Chapter Summary Excerpts from If God Is Good..

Used with permission From epm.org

Posted in: Randy's Books

By Randy Alcorn

Chapter Summary Excerpts from

If God Is Good…

 by Randy Alcorn

 

 

SECTION ONE

Understanding the Problem of Evil and Suffering

 

Chapter One: Why is the Problem of Evil and Suffering So Important?

 

More people point to the problem of evil and suffering as their reason for not believing in God than any other—it is not merely a problem, it is the problem. You will not get far in a conversation with someone who rejects the Christian faith before the problem of evil is raised. Pulled out like the ultimate trump card, it’s supposed to silence believers and prove that the all-good and all-powerful God of the Bible doesn’t exist.

 

Suffering and evil exert a force that either pushes us away from God or pulls us toward him. If you base your faith on lack of affliction, your faith lives on the brink of extinction and will fall apart because of a frightening diagnosis or a shattering phone call. Token faith will not survive suffering, nor should it.

 

Chapter Two: What is the Problem of Evil and Suffering?

 

If God is all-good, then he would want to prevent evil and suffering. If he is all-knowing, then he would know how to prevent it. If God is all-powerful, then he is able to prevent it. And yet…a great deal of evil and suffering exists. Why?

 

The problem of evil has found a prominent voice in what may seem the most unlikely place…the Bible. No other book asks so bluntly, passionately, and frequently why God permits evil and why evil people sometimes thrive while the righteous suffer. Barely have the first two chapters of the Bible described the original creation, saying, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” before a terrible shadow falls—evil and suffering burst into the world.

 

Chapter Three: What is Evil and How Does it Differ from Suffering?

 

Evil, in its essence, refuses to accept God as God and puts someone or something else in his place. The Bible uses the word evil to describe anything that violates God’s moral will. The first human evil occurred when Eve and Adam disobeyed God. From that original sin—a moral evil—came the consequence of suffering. Although suffering results from moral evil, it is distinguishable from it, just as an injury caused by drunken driving isn’t synonymous with the offense.

 

Chapter Four: What are Some Possible Responses to the Problem of Evil and Suffering?

 

Besides the irrational solution that evil and suffering do not exist, and the atheistic solution that God does not exist, the most popular ways of addressing the problem of evil minimize one or more of God’s attributes, especially his power, knowledge, or goodness. In contrast, the Bible never shrinks God but always magnifies him.

 

To glorify and magnify God is not to make more of him than he is; that’s impossible. Rather, it’s to affirm his greatness, attempting to do justice to his infinite majesty and power and wisdom and love, even though inevitably we’ll fall short.

 

To address good and evil without gazing upon God is fruitless. Good flows from the life connected to God. Evil flows from the life alienated from God.

 

Chapter Five: A Closer Look at Central Issues in the Problem of Evil

 

Believers share common ground with unbelievers. We feel mutual horror at the reality, depth, and duration of human and animal suffering. We share a conviction that this kind of pain is terribly wrong and that it should be made right. In this way, evil and suffering serve as a bridge to the biblical account and its promise of redemption.

 

Paul insists that our sufferings will result in our greater good—God’s people will be better off eternally because they suffer temporarily. From Paul’s perspective, this trade-off will in eternity prove to be a great bargain.

 

In fact, the argument for the greater good may be the strongest biblical case for God permitting evil and suffering. However, it requires trust, since the promised greater good is future…If Paul is right, then by eliminating temporary evil and suffering, God would also eliminate eternal good.

 

 

SECTION TWO

Understanding Evil: Its Origins, Nature, and Consequences

 

Chapter Six: Evil’s Entry into the Universe: A Rebellion of Angels

 

Scripture addresses when evil came into being, but not how…God has chosen to remain silent on this question, which may mean something significant. If evil is irrational, how can its point of origin be rationally explained? Perhaps God does not offer any explanation because evil defies explanation. It might make sense to an all-knowing God but no sense at all to us.

 

In cultures where everyone realizes there’s a supernatural world, demons make themselves known as false gods to intimidate people, demanding worship and exacting retribution. In modern Western cultures where people routinely deny the supernatural, demons often accomplish their purposes more effectively by flying under the radar and working covertly. If we had eyes to see, we’d realize that all around us, fallen humans become the unwitting tools of evil spirits, harming themselves and others, and living wretched lives, sometimes quietly under the facade of social respectability.

 

Chapter Seven: Humanity’s Evil and the Suffering it Has Caused

 

Somehow, as the first human couple weighed their alternatives, evil entered their hearts. Adam and Eve rebelled, choosing to violate God’s explicit command. They trusted a fallen creature’s logic, rather than their Creator’s goodness, when he’d given them no reason to doubt him. They ate, the curse fell on them, their pain greatly increased, the earth became a world of hurt, and they forfeited paradise.

 

A just and merciful God chose a measured punishment for the first human sin: suffering. Had God meted out the full and immediate punishment, the first humans would have died on the spot (see Romans 6:23). In that case, there would have been no redemptive history—no human history at all.

 

The history of the human race, in every culture and time, demonstrates the dire consequences of living life as we prefer rather than as God commands.

 

Chapter Eight: Inherited Sin and Our Sin Nature

 

The sin nature refers to our fallen state that distrusts, dishonors, and rejects God.

 

The sin nature compels us to love ourselves. In our reckless pursuit of self-gratification, we impose upon ourselves gnawing emptiness rather than the joy and contentment that comes in loving God and others.

 

Though we naturally resist the biblical revelation about our sin natures, we find freedom when we recognize its reality.

 

To view evil accurately, we must see it above all as an outrageous offense against God.

 

We tend to minimize our sin because we fail to see its real object… because we do not see God and see how our sin hurts him, we don’t see either the frequency or the gravity of our offenses. We imagine our sin has no effect on him.

 

We couldn’t be more wrong.

 

Chapter Nine: A Deeper Consideration of What Our Sin Nature Does and Doesn’t Mean

 

Apart from Christ…I am Osama bin Laden. I am Hitler. Only by the virtue of Christ can I stand forgiven before a holy God. This isn’t hyperbole; it’s biblical truth. Unless we come to grips with the fact that we’re of precisely the same stock as…Stalin and Mao, we’ll never get over thinking that we deserve better. Evil done to us will offend us, and having to suffer will outrage us. We’ll never appreciate Christ’s grace so long as we hold on to the proud illusion that we’re better than we are. We flatter ourselves when we look at evil acts and say, “I would never do that.” Given our evil natures and a similar background, resources, and opportunities, we would.

