What Drug Cartels and Christians Have In Common
Not recognizing our cars. « Stuff Christians Like – Jon Acuff
#659. Not recognizing our cars.
Nov 25th by JonIt’s always good to have a friend who is a cop and I’m excited to say I just met one. His daughter goes to kindergarten with mine and we walked around together on Halloween night. I peppered him with the kind of questions a 7-year old boy would ask McGruff the crime dog but he humored me. And then, he told me something a little surprising …
International drug cartels use caravans of different cars to run drugs through Georgia.
I read about that in article but secretly hoped the organizational savvy of cartels that are now using a Wal-Mart approach to outsourcing their crimes was exaggerated. He assured me it was not. Here’s how it works:
When a drug cartel is going to drive drugs up from Miami or Texas, they use three different cars …
The first car is kind of the “smoker” car. Its only job is to go 100MPH and smoke out any cops that might be on the highway. Its role is to get a speeding ticket and pull the cops out of their hiding places.
The second car is the disguised car. They often use unassuming elderly couples in boring looking vehicles to actually move the drugs. This car looks normal but could be carrying millions of dollars of drugs.
The third car is the popper. Its only job is to protect the car with the drugs. When the popper sees the police chasing the disguised car, it speeds up and pulls in front of them. The popper then slams on his brakes, forcing the cop car to rear end it. The cop car’s airbags pop off. When that happens, the car is automatically disabled and turns itself off. The cop is now officially out of the chase.
I was fascinated listening to him talk about the strategy involved in an operation like that, but realized ultimately that approach wasn’t that original of an idea. For me, the sin in my life works in a pretty similar fashion.
The smoker sins in my life are the big, neon, obvious stuff I deal with. These are the things I see coming a mile away. To be honest, those are usually lust and porn related. Right before an important speaking engagement or a key moment with God, something will unexpectedly tear down the highway of my life. A contact from my old life will email me after years of silence. Like a cop watching a car do 100MPH I’m tempted to get distracted or lost chasing the smoker.
The disguised sins in my life are harder to spot. These are the things that look like really great opportunities. They’re not so obvious in their deviousness. It just looks like an SUV with a family on vacation, but inside the shell of normalcy are hundreds of pounds of poison. Right now, these are probably new opportunities I’m being offered. It would be really easy to say yes to every opportunity I get to go speak or write. I could say yes and yes and yes over and over again, not realizing that doing so means I’m saying no to my family. No I won’t be there multiple weekends in a row for my daughters. No I won’t pour into my own family because I’ve got pour into a freelance project instead. Some of the opportunities I need to say yes to, but some aren’t the right fit and distinguishing between the two is a challenge.
The popper sins are those ones that stop you dead in your tracks. You’ve spotted the disguised sin. You’re eliminating it from your heart when all of the sudden something pulls in front of you, slams on the brakes and your car is disabled. For me, that’s pride. I’ve started to feel self righteous and prideful about how I am deliberately growing the Stuff Christians Like ministry. And what was initially a good thing, me going after the disguised sin of over committing myself turns into something gross. It turns into pride and I find myself with busted air bags on the side of the road with a car that won’t work.
I’m not sure if you ever feel the same way, maybe you don’t have three cars in your life that are constantly trying to wreck you. But if you do, I encourage you to think about them. Start to see them coming. Know deep down that the drug cartel’s methods are tiny and ill planned compared to how the devil is plotting to ruin your life right now. And pray that when God shows you what those three cars are, He’ll show you what to do.
Today, let’s play fill in the blank. Finish these sentences:
1. My smoker car is ____________
2. My disguised car is __________
3. My popper car is ___________
Adoption December 2009 – Life Sucks
While there is no real way to determine this I believe that the adoption experience is the only experience where the father can experience almost exactly what the mother experiences from a pain perspective. Every adoption experience has its fair share of ups and downs. Every adoption is typically immersed in unmet expectations, lots of waiting, periods of lost hope, periods of false hope, and periods of renewed hope. Some adoption stories end with overwhelmed parents, and overwhelmed kids. Some adoption stories end only to begin again once siblings are found. Some adoption stories never begin, and these are the ones that sadden me the most. While all adoption stories include vast similarities every adoption story is different, and ours is off the charts different.
