Who can you trust?

The big battle will continue to rage between these industry giants.  This article explains how the settlement related to former CEO of HP’s leaving and joining Oracle as President included a clause (in one form of the draft) that required continued support by Oracle for HP’s server technology (of which HP was the only provider in the industry).  Well, Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems and wants to look to its own.  Thus, it tried to break that [shaky] contract.  Both sides are spinning the information to make them look positive in the public eye (Oracle – ripping the veil off HP’s scheme to make money with a dying technology that IBM wanted killed 20 years ago but didn’t because of a half-billion dollar payment by HP; HP – revealing the ulterior motives of Oracle to break agreement and steal its customer base and sabotage its customers running the HP technology by limiting support). 

“The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.” (Proverbs 18:17)

Which organization do businesses support with their investment as the partners turn competitive:  the company that keeps critical information from you about the capital intensive investments that it wants you to buy from it or the company that doesn’t want to honor its word because its bottom-line can fare better without your involvement?  Both seem untrustworthy from where I’m standing.  And, their arguments are equally strong/weak.  Hopefully forthcoming evidence elevates at least one side’s integrity.

Hiring Hints

A couple weeks back I discovered a short and helpful article by George Anders, the author of The Rare Find: Spotting Exceptional Talent Before Everyone Else while looking into an HR offering that Monster.com provides.

The key takeaways for those who hire are to:

• Reduce their “must-have” lists to a few crucial criteria (i.e. “Compromise on experience; don’t compromise on character”).
• Be “willing to embrace unconventional views of what job skills are truly needed in each specific field”
• Not be neutral in assessment:  “The best insights into candidates’ potential come from leaders whose own life experiences speak to the traits they are seeking.”
• “The process of getting to know candidates is defined far more by questions involving ‘why’ and ‘how’ -- and less about ‘what’ or ‘when.’”

The search for significance

David Weidner who covers Wall Street for MarketWatch posted this article about the recent Davos gathering, and it reveals an important truth about men, purpose, and frailty.  Weidner laments the fact that 70 of the richest people in the world gathered for a lauded purpose, but what they accomplish remains fairly invisible.  He points out that business deals are made and the networking environment is phenomenal, but the marketed purpose for the gathering is pretty much abandoned.  Sure, lots of talking takes place, but that leads only to poverty (of thought) when untethered to action.  So why do these men keep returning and participating in similar gathering?  Or, what is the true value business leaders find in such gatherings?  Weidner writes,

“There are very few truly exclusive clubs that make you feel special. Davos remains one of those clubs.” 

The answer is in self-worth and personal significance.  When men will not glorify God they must glorify something else (including their selves).  We are creatures created to praise, and we will praise Him or something in His place.  Some men are surely finding temporary pleasure in this self-worship, enjoying the event like an enthronement festival celebrating their financial godhood. 

And, Weidner explains why the intense media bias results in any news about the gathering being relatively worthless.  He comments:

All of the financial media love Davos. We’re underpaid and insecure. A junket to Switzerland, even with the grueling work of regurgitating financial baloney, most of us would take the assignment. And why not? We may not be important, but we feel important for a few days. Davos looks beautiful. Sometimes Bono shows up. It beats working. 

So, though Weidner has never heard anyone report back in private that the gathering was worth its salt, he has always heard glowing public reviews.  With finality, he writes a sarcastic response to this rhetorical question of why these egos meet:  

But if attendees really cared about any of that, they’d have done something about it.

No, Davos is a place to be seen, to feel special, to cut a deal. It’s the global system’s way of telling the citizens of the globe that everything’s working.

