Christianity Is Rigged!!!

Yes my friends you read that correctly.  Christianity is rigged!  Praise God it is rigged!  Have you really  paid much attention to I John 2:1-2 "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world." NASV

So check this out.  The "system" is totally rigged in our favor.  For starters our Advocate is Jesus.  That word advocate is actually a legal term we might more readily recognize as our lawyer.   Now, who sent the lawyer?  God did.  That means the trial judge sent the lawyer, which just happens to be his son, to defend us.  Oh, and did I mention, the lawyer and the judge are of the same mind.  And lest I forget, the judge sent the lawyer to pay the penalty for our offense. In fact the judge sent the lawyer to pay for our crime before we even committed the act.  Yes folks this system is totally rigged.  Rigged in our favor.

Well then, as long as we have faith in this God and Advocate then the words of Romans 8 will always ring true. "I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us."  The Message

"Mr. Jamey how am I gonna feed my kids?" April 2011

"I wrote this blog in April of 2011 in an old blog I no longer use.  My heart tells me it deserves a place on this blog, and a fresh read."  Jamey Foshee May 2014

 

I just spent the last week battling a very debilitating case of pneumonia. Two phone calls, and one trip to the doctor, and I'm recovering quite nicely thank you. Easy? No. In hindsight though, a fairly simple process. Yesterday, I gave the medical community 80 dollars, pharmacy included, and I'll be on my merry way quickly. 80 dollars. When I get my Blue Cross Blue shield report I'll be grateful that I didn't have to pay about 200 to 225 dollars out of pocket.

I woke up about 5:30 this morning and that 200 dollar number triggered something in me. From early 2004 until late in 2007, I worked in the Buy Here Pay Here auto industry. Those are the car lots that "Tote The Note" on the cars they sell. Certainly we financed cars for people who were very irresponsible, but the vast majority of our clients were very good folks, who were just struggling to get by month to month or in many cases week to week. At the time we had around a 1.2 million dollar portfolio, so I have a vast range clients on which I base my judgments.

I primarily oversaw underwriting (deciding who and how we would finance a car) and collections. One particular client came to my mind this morning. We will call her Jane for the purposes of privacy. Jane was in her early 30s, had two young children, and was a single parent. I knew her financial status and she couldn't afford health insurance.

It was unusual for Jane to get very behind on her weekly payment. She came in on Fridays, almost every week, when her payment was due. I knew her financial situation was precarious, because sometimes she would call me on Thursday to let me know she couldn't pay that week, and would take care of two payments the following Friday. I was fine with that and, we had a procedure in place to do that for people we felt were reliable. We called them Promise to Pay and Jane had never missed one. One Friday Jane had a Promise to Pay of two payments and didn't show up or call. That always raised a "red flag" with me, so on Monday I tried to call her. Her phone was cut off, which raised another "red flag".

I went to her home that Monday afternoon and Jane was very ill. She had missed work and had to pay her doctor, totally out of pocket so she could get well and go back to work. I agreed to let her float the week until Friday when she would owe three payments (75 dollars), but I agreed to accept two payments of 50 and let her catch up after that. Friday came and went and Jane didn't come. Monday I issued the order to repo her car. I called the repo man and within a few hours I had Jane's car and some of her property in the car.

When we opened Tuesday morning Jane was waiting on me. I invited her in and we sat down to talk. She was visibly angry (not at me) and scared and trying not to cry. Here's her story. She had to pay her doctor 200 dollars for treatment, and then not being able to work, she had gotten even further behind. It was now going to cost her 200 dollars, including the repo charges, to get her car back. She didn't have the money, and wouldn't anytime soon. All I could was tell her I was sorry and that my hands were tied. She had to have that car to get to work. Her words, "Mr. Jamey! How am I gonna feed my kids?" have resonated with me ever since. I had to look her in the eye and say, "I don't know.".

Jane is a good person who did the right things, and stood by her word. Circumstances beyond her control put her in a situation that didn't allow her to do the right thing. I've often wondered what happened to Jane and her kids.

200 dollars. That figure hit me like a punch in the gut this morning.  Four years of those kinds of experiences changed me profoundly.  There are people out there who, through no fault of their own, just can't make it sometimes, and we as the people of God need to search our hearts and deal with the hard questions that this and other situations cause us to ask.  They aren't easy questions, and there will be not easy answers, but because they involve people they deserve answers and action.