 

Chapter Ten: Natural Disasters: Creation Under the Curse of Human Evil

 

Earthquakes and tsunamis are not moral agents and therefore cannot be morally evil. A tidal wave is not malicious—water cannot have malice any more than it can have kindness.

 

The best answer to the question “Why would God create a world with natural disasters?” is that he didn’t. Many experts believe the world’s atmosphere originally acted like an umbrella, protecting its inhabitants from harm. But now the umbrella has holes in it, sometimes protecting us, sometimes not. While Barbara Ehrenreich blames God for death and disaster, Scripture blames human evil for the cataclysmic Fall and consequent distortion of a once-perfect world (see Romans 8:18–22).

 

People who have survived disasters often say they understand on a far deeper level the biblical truth that this world as it now is—under the Curse—is not our home.

 

 

SECTION THREE

Problems for Non-Theists: Moral Standards, Goodness, and Extreme Evil

 

Chapter Eleven: A Case Study: Bart Ehrman, a “Christian” Who Lost His Faith

 

Even Christians who do not outright reject their faith may quietly lose confidence and commitment because of their struggle with this issue. Christian students in every university, including Christian ones, face frequent, impassioned arguments against biblical teachings, whether from professors, fellow students, or textbooks. Knowing a few Bible stories proves insufficient when facing an issue of the magnitude of evil and suffering.

 

We all trust something. When we abandon trust in God’s revelation, we replace it with trust in our own feelings, opinions, and preferences, or those of our friends and teachers—all of which can drift with popular culture, including academic culture.

 

Ehrman’s story should challenge us to come to the problem of evil and suffering with a Christian worldview rooted in a well-informed belief in the reliability and authority of God’s Word. If we vacillate on that conviction, we will first reinterpret the Bible, then outright reject it.

 

Chapter Twelve: Non-Theistic Worldviews Lack a Substantial Basis for Condemning Evil

 

I have talked with individuals whose ethics have evolved over time, who now believe that any consensual sex between adults is moral. Adultery is consensual sex. So is it moral? Well, yes, some convince themselves, so long as they commit adultery with a person they genuinely love. But how moral is this same adultery in the eyes of the betrayed spouse?

 

Choosing moral behaviors because they make you feel happy can make sense, in a Bertrand Russell/Sam Harris sort of way, but what if it makes you feel happy to torture animals or kill Jews or steal from your employer?

 

Such hopeless subjectivity is no moral framework at all…if there is no God who has revealed his standards and no God who informs our consciences—then surely any morality we forge on our own will ultimately amount to a mirror image of our own subjective opinions.

 

Chapter Thirteen: The Unbeliever’s Problem of Goodness

 

From a non-theistic viewpoint, what is evil? Isn’t it just nature at work? In a strictly natural, physical world, shouldn’t everything be neither good nor evil? Good and evil imply an “ought” and an “ought not” that nature is incapable of producing.

 

We have no logical reason to take good for granted; its existence demands an explanation. Setting aside the issues of …how life can come from nonlife, great goodness and nobility pose a serious problem: why would we expect to find such goodness in a world that came about through blind force, time, and chance?

 

The atheist who points out the horrors of evil unwittingly testifies to good as the norm. When we speak of children dying, we acknowledge they usually don’t. When a natural disaster hits, 99 percent of the world remains untouched. Though fallen, nature still contains more beauty than ugliness.

 

Chapter Fourteen: The Unbeliever’s Problem of Extreme Evil

 

The atheistic worldview simply cannot account for superhuman evil. Death, yes; suffering, yes. But calculated, relentless, exhausting brutality toward the weak and innocent? The death camps? The Nazi doctors? The Killing Fields?

 

Why commit evil just for evil’s sake, or why take pleasure in inflicting suffering? All pragmatic, naturalistic, and evolutionary explanations of such evil prove inadequate.

 

The Bible, on the other hand, speaks of an unseen realm full of powerful spirit beings that project their cruel and malignant thoughts and wills on humans. These beings, far more powerful than human beings, also exceed humans in their evil. These malevolent beings push us to expand our evil beyond the boundaries of what could be expected even of fallen humans.

 

No naturalistic worldview can explain extreme evil. Since non-theists believe in nothing outside of the visible realm, they must explain such evils on the basis of human perversity alone.

 

 

SECTION FOUR

Proposed Solutions to the Problem of Evil and Suffering

 

Chapter Fifteen: Is God’s Limited Power a Solution?

 

If God lacks power, his good intentions are inadequate. Probably you already have friends who can’t control the universe. Do you really need another one, named “God”?

 

Those who believe in a God of limited power might respond, “It isn’t that God can’t do anything, just that he can’t do everything.” But what can he do? If God is doing the best he can, then he doesn’t permit evil and suffering, rather he is overtaken by them, since he can’t stop them. Why frustrate God with prayers he can’t answer, since if he could, he already would have?

 

Limiting God may appear to get him off the hook for life’s difficulties. It might make us feel warmer toward him. But this is a god of man’s invention, not the God revealed in Scripture.

 

Chapter Sixteen: Is God’s Limited Knowledge a Solution?

 

A loving God took a calculated risk, open theists suggest, but had he known the horrible things that would occur—the rapes and killings and tortures and abuse—he might never have created this world as he did. Hence, proponents of open theism argue, God cannot be held responsible for his creatures’ evil, since he could not foresee it.

 

Open theists suppose we should find comfort in believing God has not ordained our suffering from eternity past. I find it easier to trust a God who has known all along and planned how he will use the tragedy for his glory and our good, than one who just found out about it but chose not to stop it anyway.

 

Open theism is not only biblically wrong; it’s a shallow answer to the problem of evil.

 

Chapter Seventeen: Is God’s Limited Goodness a Solution?

 

A good man does not knowingly allow his neighbor to beat his child. If he had all power, he would not only stop the man from beating the child, he would not allow him to begin beating the child in the first place. Such an appraisal is completely apt regarding humans.

 

But we err in judging God by our standards.

 

We can envision a dog recognizing his master as good when he feeds and walks him, but questioning his goodness when he doesn’t let him have a Hershey bar. He might even write a book (Dog’s Problem?) or go on the lecture circuit telling everyone why his master isn’t good.

 

The existence of evil does not contradict God’s goodness, since God can ultimately use evil to bring about a greater good.

 

Chapter Eighteen: Is God’s Limited Love a Solution?

 

While few critics make a philosophical argument that God lacks love, many, when personally facing evil and suffering, interpret the terrible things happening to them to mean that God doesn’t love them after all. Doubt about their salvation may grip them, causing despair.

