When he died there was a bit of uncertainty regarding his successor, as was common in those times. Imagine hanging chads being sorted out by armies instead of by the Supreme Court.

Anyway there was a question by part of the country. Would they follow Solomon’s son and designated successor, Rehoboam, or not?

Rehoboam asked the experts who advised his father (remember - the wisest and richest guy around) what he should do. Then he asked a group of his friends that he grew up with what he should do. The two groups gave opposite advice. Go figure.

But his buddies were young. They had new ideas. They were styling. Witty. Exciting. They had fun.

The old guys were stuffy and boring. They wore dated clothes. Listened to the oldies station. And went to bed early.

Rehoboam went with the younger inexperienced crowd. Seemed like the thing to do at the time. He implemented their ideas and rejected the expert advice he had at his disposal.

As a result of his decision, a huge chunk of his kingdom revolted and formed their own country. The two sides ended up fighting in various wars for century’s afterwards.

The moral of these stories is this. If you are going to shell out hard cash to hire an expert to give his opinion you would do well to listen to what that expert has to say. Ignoring expert advice can get you into a big mess.

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Gorgeous and I had one of our “State of the Household” meetings yesterday, which boiled down to a long conversation about money.

Its always a difficult topic for us to talk about. Most of the fights and shouting matches in our marriage had money at their cores. Early on it seemed we couldn’t even discuss the topic without the conversation spinning out of control.

The good news is we are getting better. Last night was evidence that there is definitely growth in that department. Even though the conversation was difficult and charged with emotion we both kept our cool, talked it through, shared ideas, and came up with agreeable ways to make improvements.

The major challenge, of course is that we never quite seem to have enough income to do all the things we want to see done. And that challenge is nothing more than the resultant sum of the choices we make where our budget is concerned.

For example we have chosen to live primarily off my income. That doesn’t mean that Gorgeous doesn’t work. She works very hard at a couple different businesses. It means that we often re-invest her income back into her endeavors to help them grow. The net result is that most of the income we use to live on comes from my employment. We would probably have more money to throw into the equation if Gorgeous was to get a more conventional job, but my view is that would be a short term fix that would create undesirable long term consequences.

Gorgeous keeps the books, making sure the bills get paid on time. It is something she does well.

We’ve tried other systems and approaches. So far nothing we’ve tried works as well as what we have right now. So we keep at it.

And money keeps being a source of tension at our house.

It is tempting to think that our challenges are simply a result of being some of the first offspring of the MTV generation. You know, “Too much is never enough!” But the reality is my folks still struggle with money issues too, with two of their kids in college. (My brother’s 20 years younger than me. Long Story.)

So I know our situation is not unique.

Then there’s the Bible. Did you know the Bible has a lot to say on the subject of money? Even Jesus himself said more about money than Heaven and Hell. Combined.

I guess God sees our struggle is fairly widespread out there.

Here’s a tidbit of what the Bible has to say about money from the portion often called the Wisdom Literature

And that kind of ties in with something a wise woman I know is fond of saying, “Money isn’t everything. But it is right up there with oxygen.”

Neither of those quotes mean that money should be a higher priority than we give it. But they acknowledge that money is a necessary element to survival the way this world is set up. (If you want a good explanation of how money works in the world check out this speech by Walter E. Williams. I just re-read it as a reminder.)

Money doesn’t buy us happiness. But it does give us options. And with wisdom we can make better choices with the options we face.

If we are going to be good stewards of the resources we have been entrusted with, we need to gain wisdom where the handling of money is concerned.

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Ever see someone driving down the road for miles with their brake lights on?

Last night I was out and about and saw no less than three different cars doing it. One even passed me, brake lights glaring back at me the whole way.

That can’t be good for the car. Or their fuel economy.

Do you suppose people who do this know they have their foot on the brake? Do they realize they are making things harder on their car and wasting energy?

It made me wonder how many times I go racing through life, fighting against unnecessary friction because I have my foot on the brake pedal.

I know one of the ways I slow myself down is with the constant stream of counterproductive thoughts. I have a tendency to look for all the reasons why something won’t work instead of focusing on how it could work. Or what good might come from it if it did work.

That thinking isn’t helping me.

The Bible says I should chuck those thought patterns. Check this out

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.

Everyone of us needs a mental enema from time to time to get rid of that stinking thinking that holds back from our full potential.

How are your thoughts holding you back?

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