Job 11:14

If there be iniquity in your hand, put it away,

   Let no wickedness dwell in your tent.

 

Just use G. That was my outcome. I made no notes. I was just convinced that my favorite source got it right. So now I ask myself, “What do I do with that?”

As noted somewhere recently, artificial intelligence (AI) is being released to the world (and the evil of the Terminator movies begins). But really the first stink I heard about was how the AI working in Bing has insulted some people and acted childish in its interactions. I made up the childish part as that is how I interpreted the behavior. Machine learning has been the more technical reference for how to train an artificial intelligence to do something, and it reminds the people that artificial intelligence does not start out all knowing nor does it accelerate quickly to annihilate the world (like in The Avengers with Ultron’s first actions to kill everything).

“Iniquity” was also “sin”, ”wrong”, or directly “anything in your possession through crime”. That last one was a mouthful, but probably in sync with the original Hebrew phrase being used.

“Put it away” was also “remove it”, “get rid of”, and “put it far away”. I was tempted to add ‘far’ but stuck with my initial outcome.

“Wickedness” was also “evil”, “mischief”, “wrongly gotten”, or “injustice”. I notice it was my least favorite source that used the over simplistic crime and wrongly gotten, but sometimes simple is good.

“Dwell” was also “reside” or “harbor”. Tent was also “tabernacle” or “home”. An interesting twist was the idea of not letting wickedness “well” in your tent. I read this not as dwell missing a ‘d’, but as the idea that wickedness would ‘grow’ if you left it alone.

In my accountability group, we were talking about how many people run stop signs in this age after the pandemic. The law to stop was now the mandate to not hit anyone who tried to get through the right of way before you. At 4:30 am there is little chance of hitting someone (or getting a ticket for not stopping) when you run a  stop sign. But the more you run that stop sign at 4:30 am, the more likely you are to run it at 4:30 pm and might hit some car or animal, or small person. The concept was to create a habit so that you stopped and hit nothing. Not force you to think hard at every opportunity whether it was ok to not stop this time. Some people do not think hard very much, and most want to avoid it at all cost. Hence the need for good habits.

I stole a piece of candy once. If my babysitter had not shamed me and beat me, it might have become a habit on a long list of bad ones. She did a lot of good in my life, and I know I can never thank her enough. And that if it works this way, she will be one I will run to in heaven to thank her some more.

I read hateful words in the media today about a famous author and their opinions on certain people groups. The hate was so intense I was reminded of another article that was tolerate of the rights of a group actively shaming the certain people groups so badly that some committed suicide. I saw a movie about a journalist who had shamed a Taliban chief. (It was a totally made-up move that got horrible ratings, and that I totally enjoyed.) The conclusion I found myself at is that the media is not some super organized entity trying to ruin the world. It is a bunch of people trying to follow their own agenda, and sometimes following the agenda of the people above them in order to do so. Vilifying someone trying to protect little girls from little boys who are not mature enough to understand their struggles with cultural gender identity wars is not journalism. Raising the issues of the struggles of children on every side of the issue could be the benefit of journalism on the culture. But picking a side and tearing down the other is just wrong.

The term soapbox ran through my head. That was not my intent. The intent was to show that if we are not diligent, then evil will work its way into our lives as we seek to do what we think is best and not stick only to what God has decided. God made nature and everything in it. He decided how it is supposed to work and we can argue all we want about what we think, but people grow best in families where the man loves the women, the women loves the man, both love God, and they raise children to do so too. I am flawed. My wife is flawed. My kids are flawed. But we love God, we love each other, and we do our best to keep iniquity and wickedness out of our hand, tents, and lives.

(Written 2/16, Posted 2/20, Job 244)