 

God’s attributes, while varied, work together in complete harmony. If in our eyes his holiness contradicts his love and his justice conflicts with his mercy, then that is our problem, not his. The almighty God who created us is the same holy God who condemned us as sinners and the same loving God who went to extraordinary lengths that we might go to Heaven. God’s self-consistency demands the simultaneous and full expression of his holiness, his love, and all his other attributes.

 

 

SECTION FIVE

Evil and Suffering in the Great Drama of Christ’s Redemptive Work

 

Chapter Nineteen: Evil and Suffering as Seen in Scripture’s Redemptive Story

 

God’s redemptive plan was not an ad-lib response to unanticipated events. From before the very beginning, God knew the very worst. And the very best it would one day bring.

 

God wrote the script of the unfolding drama of redemption long before Satan, demons, Adam and Eve—and you and I—took the stage. And from the beginning, he knew that the utterly spectacular end would make the dark middle worth it.

 

You may feel your choices have been reduced to whether you want Jell-O, or a window opened, or an extra blanket. On the contrary, your choice of whether you will trust God and worship him today reverberates throughout the universe, honoring or dishonoring your God. It also has enormous implications for eternal rewards God promises us in the next life.

 

Chapter Twenty: If You Were the Author, How Would You have Written the Story?

 

As a member of the real-life story’s cast, you might wish for a world untouched by evil and suffering. That’s understandable, because life is hard as the story unfolds; and it will be hard until it culminates or you leave the stage, having played your part.

 

But if you sat in the audience, which story would you prefer to watch? And if you wrote the story, which version would you prefer to write? And even as a cast member, having endured such difficulty, ten thousand years from now at the ongoing cast party in honor of the Writer and Director, when grand tales make the rounds at dinner tables on the New Earth—which story do you think you would cast your vote for?

 

“All’s well that ends well” is a cliché, but there’s truth in it. There’s no substitute for a happy ending.

 

Chapter Twenty-one: Jesus: The Only Answer Bigger than the Questions

 

The Cross is God’s answer to the question “Why don’t you do something about evil?”

 

But what if God did do something about it? What if what he did was so great and unprecedented that it shook the angelic realm’s foundation, and ripped in half, from the top down, not only the temple curtain but the fabric of the universe itself?

 

A powerful moment in the movie The Passion of the Christ occurs when Jesus, overwhelmed with pain and exhaustion, lies on the ground as guards kick, mock, and spit on him. A horrified woman, her hand outstretched, pleads, “Someone, stop this!”

 

The great irony is that “Someone,” God’s Son, was doing something unspeakably great that required it not be stopped.

 

Had someone delivered Jesus from his suffering that day, he could not now deliver us from ours.

 

 

SECTION SIX

Divine Sovereignty and Meaningful Human Choice: Accounting for Evil and Suffering

 

Chapter Twenty-two: God’s Sovereignty and Its Reach

 

God didn’t devise his redemptive plan on the fly. Evil didn’t take him by surprise. God isn’t the author of evil, but he is the author of a story that includes evil. He intended from the beginning to permit evil, then to turn evil on its head, to take what evil angels and evil people intended for evil and use it for good. In the face of the lowest evil, God intended to show his highest good.

 

It is possible to plan for something you know is coming without forcing that thing to happen. God didn’t force Adam and Eve to do evil, but he did create them with freedom and permitted Satan’s presence in the garden, knowing they would choose evil and knowing that what he would do in his redemptive plan would serve a greater good.

 

Chapter Twenty-three: “Free Will” and Meaningful Choice

 

God is intelligent, creative, communicative, and free to choose. To be made in his likeness likely includes having these attributes, though on a finite level. We think because he thinks, we speak because he speaks, we create because he creates, and we choose because he chooses. These things all come from God and comprise part of what it means to be human.

 

God sovereignly created angels and human beings and gave them freedom to choose. He knew what choices angels and humans would make under what circumstances. While he could have intervened to stop them from sinning, he wanted them to choose freely, not under constraint. Furthermore, he planned to use the evil and suffering he foresaw to reveal himself in Christ and his redemptive plan.

 

Chapter Twenty-four: This World’s Structure is Necessary for Meaningful Choice

 

Meaningful choice requires a cause-and-effect system in which choices generate consequences.

 

I’ve heard people argue that a good and all-powerful God should miraculously intervene every time someone intends to do harm.

 

If God disarmed every shooter and prevented every drunk driver from crashing, this would not be a real world in which people make consequential choices. It would not be a world of character development and faith building. It would not be a world where families put their arms around one another to face life’s difficulties. It would be a world where people went blithely along with their lives, content to do evil and put up with it, feeling no need to turn to God, no incentive to consider the gospel and prepare for eternity. In such a world, people would die without a sense of need, only to find themselves in Hell.

 

Chapter Twenty-five: Meaningful Human Choice and Divine Sovereignty Working Together

 

Our problem is both our unwillingness to understand and our incapacity to turn our wills toward God. Once we grasp the depths of this problem, we will fully appreciate the wonders of his grace. Without that insight, we might imagine ourselves in Heaven congratulating one another that we had the savvy and strength of will to turn to Christ. But God leaves no room for such boasting.

 

God’s amazing grace doesn’t end at our conversion. Even the regenerated human will depends upon the divine will to live as it should. Philippians 2:12–13 speaks both to those who understate and those who overstate the role of the human will: “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” We must will and work, and God must will and work.

 

Chapter Twenty-six: Further Thoughts on God’s Sovereignty and Human Will

 

We can believe in God’s sovereignty and still lock the door. “If a man is lazy,” says Ecclesiastes, “the rafters sag; if his hands are idle, the house leaks” (10:18).

 

These verses don’t attribute sagging rafters and leaking houses to God’s sovereignty. They lay responsibility on people to take action. Students who don’t study and set the alarm to get up for class aren’t trusting God; they’re just being irresponsible.

 

No contradiction exists between praying, “Lord, please protect us and the children on this drive,” and then putting on seat belts. Prayers for healing do not conflict with the common grace of medical treatment…why should we choose between the two? Believers understand that [medical treatment] before, after, and while we pray for the sick helps them in two vital ways.

 

Chapter Twenty-seven: The God Who Brings Good Out of Bad

 

God’s glory is the highest good of the universe…permitting evil and suffering—and paying the price to end them—will all ultimately reveal his character and cause his people to worship him forever.

 

If we recognize God’s sovereignty even over Satan’s work, it changes our perspective.

