Hope for your financial life and beyond

Pushing Against Evil: I Have My Basketball Goal Back!

Hidden Nuggets Series #68: “Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?” – Psalm 94:16

Superman fighting Lex LuthorSeveral weeks ago I wrote about being robbed and how we were dealing with the theft of a portable basketball goal at our house. After some investigation on my own, I discovered that the neighborhood kids in the subdivision behind ours took the goal and had placed it in their subdivision’s park area. The big complication to the whole situation was that the subdivision directly behind ours is in another county.

Because I didn’t have proof like a model number for the goal or any personal identifying marks inscribed on it, our local police would not cross jurisdictions to retrieve the stolen property. So we were left frustrated about what to do.

In the end we felt resigned to let the issue rest. It seemed dangerous to retrieve the goal ourselves in that it might incite the teens to take some further action against us. The wise course of action was to just chalk this up as one of those unfortunate life situations that you are forced to stomach.

Before we closed the book on the case though, we had one last route to consider (which some commenters here suggested). Now I’m glad we decided to push back just a little bit more.

How We Got Our Goal Back

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A Sobering Takeaway From the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Crash

Hidden Nuggets Series #49 – “See that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” – Ephesians 5:15

rocket launcherTragedy always catches our attention.

So my thoughts have been perked this past week as the news outlets have reported the gruesome scene at the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. 298 people were gone in an instant, their bodies littered with the airplane debris over the Ukrainian countryside. Their families will be impacted forever, perhaps never finding resolution.

Like you, I’ve flown countless times. The tranquility of cruising at 30,000 ft. sets the mind at ease. We can find relaxing peace there, sipping our drinks and gazing out the window. The sun shines brightly on the clouds below, magnifying the beauty of God’s creation.

To be in that moment and have it be your last is more than I can bear to dwell on. I can’t imagine what those last seconds were like as the surface-to-air missile struck the plane.

Outside of the TV series 24, who does this? It’s shocking. It’s inhuman.

Except that it’s not inhuman because it was accomplished by at least one human. Which brings me back to a sobering conclusion that I’ve known all my life – the world can be a very evil place.

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