‘Lord of mercy, You have heard my cry’
When you’re at rock bottom, you’re kneeling.
Last Friday I get a message from a friend, who opened up with confirming if I was an active minister; To which I responded to the affirmative – I told him I had the title since 2011, but I only stepped up during the scam pandemic. He told me he still thought I would be a good fit for a job he was offering – it was a sales job that pays on commission, with no salary.
At the time the first response I thought of was that, well, it was sales. I worked in technical support in the front lines, as well as in a supervisory role, for one company through two lines of business. I had two ‘tours’ working remotely – first, as a ‘hybrid’ transaction coordinator for a real-estate company based in the US Midwest, and then as an overnight dispatcher for a non-medical transport company serving the US Northwest. Sales was the final frontier for me. The only ‘experience’ I had in sales was in half-assed upsells as part of closing resolved tech support calls, and cold-calling site visitors.
I thought positive at first. This would be something totally new for me. Naval Ravikant’s tweet also came to mind. You know, the one where he says ‘Learn to build. Learn sales. Learn both, and you’ll be unstoppable‘. Figured I was halfway there, and this would be a crash-course into eventually becoming ‘unstoppable’.
Then I told my Mom about it. I told her about the job, she (expectedly) asked for how much the job paid, to which I told her that they inflated how much I could earn… on commission. She sat me down and we both prepared mentally – She was apparently wanting to talk to me for the longest time, and I was bracing for a kick in the nuts.
Surprisingly, by God’s grace, I was able to not only sit down and keep any violent reactions to myself… I moved from drowning out whatever she said, to actually listening to her. Long story short, she said I was getting older, and while waiting for another business to start, I really should have ‘something’ for myself, to earn. She went through stuff I was already aware of; That I needed to step up not only for myself, but for the family I was eventually going to have.
It was a conversation I don’t think I’d be forgetting for a while. I am thankful for her, and I continue to pray for the Lord to protect her, to bless her, to keep her healthy and strong.
But now that I think about it, sure, it’s an opportunity to learn for sure, but I’m just wary about if I’d actually be earning anything soon. I was given the raw numbers by Grok AI – most folks fall out from these sorts of strongly-pushed commission jobs in 30-60 days, there’s actually no guarantee that I would make any money any time soon. It wasn’t negative, but it was clear – I needed to get back with this friend of mine, and ask him more questions.
In prayer last night, something occurred to me – Yes, there’s a lot of movement going on.
Someone’s looking for a second job. Someone lost a job and is transitioning towards the next one. Someone bagged a work from home gig. Someone is about to go abroad for a job. Someone else was already working halfway around the world since earlier this year. Yet another brother (who was also halfway around the world) was getting calls from a company he worked at for the longest time, for him to come back.
This is on top of the folks who, earlier this year, moved out because of a dispute with no clear path to resolution. There was someone else who moved to a service closer to home to support her growing family. Then there was the other team member who, for the longest time, attended both our church and another church her family was going to… and eventually decided to support her family, with our blessing and minimal hard feelings.
Yesterday, I was happy to have stopped a scammer short of gaining full access to my Mom’s social media account. These guys were able to get to her using the account of a friend who they apparently hacked into first… with the false promise of giving her government assistance. They asked for us to share our screen so they could view her email for a ‘code’ from the government agency they said they represented, and when I saw (from another device) that this was a Facebook code… Well, shortly after I told them to fight fairly, blocked the account, and told my Mom to contact the lady whose account was hacked some other way, and/or to get with other contacts these people may try to call.
It’s not just forward movement that’s happening. There are people moving out, people moving on. There are still bad actors who are making their own moves as well. There are also moves that we (I) need to think twice before getting into. Not all movement is good, not all movement should be done right away.
We’ve already spoken in length regarding how the world today is in its own increasing levels of famine – the world is not growing thinner, but rather, more (morbidly obese) due to the blatant suppression of nutritious food, and the shameless propagation of junk food; Physically, mentally and spiritually.
What are we to do?
Well as I mentioned before, I went ahead and wrote a good deal through all this that’s been going on as of late, and I ran it through Grok AI, asking it what sort of theme could we pull out of all these observations.
Here I’m copy-pasting what it returned:
Campaign Title: “Rooted in Christ: Living the Good News, Advancing the Worldwide Mission”
Supplementary Vision: Living up to our name. Good News Worldwide Mission.
(Good News) To plant our church family deeper in Christ and His Word so that every member thrives in the Father’s grace, walks in the power of the Holy Spirit, and (Worldwide Mission) actively participates in transforming nations and generations with the Gospel.
Biblical Foundation
Besides being anchored in our Statement of Faith, our Vision and our Mission, the following Verses shall also serve as mainstays for the campaign:
As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. Colossians 2:6-7
Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. “I am the Vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.John 15:4-5
“…But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper.Psalms 1:2-3
Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near. Hebrews 10:24-25 NLT
To be rooted is to be nourished, in this world plagued by famines of all sorts of forms.
To be rooted is to be stable, in this world full of movement.
That’s pretty much how I closed this message.
In the discussions that followed the service, we saw how we could actually discuss Colossians 2:6-7 in three Sundays:
- As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord (including context of the entire chapter, and what precedes verse 6)
- so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him
- and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.
I got some good feedback… BUT contrary to where my mind was headed regarding the sales job, the guy who I wanted to talk to, to see if he had any openings at his company (where I used to work)… He went ahead and encouraged me, to actually take the job. Yes, there were caveats, but he went ahead and agreed with what Dox told me: I have nothing to lose, and God’s grace to gain.
And there’s more. Mom and I agreed to leave the team behind so we could get to an organic vegetable store she wanted to check out before it closes at 5pm. I then drove to another location in the central business district, parked, and she headed out to another organic vegetable store, while I excused myself to run off to get prescription supplements…
…and on my way to the pharmacy, guess who I see? Melvin, the childhood friend who was offering me the sales job. That’s right.
We talked, I asked all the questions I had to ask, and the answers he gave relieved me, dispelled the more significant fears I had… and right then and there, I told him I’m jumping in. I’m in. I’m sold… Sold to a sales job.
I started this day with a prayer to the Most High, asking Him for help. And the Man did not disappoint, let me tell you.
Let’s continue to trust in Him. I’m definitely trusting in Him a whole lot more, in these coming days.
What a faithful God have I…
What a faithful God have I,
What a faithful God!
What a faithful God have I,
Faithful in every way!
Halleluyah!
JB's Personal Brain Defragmenter 
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