Job 13:4

You, however, whitewash with lies,

   Mounte Banks (False healers), every one of you.

Cheez-it just walked past. He often walks the house looking for some escape from the noise of the yard guys when they come. Once a week, I too wish we had done something to make the house better sealed off from the noise of leaf blowers and weed eaters. My brain tells me it might be better if we had ways to not hear the lies of the false healers all around us as well, but my gut tells me we need to learn to ignore it and not just avoid it.

‘However’ was also ‘but’, ‘yet’, and ‘while’ which are common word uses, but this once I felt moved to use ‘however’. ‘Whitewash’ was also ‘plaster’, ‘smear’, ‘forgers’, and ‘inventors’. I preferred the ‘hiding with minimal effort’ that whitewash implied over the others.

‘Mounte Banks’ was the term I knew the least compared to ‘worthless physicians’ and ‘physicians of no value’, ‘quacks’, and ‘quack-healers’. After I looked it up, I knew it was what I wanted to use, but it needs the lay meaning also. Almost every source had ‘all of you’, but I much preferred the ‘every one of you’ that came from the same source as Mounte Banks.

Yesterday was Super Tuesday and the last challenger for the Republican nomination finally bowed out. I want to say ‘It guiles me to no end’ that we have these same two opponents as last time. It is quite simply a reflection of how far our country has fallen from its past glory. God is in control, and I must follow Him, but my brain tells me to run away.

In my efforts to be a good steward, I have been trying to learn methods to lower my risks and, in the process, sold Nvidia which is now the most high-flying stock known to man. My gut tells me to buy back in, but I have also sold Apple and Google and am at peace with knowing I have reduced single company risk while my overall portfolio still has plenty of push simply from how large Nvidia has become relative to the market. Yes, had I bought and held, I would have more money, but I could not imagine the stress of having so much in one company. It dropped 50% twice while I did hold it.

I have come to the conclusion that Joe Biden will win a second term and prevent what would seem to be the terror of a second Trump presidency. I was never convinced that fraud could be proven to have occurred in the last election, but I was content that God has directed the outcome anyway. I really do not have any insight into what will happen over the next eight months that might impact this outcome, but I make my plans on what little I know and ask God to control the outcomes of my little steps along the way and know I will change as soon as I hear from Him. The old adage that the sheep know the voice of their Shepard comforts me that I will know His voice by abiding in Him.

Written 3/7/24, Posted 4/22/24, Job 286