<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tempering Your Faith in World Systems<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What he trusts in is fragile; what he relies on is a spider\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s web.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em> (Job 8:14)<\/p>\n I was eating lunch at a restaurant in Orlando one summer day a few years back when a thunderstorm knocked out the electricity. Power outages from lightning aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t uncommon in the Southeast in the summer \u00e2\u20ac\u201c thunderstorms come with the season and lightning comes with the storms. Power is usually restored in a minute or two; sometimes an hour or two \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but eventually the lights come back on.<\/p>\n This particular power-out lasted longer than a minute or two. The restaurant was a fairly big place; I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m guessing there were over a hundred diners inside \u00e2\u20ac\u201c including me, Elaine and our granddaughter, Chelsey. Enough light came in from the outside windows that we weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t in the dark, but it was Orlando in the summer and after twenty minutes without the a\/c running the air inside was getting a bit dense.<\/p>\n Our problem \u00e2\u20ac\u201c everyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s problem \u00e2\u20ac\u201c was that we were all in a bit of a stalemate. The cooks in the kitchen couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see to work (no windows in the kitchen), but that wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t an issue because the waiters couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t enter orders on the restaurant\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s computerized system. The folks who hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ordered yet had it easiest; they could simply walk out of the restaurant.<\/p>\n Those of us who had already eaten were in a fix. Our meals were finished \u00e2\u20ac\u201c or half finished, but we couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t pay the check and leave because we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a check to pay. That was part of the restaurant\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s computer system too. But if we did have a check to pay, we couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t \u00e2\u20ac\u201c unless we paid cash and didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need change. Most of us were planning on paying by credit card. We couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do that; the transaction had to be run on the same system as the orders and the checks. The restaurant\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nervous system was shut down.<\/p>\n All we could do was look at each other and wait for the power to come back on.<\/p>\n Oh, we could have just left without paying the bill, and become food service criminals by default. We might have even gotten away with it. It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t our fault the power went out; what did the court system expect us to do? Wait until power is restored? My guess is that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s exactly what the court system would expect us to do. Walking out of a restaurant without paying because they can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t print you a bill or process your transaction can lead to anarchy. And courts just hate anarchy.<\/p>\n As I was sitting there in the semi-dark, breathing used air, fantasizing about our getaway, the only thing that held me back was the fear that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d get just to the door when the power was suddenly restored. The lights on, the computerized ordering system buzzing to life, the receipt printer spitting out tickets \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and the three of us, my hand on the door \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 busted; trying to leave the scene of the crime, under the guilty stare of all those patient citizens who stayed in their seats until power and order was restored. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d better just stay put.<\/p>\n Then the power came back on, the lights lit, the computerized LCD screens blinked to life and the receipt printers started spitting out tickets. Whew! That was a close one.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n These days we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re connected – more than ever before. Paychecks (if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got one) go in direct deposit. The power, phone and cable companies draft their fees out of your account automatically. When was the last time you bought gas for the car by actually giving cash to a human being standing behind the counter inside a building? Swipe and go. It works for gas and parking; last week I ordered breakfast in a hotel by pressing the picture of an egg burrito on a touch screen and swiping my room key. Yup \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re connected. Not to each other, of course \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but to the System.<\/p>\n Almost fifteen years ago Bill Gates, of Microsoft fame, wrote a revolutionary book titled The Road Ahead<\/span><\/em>. In it he laid out his vision of a future where people and systems were connected to make life easier – what he called \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcfriction free\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em>. His book featured futuristic tools that would speed us along the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcinformation highway.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em> Page 70 pictured a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcpersonal computer based interactive media center.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em> It came complete with a 14\u00e2\u20ac\u009d CRT (the bulky computer monitor that used to take up two-thirds of our desks before we all switched over to flat screens) and pullout keyboard drawer; the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcinteractive media center\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em> looked to take up most of a living room wall. But what this machine of the future would do was really quite fantastic. It would store all of your music and allow you to listen to new music, transmitted over the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcinformation highway.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em> The \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcpersonal computer based interactive media center\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em> could even be connected to control your home television! Imagine that – integrated audio and video from a single device that could easily fit into a largish living room!<\/p>\n Bill Gates dream came true, ironically by the hand of his rival Steve Jobs at Apple. Today we call Gates\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcpersonal computer based interactive media center\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em> an IPod<\/em> \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take up as much wall space as Gates imagined.