 

You might not know whether demons, or human genetics under the Fall, or a doctor’s poor decision, or God’s direct hand have brought about your disease, but you know as much as you need to—that God is sovereign, and whether he heals you now or waits until the resurrection, he desires to achieve his own good purpose in you.

 

If the world is as random as some theologians suggest, it would seem that people, demons, and luck determine our destinies. We can drive ourselves crazy with such thoughts—or embrace God’s higher purpose in painful and even tragic events.

 

 

SECTION SEVEN

The Two Eternal Solutions to the Problem of Evil: Heaven and Hell

 

Chapter Twenty-eight: Heaven: Eternal Grace to Unworthy but Grateful Children

 

Here, we have bodies and work, rest, play, and relate to one another—we call this life. Yet many have mistakenly redefined eternal life to mean an off-earth disembodied existence stripped of human life’s defining properties. Eternal life will mean enjoying forever, as resurrected (which means embodied) beings, what life on Earth at its finest offered us. We could more accurately call our present existence the beforelife rather than calling Heaven the afterlife. Life doesn’t merely continue in Heaven, it emerges at last to its intended fullness.

 

How will we feel when the great shadow departs forever?

 

How will we feel when everything happy comes true, and everything sad comes untrue?

 

We will feel, perhaps, like it couldn’t get any better than that.

 

But each new day will prove us wrong.

 

Chapter Twenty-nine: Hell: Eternal Sovereign Justice Exacted upon Evildoers

 

When most people speak of the horrors of Hell, they talk as if it means the suffering of innocent people. That would indeed be terribly unjust—but nowhere does the Bible suggest the innocent will spend a single moment in Hell.

 

We rarely see ourselves as worthy of Hell. After all, we are not Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Bundy, or Dahmer. Guilty people can always rationalize sin. Hell exists because sin has no excuse.

 

Hell is not evil; it’s a place where evil gets punished. Hell is not pleasant, appealing, or encouraging. But Hell is morally good, because a good God must punish evil.

 

We cry out for true and lasting justice, then fault God for taking evil too seriously by administering eternal punishment. We can’t have it both ways. Sin is evil… To fear and dread Hell is understandable, but to argue against Hell is to argue against justice.

 

 

SECTION EIGHT

God’s Allowance and Restraint of Evil and Suffering

 

Chapter Thirty: Why Doesn’t God Do More to Restrain Evil and Suffering?

 

God may already be restraining 99.99 percent of evil and suffering. God may also be preventing 99.99 percent of disasters.

 

Why haven’t tyrants, with access to powerful weapons, destroyed this planet? What has kept infectious diseases and natural disasters from killing 99 percent of the world’s population rather than less than 1 percent? How much evil and suffering is too much? Could God reduce the amount without restricting meaningful human choice, or decreasing the urgency of the message that …we need to turn to the Redeemer before we die?

 

Suppose we rated all pain on a scale of one to ten… God could reduce the worst suffering to level three, but then level three, now the worst, would seem unbearable. Any argument that judges God’s goodness strictly by his elimination of pain will, in the end, not leave us satisfied if he permits any pain at all.

 

Chapter Thirty-one: Why Does God Delay Justice?

 

God’s is not a vending-machine justice in which a coin of righteousness immediately produces reward or a coin of evil yields swift retribution. Packaged theologies seek to neatly account for everything, but as Job, Psalms, and the prophets repeatedly demonstrate, that’s not how life works.

 

Yet God doesn’t delay justice so long as we often imagine. The wheels of justice may seem to turn slowly, but they turn surely. Some rewards of goodness and punishments of evil come in this life. And though ultimate rewards and punishments await the final judgment, considerable justice, both reward and retribution, gets dispensed immediately upon death, when God’s children immediately experience the joy of his presence and the unrepentant suffer the first justice of Hell (see Luke 16:19–31). This means that the maximum duration of injustice experienced by any person cannot exceed his life span.

 

Chapter Thirty-two: Why Doesn’t God Explain His Reasons?

 

Sometimes we make the foolish assumption that our heavenly Father has no right to insist that we trust him unless he makes his infinite wisdom completely understandable to us. This lays an impossible demand upon God, not because of his limitations, but because of ours. A physicist father bears no blame because he can’t explain quantum mechanics to his three-year-old.

 

We lack God’s omniscience, omnipotence, wisdom, holiness, justice, and goodness. If we insist we have the right, or even assume we have the capacity, to understand the hidden purposes of God, we forfeit the comfort and perspective we could have had in kneeling before his vastly superior wisdom.

 

He is infinite; we are finite. He is the Creator; we’re the creatures. Shouldn’t that say it all?

 

Chapter Thirty-three: Understanding that God is God and We are Not

 

Of all there is to know in the entire universe, how much do you know? Let’s say you’re the smartest human being who’s ever lived and that you know one percent (of course, nobody knows nearly that much). Now, is it possible that in the 99 percent of all there is that you don’t know, there exists or will exist enough goodness and happiness in the universe to outweigh all the evil and suffering?

 

Is it possible that in the 99 percent you don’t know, a good God exists who has legitimate reasons for not making his purposes clearer and for not forcing people to recognize his existence? Is it possible that some rational explanation exists—if you were smart enough to understand it—for why this good God permits evil and suffering?

 

We reveal a staggering arrogance in assuming God owes us an explanation for anything.

 

 

SECTION NINE

Evil and Suffering Used for God’s Glory

 

Chapter Thirty-four: Pain and Suffering in God’s World

 

Worse things can happen to us than dying young of a terrible disease. We could live in health and wealth, but if we die without Christ and go to Hell—or if we know Christ but fail to draw close to him—this is immeasurably worse than the disease that gets our attention and prompts us to look to him.

 

When Nanci and I passed through a particularly difficult period of our lives, we felt like we’d “done our time,” as if we shouldn’t have to face more difficulty for awhile. But that’s not how it works…As everyone living with ongoing disabilities, diseases, and heartaches knows, in this life God does not parcel out a certain amount of suffering, so once it runs out we’ll face no more. But the promise remains: “Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love” (Lamentations 3:32).

 

Chapter Thirty-five: Apparently Gratuitous Evil and Pointless Suffering

 

Not seeing the point in extreme suffering doesn’t prove there is no point. Evils such as rape and murder certainly look gratuitous. But are we qualified to say they really are? Didn’t the violent, excruciating death of Jesus, when it happened, appear both gratuitous and pointless in the extreme?

 

Behind almost every expression of the problem of evil stands an assumption: We know what an omniscient, omnipotent, morally perfect being should do.

