April 4, 2011
Dear Marketplace Friend,
This year, I was ready. The old adage – “Burn me once, shame on you; burn me twice, shame on me!” – is not lost on me.
I have a friend – a Master’s graduate, on top of that – whom I’ve known for nearly 20 years. Last year, about this time, he sent an e-mail to his “list,” announcing his wife’s and his upcoming mission trip. The e-mail was longer than the normal paragraph, but it was provocative…
They were going to spend months in isolation with an unreached people group, to whom no known missionaries are assigned. They had done their homework on the group; it was traveled, multinational, and had immediate accessibility to our friends’ missionary agenda. With no training time lag, they would “hit the ground running” in developing relationships with this group. All they needed for their three month assignment was about $40,000 contributed by their friends; their sacrifice was a mid-ship cabin – without a balcony – on the around-the-world cruise segment they were targeting. Their ministry recipients: cruise ship staffs. They would leave Pocket Testaments on their bed each morning for the steward, and put tracts at their meal table places three times each day. Care to donate? April Fools…
Sure enough, last Friday’s e-mail input included a new “offer” from Rick: he’s adding a new “professional service” to his personal service catalog. As your Travel & Dining Advocate, he’ll interview you to deduce your preferences and passions… and then find restaurants that match you to a “T” (think eCalorie.com). On your behalf, he’ll make reservations – in your name – and then accompany you and your spouse (with his wife included, of course) to read the menu and make his food/drink suggestions. Since more than one item will be a “match,” he’ll order – and, eat – your “runner-up” entrée (at your expense, of course) so you can double your menu experience, per visit. All for a modest monthly retainer, plus you picking up the tab at your weekly outing. There it is, at the end: April Fools…
Rick has become, for me, “the boy who cried wolf.” I now look forward to his annual mass e-mail, as do most of his friends. The problem: now days, I open any inbound email from him ready to be bluffed with a good one; if he writes with a real announcement, I may discount it because of our “history.”
We live among a suspicious people group, we upscale, high-exposure, high-experience Americans, circa 2011. We’re all braced for the “too good to be true” offers that land in our in-box – or, spam pile – on a routine basis. Things are never what they’re purported to be, it seems…
Discernment is caution; skepticism is cancer. Discernment is a filter; skepticism is a barrier. After a few rounds of burn me once, and twice, and a third time – ad infinitum – you reach a point where you wouldn’t believe Ed McMahon at the front door with the Publisher’s Clearing House mega-check…
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that people have a hard time believing that the ultimate solution to life’s gnarliest dilemma has been secured for them by the generous act of a really rich man who isn’t from around here. Like a Secret Millionaire (new ABC prime-time show, Sunday nights; check it out!), he came incognito, lived in the neighborhood… and then offered his help in a surprise ending.
The dilemma: life, after life. Judgment. Sin. A real stewpot of distress. The solution: He calls it “the Gospel.” Good news. Forgiveness for failure; redemption for eternity; adoption into His family. A free gift; our part is to accept the gift – on His terms – follow His lead… and say, “thanks.” No April Fools…
Bob Shank