Obviously, the servant leader has a much different approach to life, leadership, networking, deal-making, etc.  While he needs encouragement, it cannot ultimately come from those things that are insufficient in themselves.  Because God alone is self-sufficient and inexhaustible in the overflow of his attributes that amaze/humble, sustain, and grow us, He alone is the One who can offer us the purpose we need to motivate and charge us for selfless living and effective, servant-work.  Practically speaking, such gatherings often cause the unbelieving leader more anxiety and stress, because he’s comparing his godhood to that of another.  He’s thinking about his net worth, his influence, his looks, his future, his legacy, his experience, his accolades, his education, etc.  These things direct a man’s attention to things that he feels make his worthy of praise.  The believing leader is subject to the same temptations, but he can use these for his sanctification, self-identifying with the frailty of his barns, the brevity of his days, the extent of his kingdom and the judgment for how he stewards his influence, the imminent death of his aging and failing body, his inexperience and arrogance, etc.  The godly leader can turn to the Rock “higher than I.”   He is where mental, spiritual, and emotional stability come from.  Thus, the believing leader should find his purpose in God, not stuff or people or activities, and so he can do things without that pretense of serving (when in fact the temptation is to appear with the flowing robe and benevolent blessing but inwardly rejoice in others’ perception of your apparent greatness).  He can truly serve – God and the people made in His image.

Alternatively, there is also the caution the godly leader needs:  to not disdain the position of authority he’s been given, as if it didn’t have significant purpose in God’s plans.  It does, and to pretend that the position he holds is not important can be just as dangerous as self-worship because of the position.

Joshua Harris's "Dug Down Deep"

The final word first:  Harris's shot at a creative systematic theology is a winner.  His style is easy to read, and the plethora of stories helps keep a reader engaged in material that is important and rich but sometimes plays dry.  The theological framework he erects was familiar to me, and so I navigated his landscape fairly well, but I think the ease and enjoyability of the work had more to do with how well he kept the storyline together than with my experience.  I don't know of many systematic theologies that give you one long case-study to follow outside of the Bible with Paul or John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, and neither are "systematic theologies."  Thus the format was unique and appreciated.

The chapters follow a progression from observation and experience of a broken world and God's existence to a search for truth that makes sense of it all:  in essence, "why?"  He takes us into his life journey from cultural Christianity to dirty, stinky, wash your feet salvation by grace alone.  He looked for a foundation.  What do you build your life and faith upon?  If the person and work of Jesus Christ, why?  How do you know?  Harris looks to the Bible and finds clear and hope-full answers.  God is transcendent and imminent.  The Bible accounts for why we're messed up:  because we messed up and we continue to manifest it through mess-ups.  But, hope is not lost.  Through Jesus' dying, the corruption of men and women like us, Harris explains, is undone.  Jesus didn't just die.  He took part in a cosmic judgment, standing in our place as the defendant in which the punishment reserved for us for being broken and continuing to prove our brokenness when such ways were/are clearly broken and another way was identified as right and good was placed on His account - not as if he did the wrongs, but as one who was willing to pay for the wrongs done.  But that's not the whole story.  Harris teaches a lot more, following his and his family's growth in sanctification, explaining aspects of the Trinity when he dabbled in charismatic worship practices at one point in his life.  There were aspects of the book that I wasn't fond of.  In a way of humor, Harris says a few distasteful things that could have been left out.  He didn't; I'll get over it.


So, what Harris really did was write a "my Gospel" theology in which the truth of the Gospel and the terms of systematic theology were woven together.  It was his testimony told through the teaching of trustworthy beliefs, or the foundation of a "humble orthodoxy."  It's definitely a book worth giving to a friend, especially someone who was or is a cultural Christian, playing Church but not living for God and by God, or someone who has left the church, which for them was just a Christian culture, because they never had a foundation in the first place and were blown away when one of their misconceptions burst.  Of course, others, maybe like you, can and should enjoy the book as well.  If you do or already have, let me know your thoughts.

• Author's Web site
• Joshua on Facebook
• Joshua on Twitter
• More Info
• Read Chapter One
• Author Bio

NOTE:  I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review

Take-out wisdom

Remove the imperative to get what you need,
And all you get is greed, all that grows are weeds.
Suffocate the purpose, drowning by the means;
User made the used, and the useful made king.
Nightmare turned dream, confused beyond belief,
Given all you have, but nothing will you receive,
Because this world has nothing to give
That you would want to be given,
When this life putters out
And all that's left is Heaven.
You cannot take it with you, but that's beside the fact that
Nothing here is worth taking; and even if it was you'd have to give it back.