<\/p>\n Gates dreamed of a future tool he called a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcwallet PC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em>. Small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, this space age device would take the place of your car keys, credit cards, cash and identification; it would send and receive e-mails and faxes (?), remind you of appointment times and even guide you through traffic using something the army called a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcGlobal Positioning System.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em> Of all the great things Gates imagined his \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcwallet PC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em> could do, it never occurred to him that it might be used as a telephone too. Gate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcwallet PC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em> is today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s IPhone<\/em> – Steve Jobs got him again. I think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why Bill quit writing books.<\/p>\n Well, the future is here and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re living in it. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve succeeded so well in connecting ourselves to the System that, looking back on The Road Ahead<\/span><\/em>, Gates\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 revolutionary ideas in 1995, seem as quaint as the antique soft-drink signs at the local Cracker Barrel.<\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just our day to day that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s connected either. Our future is connected. Retirement savings and 401K money go (without us ever seeing it) into mutual funds and money markets that we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really understand but are supposed to earn interest and provide for the day when we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be too old or too tired to go into work and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have to live off of the money we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve socked away but never seen because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s never existed outside the System we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re connected to.<\/p>\n The System makes our life easier to the degree that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re connected to it. That is, assuming it works. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve found out lately that the System we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re so connected to fails occasionally. And because each part is inextricably connected to every other part of the System, when one part fails, it tends to drag other parts down with it. Of course, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re connected to the System \u00e2\u20ac\u201c where do you think that puts us? Millions of people have put their faith in the System only to have their life savings go down in the same big flush with the failed parts.<\/p>\n And the System includes all those connected folks who have forgotten how to live outside of it for five minutes at a time. Think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m exaggerating? Shut down all the ATM\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and credit card terminals for twenty-four hours. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d blow a hundred years worth of civilization in a day.<\/p>\n Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get me wrong. I like electricity. I like my Blackberry. I like paying at the pump. I even liked the breakfast burrito I \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcswiped\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em> last week. As much as I use the System I temper how much faith I put in it.<\/p>\n I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not advocating going back to barter \u00e2\u20ac\u201c trading home grown chicken eggs for a Starbuck\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Mocha Latte. I am advocating having a small plan in case parts of the system go haywire for a while. Cash still works as a financial transaction medium in most establishments. Got any? Bottled water is an excellent substitute for tap water in an emergency; but don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t count on picking up a case at Wal-Mart after<\/em> the faucet stops working. A flashlight can be used as a temporary source of artificial illumination if, God forbid, the power grid shuts down for thirty minutes \u00e2\u20ac\u201c assuming you have a flashlight \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 oh yeah, and batteries.<\/p>\n That we have such a term as \u00e2\u20ac\u02dctough times\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/em> indicates that the System doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always work as planned. Thriving in tough times means having a clue what to do in the event the system doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work as planned. Right now we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re experiencing the System not working as planned.<\/p>\n Even though I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m connected to the System, I temper how much faith I put in it. Firstly because I know it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always work and I like to have contingencies available should a part fall off. Secondly because I know, long term, the system is going to fail and not come back. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s broken at its core. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a new system coming one day that I do put my faith in.<\/p>\n Until then I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll keep swiping at the pump. When that fails, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll pay cash. When that fails, I guess I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll walk. But what I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do is blindly put my faith in a doomed system. My faith rests in the new system; I can see it coming, even though it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not quite here.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does \u00e2\u20ac\u201c comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em> (I John 2:15-17)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tempering Your Faith in World Systems \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What he trusts in is fragile; what he relies on is a spider\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s web.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Job 8:14) I was eating lunch at a restaurant in Orlando one summer day a few years back when a thunderstorm knocked out the electricity. Power outages from lightning aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t uncommon in the Southeast in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[585,134,586,277,276,83,458,540],"tags":[484,481,489,487,486,483,480,488,482,485,479],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":337,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions\/337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gotpotential.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}