 

Since detailed past, present, and future knowledge is unavailable to us, we sometimes consider accidents random and pointless. We do not see that God has and will accomplish good purposes through them. Some good actions may result in great evils, while one tragic death may save the world from tyranny. Who but God is in a position to know such things?

 

Chapter Thirty-six: How the Health and Wealth Gospel Perverts Our View of Evil and Suffering

 

This false worldview breeds superficiality, seriously misrepresents the gospel, and sets people up to believe, when evil and suffering come to them, that God has been untrue to his promises.

 

In some cases, pleasing God results in suffering.

 

Suffering shouldn’t surprise us. God has promised it. One of the great tragedies about the health and wealth gospel is that it makes God seem like a liar. When people believe that God promises to keep them from suffering, God appears untrustworthy when suffering comes.

 

If you are a Christian, God will deliver you from eternal suffering. And even now he will give you joyful foretastes of living in his presence. That’s his promise.

 

 

SECTION TEN

Why Does God Allow Suffering?

 

Chapter Thirty-seven: How God Uses Suffering for His Glory

 

If you don’t understand that the universe is about God and his glory—and that whatever exalts God’s glory also works for your ultimate good—then …You might consider God egotistical or cruel to test us for his sake. But the testing he does for his sake accrues to our eternal benefit.

 

God uses suffering to purge sin from our lives, strengthen our commitment to him, force us to depend on his grace, bind us together with other believers, produce discernment, foster sensitivity, discipline our minds, impart wisdom, stretch our hope, cause us to know Christ better, make us long for truth, lead us to repentance of sin, teach us to give thanks in times of sorrow, increase our faith, and strengthen our character.

 

God doesn’t simply want us to feel good. He wants us to be good. And very often, the road to being good involves not feeling good.

 

Chapter Thirty-eight: How God Uses Suffering for Our Sanctification

 

People’s suffering from natural disasters, diseases, wars, and accidents demonstrates sin’s horrors. If life in a fallen world didn’t sometimes show us such dreadful consequences of sin and its curse, we might look at sin and wonder, “What’s the big deal?” Without a sense of the misery it produces, we’d have no motive to turn from it.

 

Sometimes we may resent God for imposing unwanted difficulties on us. If we see through the lens of eternity, however, that resentment changes to thanksgiving for making us better and ultimately happier people, even if it costs us temporary pain and extreme inconvenience.

 

The point is not the degree of evil intended against us, but our faithfulness in suffering. So regardless of why we suffer, God can use it to deepen our faith.

 

Chapter Thirty-nine: How God Uses Suffering to Build Our Character

 

You may think, I refuse to accept that suffering can prove worthwhile, but your rejection of God’s goodness will not make you better or happier; it will only bring resentment and greater pain. Accept health as God’s blessing and its absence as God’s severe mercy.

 

Suffering uncovers our trust in God-substitutes…God laments, “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug …broken cisterns that cannot hold water’” (Jeremiah 2:13).

 

Let’s be honest: virtually everyone who has suffered little in life is shallow, unmotivated, self-absorbed, and lacking in character…And yet we do everything we can to avoid challenges, both to our children and to ourselves. If we succeed in our avoidance, we’ll develop in ourselves and our children the sort of character we least admire.

 

Chapter Forty: Suffering Can Give Birth to Joy, Compassion, and Hope

 

God permits rebellion while guaranteeing its failure. And what will rebellion buy in the meantime? A loss of joy—and for those who do not surrender to him, a permanent loss of joy in the world to come,

 

We harm no one through bitterness as much as we harm ourselves. Someone told me, “Bitterness is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” In the face of evil and suffering, responding to God or others with bitterness, distrust, and accusations bears no good fruit. Responding in honest brokenness and turning to God in submission, faith, and trust yields untold riches of peace and comfort.

 

We are no substitute for God. But we do serve as his ambassadors. I heard Christian Counselor David Powlison say that although God alone is the blazing sun, we can be three-watt night-lights. In darkness even a tiny light can bring hope.

 

Chapter Forty-one: God Uses Our Suffering for the Good of Others

 

We want to serve from the power position. We’d rather be healthy, wealthy, and wise as we minister to the sick, poor, and ignorant. When those preaching God’s Word have little personal familiarity with suffering, the credibility gap makes it difficult for them to speak into others’ lives. But our suffering levels the playing field.

 

God uses the suffering we try to avoid to spread the gospel and build his kingdom. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (John 12:24).

 

 

SECTION ELEVEN

Living Meaningfully in Suffering

 

Chapter Forty-two: Finding God in Suffering

 

A woman self-consciously told one of our pastors that before going to sleep each night she reads her Bible, then hugs it as she falls asleep. “Is that weird?” she asked. While it may be unusual, it’s not weird. This woman has known suffering, and as she clings to his promises, she clings to God. Any father would be moved to hear that his daughter falls asleep with his letter held close to her.  Surely God treasures such an act of childlike love, for his Word represents his person.

 

The believers described in Faith’s Hall of Fame (see Hebrews 11) all endured severe tests. None of them had an easy life. Yet they all clung to their belief in God’s promises, trusting his goodness, and believing “that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6, NASB).

 

Chapter Forty-three: Finding Help in Dark Times

 

Knowing that suffering will one day end gives us strength to endure this day.

 

Hope provides the light at the end of life’s tunnel. It not only makes the tunnel endurable, it fills the heart with anticipation—a world alive, fresh, beautiful, without pain, suffering, or war. A world without disease, without accident, without tragedy. A world without dictators or madmen. A world ruled by the only One worthy of ruling (see Revelation 5:12).

 

Though we don’t know exactly when, we do know for sure that either by our deaths or Christ’s return, our suffering will end. From before the beginning, God drew the line in eternity’s sand to say for his children, “This much and no more, then endless joy.”

 

Chapter Forty-four: Finding Grace to Ease Others’ Suffering and to Endure Our Own

 

To ignore someone’s pain is to add to that pain. Instead of fearing we’ll say the wrong thing, we should reach out to hurting people. Many times it’s better just to put our arms around someone and cry with them; people almost always appreciate it when you acknowledge their loss. Yet so long as your heart is right, saying something is nearly always better than ignoring them.

 

“No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it” (1 Corinthians 10:13, msg). This truth applies to every aspect of our lives, including the manner, timing, and duration of our dying.

 

Chapter Forty-five: Discovering Death’s Curse and Blessing

 

The last thing most people want to think about is the last thing they’ll do: die.

 

Death is life’s greatest certainty.