Yesterday was Tuesday. Tuesday is Adoption News Day at the Smiths. This is the day that our adoption agent, Jill, is in contact with the people on the ground in Uganda which may include the Ugandan lawyer and Prossy-who runs the orphanage and is married to the Visionary Pastor of about 100 churches in East Uganda and West Kenya. His name is Lucas.
We have been expecting to hear something for a few weeks. The hopes of my wife, Kristi, were that a newspaper ad had been placed and no one came forward to contest the adoption of the three children that we have been given the opportunity to adopt. The reality was that Lucas and Prossy had been in Kampala for about two weeks trying to obtain NGO status for the orphanage in Busia, and not only had they still not secured the NGO status, but it would be until February before it was granted, if granted at all.
I was prepared for reality, after having served in Uganda for a month in 2007 and after having two years worth of unmet expectations I knew to add 6-8 weeks to the best possible scenario and then only put a 50% chance on that being met. Kristi, on the other hand, is a positive thinker. She says things like, “It shouldn’t take too long to paint the bedroom.” Of course, for those of us who do the painting we know that when painting on a part time basis the painting will be completed in a matter of weeks not hours. It took me a year to finish the bonus room upstairs to prepare for our new additions. I’m pretty sure that was 11 months longer than Kristi thought it would take…ok maybe 10.
So, yesterday’s news came crashing in on her in a very unsuspecting way. Maybe I should have been clued into the fact that this news was going to have a very different impact than I suspected on Kristi as Jill broke down into tears with me on the phone, but somehow I just missed it. Kristi was crushed. I delivered the news in a very nonchalant almost apathetic manner, which I was confident would just enable her to move on quickly to flippantly respond, “Well, that’s no surprise.” Instead, she quietly disappeared. I went looking for her several minutes later with a child’s question about a school project. I found the master bathroom door locked. With this being typically a sign that I’m in big trouble I knocked hesitantly and listened closely. I closed the bedroom doors, picked the lock and found her losing control of her emotions on the floor of our closet. Unable to talk to me, I resisted the fix-it mode we men tend to dive into when our wives are upset. Instead I apologized for my clear mishandling of the news. I reassured her. I prayed over her, held her, and let her cry.
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to try to tell our adoption story. So, tune in on Thursdays as I walk you through the epic that is our adoption story.
De-skunk your dog, and other small group lessons.
As our small group was shutting down for the night we visited with our overworked and under appreciated friend who happens to be doing an internship here in Horse Country, Nicole Fawns. I let out our Cairn Terrier one last time before putting her to bed and I went to let Nicole out and Daisi in.
Well, let’s just say it was a good thing those two things happened at the same time because Daisi came in with her tail between her legs smelling like…well SKUNK. I shewed her to the garage and Nicole gave us the formula for De-skunking the dog. Here it is for all of you who run into the same situation.
- 1 quart of Hydrogen Peroxide
- 1 tsp liquid soap
- 1/4 cup of baking soda
- Wet dog with water
- Mix Up ingredients
- Pour on dog, being careful around eyes
- Let sit 5-10 minutes.
- Wash out.
Now how is that for a great reason to keep your small group open to anyone and everyone. Nicole is single, and our group is all couples. She’s from the West Coast and we’re all East Coast or Mid-Westerners. She’s in her 20’s and two of us are approaching 40s. There is no reason to have her in our group, right? WRONG!
While she’s more busy than any of us and misses many a small group gathering it’s a place for her to get connected, and we love having her around.
Funny how God knew we’d need her expertese.
Keep your small group open! You never know when you might need a de-skunking formula. After all it’s not about you.