I Trust God

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Steve Picray

Trust GodTo my faithful readers, you know that I have been waiting 46 days now for my tax refund.  To date, it has not come.  What you may not know is why I am praying fervently that it comes soon.  The reason is that I have a debt that is coming due at the end of the week, and I have to pay it or else I will receive a very large financial penalty (thousands of dollars of more debt).  As I sit here, our checking account has a balance of $58.79.  This is enough for me to fill up my car, and maybe buy a few groceries to get us through until our next paycheck in nine days.  We might have to live on tuna for a few days, but we won’t starve. And the worse thing that can happen with the debt is that I have to pay more later.

I am trusting God with this problem.  I trust that He is going to do the absolute best thing for me and my family.  My trust is absolute.  If He decides that this is a good time for someone to empty out my bank account so that I can’t afford gas, then I accept that.  If He decides that I need to pay thousands more to this creditor than our current arrangement requires, then I accept that.  If He decides that He is going to provide the money that we need, then I accept that as well.  Do you understand?  I’m asking God to provide the money we need, but at the same time I am telling God that I that I recognize that He knows more than I do, He knows what is best for me, and I trust Him with the circumstances of my life.

In praying about this issue, I have been reminded of something the past few days. I wrote a post four years ago called Perspective.  The post still applies today.

Last night I learned that a godly man named Matt Herbster is experiencing suffering that dwarfs my own.  His wife Julie died of cancer yesterday.  Matt and his five young children are facing sorrow of which I can only imagine.  They are steadfast in their belief that Julie knew Christ as her Savior, and therefore they will see her again someday, but they still have to deal with the (probable) years of separation before that happens.

Today I learned of another tragedy.  Eleven years ago my wife and I were members of a church in Iowa.  We were friends of the song leader and his wife.  We taught their children in AWANA. I listened to their son Jared say his Bible verses.   Today I found out that Jared grew up, got married and had a son named Perrin.  Last October Perrin, a 14 month-old boy, died unexpectedly.  Having experienced a miscarriage, my wife and I can understand a small fraction of the pain that Jared and his wife are going through, but even so, it seems like the sorrow would be magnified when you have met and gotten to know your child before they die. I have never experienced the death of one of my children who live with me. I pray I never do.

And so, I look at my problem of “no money” and I am thankful to God, because my problem, in comparison to what some other people are going through, does not seem so big.  I am reminded to pray for others, and not just myself, because someone else is always going through a problem worse than mine.  I thank God for His many blessings, and continue to trust Him for all things.

Postscript:  This is a website that the Stanley family has set up to receive donations to build a park dedicated to Perrin. Please donate if you can.  Thank you.

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Red Equals What?

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Steve Picray

I signed on to Facebook tonight and saw this picture as some of my friend’s profile pictures:

Red Equals

I was curious.  What does it mean?  After a quick search, what I found out is that basically every person who has changed their profile picture to that is a supporter of “equal marriage.”  By this I can only assume they mean “same-sex marriage.”  This is the idea that men should be allowed to marry men, and women should be allowed to marry women.

I do not support this idea because it is redefines the whole concept of marriage.  Marriage is defined by Merriam-Webster’s dictionary as “the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law.”  So-called “same-sex marriages” are antithetical to the very definition of marriage.

This is illogical.  Pick any other word, and then say it means something different than what the definition says.  This makes no sense.  Here’s an example: “Zebra: an African mammal related to the horse but distinctively and conspicuously patterned in stripes of black or dark brown and white or buff.”

Two Zebras.

Two Zebras.

Now let’s just remove the concept of “horse.” What is a Zebra now?  “Any of several fleet African mammals distinctively and conspicuously patterned in stripes of black or dark brown and white or buff.”   So a cheetah can be a zebra.

One of these is now a zebra.

One of these is now a zebra.

A person can be a zebra if they are distinctively and conspicuously marked with stripes.

This person is now a zebra.

This person is now a zebra.

This is ridiculous, but this is how I view the idea of changing the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples.

The idea of same-sex marriage is anti-biblical.  The Bible is very clear that marriage is the union of a man and a woman.  God created man, and then He created the perfect helper for the man:  a woman.  One man and one woman marriage is self-evident in the created order.  Homosexuality was forbidden by the Mosaic Law, which was God’s ideal set of rules that was given to Israel.  Jesus Christ, the Son of God said in Matthew 19:4, “And He answered and said, “Have you not read that ‘He who created them from the beginning made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?”

Now I love my friends and family who are showing their solidarity with homosexuals who want to “get married.”  But what it comes down to is this:  Who do you trust?  Your own heart and mind, or God?  If you trust in what you think and feel, then of course “letting anybody do whatever they want to do” seems like a good philosophy.  “It’s not hurting anybody, is it?”  If you are not a Christian, I can totally understand your position, although I disagree with it in substance, obviously, since I try to live my life according to the example set by Jesus Christ.