 

No exercise program, diet, or therapy prevents death. Corpses don’t get cosmetic surgery. Even the young die from overdoses, accidents, and diseases. Famous athletes and Hollywood stars alike wind up in nursing homes. Suffering and old age are the great equalizers.

 

Two things stand between where we live now and that marvelous world where we’ll live forever: death and resurrection. If we never died, we’d never be resurrected. We’d never enjoy a glorious eternity with Christ and our spiritual family.

 

So while death is an enemy and part of sin’s curse, because of Christ’s death and resurrection, it’s the dark passage through which we enter the brilliance of never-ending life.

 

CONCLUSION: Final Thoughts About God, Goodness, Evil and Suffering

 

In the end, Jesus Christ is the only satisfying answer to the problem of evil and suffering.

 

In fact, I’m convinced he is the only answer.

 

In this world of suffering and evil, I have a profound and abiding hope, and faith for the future. Not because I follow a set of religious rules to make me better. But because for forty years I’ve known a real person, and…because he willingly entered this world of evil and suffering and didn’t spare himself, but took on the worst of it for my sake and yours, he has earned my trust even for what I can’t understand. I and countless others… have found him to be trustworthy.

 

He is “the Alpha and the Omega…the Beginning and the End” (Revelation 22:13).

 

When it comes to goodness and evil, present suffering and eternal joy, the first Word, and the last, is Jesus.

Permissions: Feel free to reproduce and distribute any articles written by Randy Alcorn, in part or in whole, in any format, provided that you do not alter the wording in any way or charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. It is our desire to spread this information, not protect or restrict it. Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: by Randy Alcorn, Eternal Perspective Ministries, 39085 Pioneer Blvd., Suite 206, Sandy, OR 97055, 503-668-5200, www.epm.org, www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com

Delegation Tips

Excerpted from NYT.

This interview with Deborah Dunsire, M.D., president and chief executive of Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.

Q. What leadership lessons did you learn when you first started managing others?

A. When you desperately want to do well, and I am a person who’s typically worked hard and done well, sometimes that desire translated into overdoing it on the leadership side. If something went wrong, I would get too anxious about it or think I had to fix it personally.

As I’ve stepped further and further outside my comfort zone to the job I’m in now, I’ve had to focus more on the work of leadership and not focus on being the person who solved the details of the problem.

In my first management position, sometimes if something didn’t go well, I would feel I had to get personally involved, in some ways duplicating what the person who worked for me was doing. I had to learn to step away from that and ask myself what I could uniquely do.

The focus on the work of leadership means asking yourself: “What do I add? What can I bring that others cannot access without me?”

Q. How did you learn that lesson?

A. The light bulb didn’t pop to full intensity right away. But I heard gentle feedback that, “You’re in my sandbox and we’re not accomplishing a lot being in here together.” I’ve also heard feedback from a team I worked with that said, “Gee, we know you’re good at this stuff and you’ve done it, but sometimes we need to kind of bang our heads a little bit more without you fixing it.”

So I learned to step away sometimes and, in the right situation, allow a person to stub their toe. You don’t allow them to do that if the chairman’s coming for a presentation. But in a safe situation, it’s O.K. to allow them to present their work with a flaw that you can see clearly, because you’ve done this more times than they have, and letting them learn from that.

It also came at a time where I was more confident in my own leadership, so that by allowing that to happen I wasn’t failing. I learned to separate the fact that everything had to go perfectly for me to feel that I was being the leader I needed to be.

Also, I grew to understand more and more that the job of leadership is developing people, and that it involves not doing everything for them, but sometimes allowing them to stub their toe. The work may not come in perfectly, but the learning was much more effective, and people felt empowered to own the outcome in a different way. Putting that into practice was very hard for me because it’s very hard for me to see a problem and not try and fix it.

Q. You say it’s important to be patient. On the other hand, the speed of business keeps getting quicker, and the competition isn’t resting. How do you resolve the two forces?

A. I think it comes down to a fundamental premise, and that’s having the right people on the bus. There’s a need to have the right people with excellent experience and good judgment, because all of us are going to always be faced with things we’ve never seen before. And your experience, combined with good judgment and high integrity, will allow you to react to situations you’ve never seen before. So I always look at who’s leading the function. My trust in those function heads is very important.

Shanker's Rules

1. Speed is life.
2. Train like you plan to fight.
3. If it's stupid and it works, it ain't stupid.
4. When all else fails, select guns.
5. Know the opposition
6. When things go wrong, get aggressive.
7. Always know when to get out of Dodge.
8. Always know how to get out of Dodge.
9. Honor the threat

Telling Great Stories

From Ruben
Every great story needs the following.

A leading character [Protaganist]
- Every character needs a goal that can be seen.

Conflict - Barrier
- Outer conflict that can be seen
- Inner conflict that an actor can portray

Setting
Relationship

Audience must care
- must root for the main character
- the main character must be identifiable with the audience
** Jeopardy or Danger
** Empathy / Pity
** Likeability
** Authority. Main character is best at what he does.
** Affinity between audience and main character

Know your own role as your own protagonist and the customer's role as his own protragonist.

Magic Persuasion Words

From Kevin Hogan on Youtube:
Use these words in persuasion.

Because
- Causes lead to effect
- Gives rationale for action

Now
as in "Do it Now"

Imagine
does not cause resistance

Please and thank you
- Thank in advance

The other persons name
- use it only once, maybe twice
- use it at beginning and end of conversation
- ask their name if you don't know it or cannot pronounce it

Control words:
- people need a locus of control, otherwise they feel danger
- Control, In charge
- Need to convince them that can cause control and have an effect.

Finding a Freelance web designer

The original web page is HERE
Be prepared, though. When you post your project needs on an auction site, be clear about what you need and want. If your guidelines are vague, then you won’t receive accurate bid proposals from freelancers. Also be prepared to sort through many proposals to narrow down who you’d like to work with. It can be overwhelming to sift through many different proposals to find a freelancer that you like best.

Here are a few tips for finding a freelancer for your project:

• Make sure bid proposals provide as much detail as possible. Has the freelancer indicated accurate pricing, what he or she will provide, the turnaround time for delivery, and the terms of payment? Every bid proposal should include those basics.

• Keep an eye out for samples or portfolios. A good freelancer provides samples of his or her work for you to look over, so that you can review the style and ability of the individual.

• Does the freelancer communicate well? Doing business is about customer service as much as it is about skills and talent.

• Is the freelancer’s personality compatible with yours? This is important. If you don’t feel comfortable or enjoy discussions with the freelancer, you’re not going to be happy working with the person.