So get for yourself what must be handed down,
Get those first things that come from the crown.
First, get that fear by which wisdom is first found,
Then go about growing wise so that justice abounds.
You need to learn much truth, the knowledge of God,
Get it in your youth so that evil you avoid.
Add in as much understanding as you can as a boy.
Grow in observance of the righteous around,
Walk the upright upward path and never return down.
Keep the commands that goad you the right way.
Tie them on your hands, and keep evil at bay.
Avoid loose-moral'd women, and don't run after them either.
That pleasure will be pain; they change like the weather.
And you'll die, buried alive in the grave you enter willfully,
Rejecting these words written for you carefully,
So determine your way prayerfully,
Hearing all of God's words, not just opening it sparingly.
If that's what you do, it says you're a fool for not hearing me.

Decisions - Part 1

When no way out shows,
When no parachute pulls,
When the line goes cold,
When the tale seems told,
When the day seems old,
When the player should fold,
And hope stands dulled,
Just a grope for gold,
That's when faith gets bold,
That's when belief takes hold
That's when doubt gets pulled
And dice get rolled.


Watching at the crossroads and waiting for a sign
To shine and set up house in his mind,

To hand him a directive to plod on either side.
But, he waits with no response; the message never arrives.
With a silence so deafening his heart suffers surprise,
The demise of a prize captured in midst of his mind's eyes.
To death, put his momentary hope, in the sky,
Fly away. Leaving him ruminating all day, "Why?"
He knows the reasons seem shy, evading all reply,
But the priority for intimacy between them is too high,
"Come!" moans the seeker, "Don't leave me to die!"
But stillness is all he gets, the silence begrudges a cry.


So through the struggle of uncertitude, though certainty's sure,
He crouches, sniffs the air, and then walks away from one door
Toward the other that promises nothing but still calls to his core.
Though poor, there's no treasure in store,
For the seeker to keep moving, but he's still hoping for more,
Of what, he doesn't know, though clear about who he's doing this for.
Even if that seems untrue if explored,
The seeker knows in his selfish fear to appeal to the Lord.
Many times past it's to Him he's implored,
Then questioned responses as if there'd been a questionable word.
He knows that wasn't right, because the Word is insured,
By His own blood that He poured,
To give the seeker life through the cross He endured.

With his faith re-secured and the path no longer blurred,
Now fixed on not a way, but the Way, with his troubled-heart cured,
The seeker presses forward, to wherever He sends him to go,
Finding satisfaction in the Sender, and so enabled to sow.

When peace comes down, again.

Calling out for peace,
Holding hope for tomorrow,
O that the strife might cease,
But all that returns is sorrow.
Where to turn to now?
Whom to cry to for help?
How long can we hold out
Until the sky falls down on us?

We're calling out to You.
We need a miracle,
Pure and true,
To revive our souls.
Make us new.

As the darkness fades and the light beams forth,
We're mesmerized at the all-surpassing worth
Of Your work.
What was once veiled,
And formerly concealed,
In the face of the Son of Man
Has fully been revealed.

So I cry come Lord Jesus,
Not take me home.
But make me home.
Finally the place where You've set Your throne.
But not all will be going,
Because some keep rowing,
Striving against the waves
And God's love's flowing.
Towing the sins they own,
Owing debts full-blown,
Calling out for the mountains to enclose 'em in stone,

But the mountains will flee with the sea.
The sky will rip open to display God's glory.
None will be hidden from His face on that Day,
When Peace reigns full and the wicked are repaid.

So plead for peace quick,
Because the Judge is coming soon,
To lavish us with more love,
To manifest evil's doom.
Put your-self to the tomb,
Turn to our Groom,
Praise the Living One who makes life from death bloom.


Draft.