But if you believe in the God of the Bible, I don’t see how you can possibly justify arguing with God about the definition of marriage, or telling Him that He got it wrong when He defined marriage in the Bible as between a man and a woman. If you say you are a Christian, then that means you are claiming to follow Jesus Christ.  When Christ himself affirmed “one man-one woman” as the definition of marriage, how can you state that He was wrong, and still believe He is the all-knowing and infallible God?  Please explain it to me, because I don’t see it.

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Redbox Streaming

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Steve Picray

I signed up for a free trial of the new Redbox service which will cost $8 a month (after the first free month). What does this get you? It gets you 4 DVD credits that you can use to rent movies at their kiosks (so basically $4 worth of DVD movies), and access to their “streaming library of hits.”  On the surface, this sounds like a great deal.

I have been saying for a while that someday in the near future DVD’s will no longer be the preferred method of delivery for new movies.  I was hoping that Redbox was saying they were going to stream new movies either as part of the $8 a month, or streaming the new releases for $1 or $2 a pop. Nope.

I tried to access the free library, but was not able to find any list of titles that I could watch.  When I attempted to access it on my Xbox, I got a menu which showed movies to rent,  movies that were included in the “unlimited streaming,” and movies to reserve at the kiosks. The movies to rent cost $5 each.

If I want to watch, say, “Wreck It Ralph” today, here are my choices:

  • I can go to a Redbox kiosk and rent it for $1
  • I can rent it from Direct TV for $5 on demand.

I thought there would be a third version where I could rent it from Redbox, but it isn’t listed among the movies I can rent instantly. What movies can I rent from Redbox, you ask?  I can rent movies that have been out for a while already, such as “The Amazing Spiderman” and “The Lorax.”  The Amazing Spiderman has been out so long I could watch it on Starz if I had that service. The Lorax is available for free as part of my Netflix streaming service.    So my options for not-so-new releases are this:

  • I can pay $8 extra per month to Netflix to have DVD’s sent to my house (about six to eight movies a month)
  • I can pay $12 per month for the Starz package and watch the movie there.
  • I can rent each movie individually on Redbox for $5 per movie.

Now I’m no math whiz, but it seems to me that Redbox is making a grievous error here.  They are charging “new release” prices for the rental of non-new releases.

If the gas station across the street is selling gas for $10 a gallon, and the gas station a couple miles away is selling gas for $3 a gallon, where are you going to fill up? This is what made Redbox a household name:  charging $1 for movies that Blockbuster was charging $4 or $5 for.

I am unimpressed so far.  There seems to be exponentially more videos on Netflix anyway. I think I will use my 4 DVD credits, and then cancel Redbox.  Thumbs down so far.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

I’m Sorry

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Steve Picray

hrblockI remember a hotel commercial from a few years back.  The man staying at the hotel was complaining to the front desk clerk about his room.  The clerk said, “I’m sorry sir.”  The man kept complaining about various things that were wrong with the room (dirty, air doesn’t work, etc).  The clerk kept apologizing until finally the man said, “You keep saying ‘I’m sorry’, but aren’t you going to do anything about it?” “No,” the clerk said. “I’m only authorized to apologize.”  The customer said, “That’s ridiculous.”  And the clerk said, “I’m sorry sir.”

That is how I feel about H&R Block, and that is why I will not be using their tax service from now on. Am I dropping H&R block because they made a mistake? No.  Everybody makes mistakes.  The reason I am dropping H&R Block is due to their reaction to their mistake.

They have acknowledged (when I called them on the phone, on their Facebook page AND in an email I received) that they messed up.  They have stated they realize this is going to be a hardship for people.  They are working to fix the problem and get us our money as soon as possible from the IRS.

Well I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough.  They should be doing one of two things, or possibly both.  First of all, they should be refunding the fees of everybody affected by this. I’m not talking about the IRS filing fees, I’m talking about the money we paid to H&R Block for their program, for the service of filing.  In my case that was only $30 which I paid for the computer program. Some people paid a couple hundred dollars.

When you are paid to provide a service, and you fail to provide that service, you should give the money back. If I paid my neighbor in advance to mow my lawn, and he didn’t mow my lawn, I would expect to get my money back.

Secondly, they should advance the entire refund as a “loan” for every person who is affected by this, up to some limit (say, $5000).  That way people wouldn’t be in trouble with their bill collectors, mortgage companies, or whoever else they were going to pay with their tax refund.  Then, when the refunds finally show up, the customers could give that money back to H&R Block. H&R Block does these kinds of “advances” all the time (and they charge for it). The system is in place for doing this, they are just choosing not to use it.

If H&R Block had done either or both of these things when they found out about this problem, they would have made customers for life.  They would have turned a mistake into a public relations gold mine.  People would have said, “You know, they did mess up, but they don’t do that very often, and when they did, they made it right.”

But they didn’t. And they haven’t.

So next year I will probably make the switch to TurboTax. I believe H&R Block has yet to see the long-term effect of their failure to respond, because all of those affected by this won’t be in the market for a tax service until next year.  I predict that H&R Block is going to be worse off next year than they are right now.  And it’s all because they were just sorry.

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