• Does the person show interest in your project? A freelancer who is interested and motivated will do a better job than someone who sounds bored or makes you feel he or she is doing you a favor. There are no favors in freelancing. You’re helping the freelancer earn income, and the freelancer is helping you build what you need. A client/provider relationship is about two people helping each other.

• Does the freelancer give the impression of being competent? Competency is important, and so is confidence. Anyone who sounds unsure probably isn’t skilled enough for your project.

• Is the freelancer polite, and does he or she have good manners? Does he or she thank you for the opportunity to bid and possibly work together?

• Last (but not least), find out what the freelancer’s policy is if you’re not happy with the work provided. You should have some form of recourse in case you’re unsatisfied with the final result.

How much do I pay a writer?

Canadian rates can be found here: CLICK HERE

For both freelance writers and those that hire them, that frequently asked question lacks a simple answer. Fees charged by professional writers vary according to the work involved. Many factors affect payment including:

• the type of assignment (e.g., magazine article, speech, marketing report)
• the writer's skill, background and experience
• rights licensed to the client
• the number of words and/or time the project requires
• the number of interviews and research needed
• the types of rights being purchased

PWAC's information reveals large pay variations between markets and locations. For instance, writers tend to earn more in large cities than in other areas of the country. There are also large variations between writers: a very experienced, established writer can charge more for her work than someone just starting out. Therefore, the rates below are general guidelines only. You'll need to negotiate the exact fee depending on the particulars of the assignment.

Standard Novel Story Parameters

Here is the source: CLICK HERE

Publishers aren’t looking to reinvent the novel; they’re expecting a great story told from within accepted parameters.

The Secrets That Get You Published

What are those secret parameters? What is story architecture? It goes like this:

* A set-up with a killer hook
* Character intro with back-story and context
* A sense of place
* Foreshadowing and the establishment of stakes
* The hero’s impending need and inner demons
* The emerging seeds of a subplot
* A major plot point that introduces the story’s antagonistic element
* The definition of the hero’s quest or need
* Scenes that deepen the tension as the hero responds
* Refining the nature of the quest and the elements of its opposition
* A mid-story mind-numbing context shift that changes everything
* The evolution of the hero into a pro-active warrior
* Another significant plot twist that puts all the cards on the table

… followed by a series of scenes that show how the hero is applying what he’s learned to become a catalyst in the story’s oh-so-satisfying conclusion.

It’s all learnable. It really is. Learn it, master it, and you will publish.

Shut Up!

Must watch:

Executive Presence

Tips to improve your "Executive Presence":

• Use random, sustained eye contact with several members of the audience. Focus on a few people here and there while speaking. "If you're looking at everyone in the room - you're looking at no one in the room".

• Make sure that your body language is strong and confident in order to project that with your tone - because your voice always follows your body language.

• Before you start to speak, stand up and stand still for 5 seconds. Doing so will make you look very much in control.

• When addressing a large group from a stage - walk out: stand still for 5 seconds, then start speaking by making eye contact with one person in the far corner of the group to the left, and then one person in the far corner of the room to the right.

• Gesture from the shoulder rather than from the elbow or the wrist because these types of moves make you look more powerful.

• Use your space purposely. Stand still. Make a point. Move as you transition to the next point. Then stand still, make point, move, etc.

Relativism

From http://www.carm.org/secular-movements/relativism/refuting-relativism

Relativism is the philosophical position that all points of view are equally valid and that all truth is relative to the individual. But, if we look further, we see that this proposition is not logical. In fact, it is self-refuting.

1. All truth is relative.
   1. If all truth is relative, then the statement "All truth is relative" would be absolutely true. If it is absolutely true, then not all things are relative and the statement that "All truth is relative" is false.
2. There are no absolute truths.
   1. The statement "There are no absolute truths" is an absolute statement which is supposed to be true. Therefore, it is an absolute truth and "There are no absolute truths" is false.
   2. If there are no absolute truths, then you cannot believe anything absolutely at all, including that there are no absolute truths. Therefore, nothing could be really true for you - including relativism.
3. What is true for you is not true for me.
   1. If what is true for me is that relativism is false, then is it true that relativism is false?
      1. If you say no, then what is true for me is not true and relativism is false.
      2. If you say yes, then relativism is false.
   1. If you say that it is true only for me that relativism is false, then
      1. I am believing something other than relativism; namely, that relativism is false. If that is true, then how can relativism be true?
      2. am I believing a premise that is true or false or neither?
         1. If it is true for me that relativism is false, then relativism (within me) holds the position that relativism is false. This is self-contradictory.
         2. If it is false for me that relativism is false, then relativism isn't true because what is true for me is not said to be true for me.
         3. If you say it is neither true or false, then relativism isn't true since it states that all views are equally valid; and by not being at least true, relativism is shown to be wrong.
   2. If I believe that relativism is false, and if it is true only for me that it is false, then you must admit that it is absolutely true that I am believing that relativism false.
      1. If you admit that it is absolutely true that I am believing relativism is false, then relativism is defeated since you admit there is something absolutely true.
   3. If I am believing in something other than relativism that is true, then there is something other than relativism that is true - even if it is only for me.
      1. If there is something other than relativism that is true, then relativism is false.
4. No one can know anything for sure.
   1. If that is true, then we can know that we cannot know anything for sure, which is self-defeating.
5. That is your reality, not mine.
   1. Is my reality really real?
   2. If my reality is different than yours, how can my reality contradict your reality? If yours and mine are equally real, how can two opposite realities that exclude each other really exist at the same time?
6. We all perceive what we want.
   1. How do you know that statement is true?
   2. If we all perceive what we want, then what are you wanting to perceive?
      1. If you say you want to perceive truth, how do you know if you are not deceived?
      2. Simply desiring truth is no proof you have it.
7. You may not use logic to refute relativism.
   1. Why not?
   2. Can you give me a logical reason why logic cannot be used?
   3. If you use relativism to refute logic, then on what basis is relativism (that nothing is absolutely true) able to refute logic which is based upon truth.
   4. If you use relativism to refute logic, then relativism has lost its relative status since it is used to absolutely refute the truth of something else.
8. We are only perceiving different aspects of the same reality.
   1. If our perceptions are contradictory, can either perception be trusted?
   2. Is truth self-contradictory?
      1. If it were, then it wouldn't be true because it would be self-refuting. If something is self-refuting, then it isn't true.
   3. If it is true that we are perceiving different aspects of the same reality, then am I believing something that is false since I believe that your reality is not true? How then could they be the same reality?
   4. If you are saying that it is merely my perception that is not true, then relativism is refuted.
      1. If I am believing something that is false, then relativism is not true since it holds that all views are equally valid.
   5. If my reality is that your reality is false, then both cannot be true. If both are not true, then one of us (or both) is in error.
      1. If one or both of us is in error, then relativism is not true.
9. Relativism itself is excluded from the critique that it is absolute and self-refuting.
   1. On what basis do you simply exclude relativism from the critique of logic?
      1. Is this an arbitrary act? If so, does it justify your position?
      2. If it is not arbitrary, what criteria did you use to exclude it?
   2. To exclude itself from the start is an admission of the logical problems inherent in its system of thought.

