Thursday, June 09, 2005

Somebody testify!!!

Can I get a witness?!



Starting an international fiasco is always grounds for a post, and the
good Lord saving my tail is definitely a good reason to break a long
silence. Part of the reason I've failed to post has been simply that
I've grown fearful of writing about things, and partaking in acts, that
don't really matter. I don't won't to sound like I'm trying to impose
mandatory depth to posts, even my own, but I have felt that God has
wanted me to be quiet of late, waiting for him to do something.



We studied Psalm 136 last night in Bible study. The hold chapter
bids us to give thanks to God, tells us why we should give thanks and
then concludes each verse with "His love endures forever", "For His
steadfast love endures forever" or whatever translation you might have.
Verses 4 really stood out to me: "To him who alone does great
wonders..." I was reminded of my most recent brush with the
Communists...okay, so I'd never really been a situation like this
before but the scenario in question did create cause for wonder.



I can't really say a lot about specifics, because the whole situation
had to do with me accidentally revealing the true identity of a covert
Christian organization to the world of the Internet. I wrote a story
about a friend's trip that was being made to a Communist country. I was
told not
to use the traveling organization's name because it might, in a very
remote, one-in-a-million chance sort of way, compromise the trip.
Instead, I was to use another name, which I understood to simply be a
name that was a rabbit trail...an organization in name only that
couldn't be traced.



I was wrong.



I uploaded the story to our website at work and didn't think more of it
until about a week later when I frantic man claiming to be the
organization's president called from somewhere in the Mediterranean and
starting into me about how I could be jeopardizing the missions of the
group in what seemed like every anti-Christian country in the world.
Apparently, people could be doing random searchs of the Internet for
this organization's name, and I could have given them the open door
they needed. Nothing like playing the role of the cow that kicked
over the lamp that started whatever fire that was....We
deleted the story from our website quickly, thinking that would solve
the problem, but the situation only grew in scope.



Google, being the MegaGod of Internet search engines that they are, had
already grabbed the link, proudly pasted the snippet of the story
indentifying the organization as a Christian group in their listing and
made a "cache" or snapshot of the page just in case the original link
was to become broken.



So perhaps I can go back, update the link without the specific names
and then everything would be O-TAY (a Buckwheatism)? Unfortunately,
that would have worked splendidly had the link not been deleted, but
being that the link was dead there was now no way to resurrect or
update the link now. So I had to learn some more stuff about search engines,
which I never imagined using and I won't bore anyone else with, but
each of these possible solutions fell by the wayside. Even Google's
provision for taking care of the snippet and cached page were
incompatible with our website. After a day of working to solve the
problem, I came to the realization that the only thing that could
happen was for Google to do its normal search of the Internet, see that
the link it "cached" was no longer in existence and thus, naturally erase the
entire snippet and cache. A minimum of six-eight weeks was the answer I
discovered as to how long that might take.



Repeated emails and phone calls to Google were left unanswered, and
even the super computer whiz guy for our entire company knew nothing
more to do.



Meanwhile, the president in the Mediterranean continued with his
demands for things out of my hands, a partnering Christian organization
president joined the mix, my friend who was to make the trip in the
story that started the mess was trying his best to be nice about the
whole thing and oddly enough, I was very calm in the whole situation.
Occasionally a wave of worry swept over me, but I was reminded by my
pastor that a sports editor in East Tennessee can't foil the plans of
God...of course, I knew this. I just didn't want to have to play the
role of the guy who started the final Great Persecution or Armaggedon.
That would sort of make it hard for me to get a job in the future.



Still, somehow it was very freeing knowing that I had done what I was
responsible to do and the outcome was in God's hands. Funny how being
out of control can produce such a feeling. Too bad our natural
inclination isn't to let stuff go.



At Bible study that week, two days after the debocle began, I mentioned
the situation and relayed my concerns and how I was really out of
options. So we simply prayed about the situation. At 2:30 a.m. I check
the Internet and discovered that the dead link, the snipped and the
cached page had all been erased from Google. Mediterranean man was
happy, saying that he and his advisors didn't think the trip had not
been compromised or that his organization's identity had been
discovered.



The experience was pretty cool, since Google still hasn't responded to
my "URGENT" emails or phone calls. A resigned myself to the fact that
God saw fit to have Google do its normal sweep of the Internet, and in
doing so erase everything. And that where I left the situation,
relieved and thankful.



But yesterday I found myself back on Google, searching for something
totally unrelated to the incident, and learned a little more about the
intimacy of God and how much he is involved with his people. In the
midst of my search, I ran across another article I had written some
eight months ago. I clicked on the link, and not surprisingly, found
that the link had become dead. But what made me stop and stare for a
few moments was the fact that the listing had a "cached" page and when
clicking on it the entire original article came up.



This story was eight months old. Google must have made numerous sweeps
of the Internet in this time, giving it plenty of opportunities to be
erased, yet there it was, plain as day. Meanwhile, this controversial
story that had been on the Internet for a mere weak was now nowhere to
be found and Google wasn't taking any credit for its disappearance. Take an
all-powerful Being out of the equation and it doesn't add up.



We seem to have ideas that God can do things if he really wanted to,
but we don't expect him to do these things. Then, when these prayers
are answered, we're raving like lunatics saying "Can you believe God
was able to do that." On the other hand, we seem to have notions that
God simply does the bare minimum for us out of an obligatory heart. We
fail to recognize that his working is not aloof or like completing a
work order request, but is more like a person walking two miles when
only one is required, a very personal, sacrificial thing. Of course, our requests
are not always answered exactly as we would like, so the real challenge
is to pray with expectation that an all-powerful, intimate God, not just a shadow from our imagination, is
listening.



For his steadfast love endures forever.