How to Make Symbols on a Mac

1. Hold down the Option, or ALT and shift keys, and press another key. The key can be a letter, a number, or a symbol. When you do this, a new symbol will appear. There are two lists of symbols below. One list shows symbols that can be created by holding "Option" and a key, and the other lists symbols that are created with "Option", "Shift", and a key. It should be noted that on a keyboard the Option key is either denoted by saying Option / Alt on a keyboard visually designed for a Macintosh computer, whereas it will be simply ALT for a keyboard visually designed for Windows. (The Windows key and Command key have the same relationship)

Symbols With the "Option / ALT" Key Pressed

* Option and ` = `
* Option and 1 = ¡
* Option and 2 = €
* Option and 3 = #
* Option and 4 = ¢
* Option and 5 = ∞
* Option and 6 = §
* Option and 7 = ¶
* Option and 8 = •
* Option and 9 = ª
* Option and 0 = º
* Option and - = –
* Option and = = ≠
* Option and q = œ
* Option and w = ∑
* Option and e = ´
* Option and r = ®
* Option and t = †
* Option and y = ¥
* Option and u = ¨
* Option and i = ˆ
* Option and o = ø
* Option and p = π
* Option and [ = “
* Option and ] = ‘
* Option and \ = «
* Option and a = å
* Option and s = ß
* Option and d = ∂
* Option and f = ƒ
* Option and g = ©
* Option and h = ˙
* Option and j = ∆
* Option and k = ˚
* Option and l = ¬
* Option and ; = …
* Option and ' = æ
* Option and z = Ω
* Option and x = ≈
* Option and c = ç
* Option and v = √
* Option and b = ∫
* Option and n = ˜
* Option and m = µ
* Option and , = ≤
* Option and . = ≥
* Option and / = ÷

Symbols With the "Option / ALT" and "Shift" Keys Pressed

* Option, Shift, and ` = `
* Option, Shift, and 1 = ⁄
* Option, Shift, and 2 = ™
* Option, Shift, and 3 = ‹
* Option, Shift, and 4 = ›
* Option, Shift, and 5 = fi
* Option, Shift, and 6 = fl
* Option, Shift, and 7 = ‡
* Option, Shift, and 8 = °
* Option, Shift, and 9 = ·
* Option, Shift, and 0 = ‚
* Option, Shift, and - = —
* Option, Shift, and = = ±
* Option, Shift, and q = Œ
* Option, Shift, and w = „
* Option, Shift, and e = ´
* Option, Shift, and r = ‰
* Option, Shift, and t = ˇ
* Option, Shift, and y = Á
* Option, Shift, and u = ¨
* Option, Shift, and i = ˆ
* Option, Shift, and o = Ø
* Option, Shift, and p = ∏
* Option, Shift, and [ = ”
* Option, Shift, and ] = ’
* Option, Shift, and \ = »
* Option, Shift, and a = Å
* Option, Shift, and s = Í
* Option, Shift, and d = Î
* Option, Shift, and f = Ï
* Option, Shift, and g = ˝
* Option, Shift, and h = Ó
* Option, Shift, and j = Ô
* Option, Shift, and k = 
* Option, Shift, and l = Ò
* Option, Shift, and ; = Ú
* Option, Shift, and ' = Æ
* Option, Shift, and z = ¸
* Option, Shift, and x = ˛
* Option, Shift, and c = Ç
* Option, Shift, and v = ◊
* Option, Shift, and b = ı
* Option, Shift, and n = ˜
* Option, Shift, and m = Â
* Option, Shift, and , = ¯
* Option, Shift, and . = ˘
* Option, Shift, and / = ¿

The Simplest Way to Make Yourself Heard: What We Can Learn From the Magical Number Seven

Context is everything. Much of my influence on the next generation is blunted when I speak too abstractly.

The problem is that too much information, without a context, actually decreases memory.

This is the point made by George Miller in his classic essay "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two."

Miller demonstrates that the average English speaker can remember seven random digits in a sequence. Legend is that this insight persuaded the U.S. to adopt seven digit telephone numbers.

Many people believe Miller's insight means that people can generally remember seven pieces of abstract information. Every additional piece of information decreases their memory.

The best way to make sure you're getting your point across in a memorable way is to make each point as concrete as possible. This is done by:

• Defining it
• Explaining it
• Giving an example
• Offering a personal experience
• Developing an analogy
• Quoting an expert's opinion
• Citing a statistic

For example, let's say you want to communicate the abstract principle of "redemption":

• Definition: redemption means to "buy back" something that is rightfully yours.
• Example: imagine that you owned a valuable heirloom and lost it, only to find it again in an antique store. Since you have no proof that it was yours, the only way to get it back it to buy it. That's an example of redemption.
• Personal experience: Because God redeemed me through Jesus' dying on the cross, I am now a bearer of redemption to the world. Everything I do--including my work--is an illustration of God's on-going work of redemption.

Here's a helpful rule of thumb called the 70/30 principle: Don't make more than 30% of any message new information. The other 70% should illustrate and explain the 30%. This makes the information you're presenting less random and more memorable.

The 70/30 principle works in speaking and writing. It also works when giving instructions and offering directions--whether to children or adults. Try it out this week!

T-38 Talon Formating

Here is a video of a t-39 formation flight:

T-38 Talon

There is a great T-38 Talon pilot report here: http://www.warbirdalley.com/articles/t38pr.htm

It is too long to post here.

Five Techniques of Surviving a Police Interrogation (Without Confessing)

Taken from freeBEAGLES' recommendations for animal rights' activists (and others) on how to make it through a police interrogation without incriminating themselves or their peers:

1. Remain silent.
2. Remain silent.
3. Imagine the words "I invoke my right to remain silent" painted on the wall, and stare at them throughout the interrogation.
4. Momentarily break your silence to ask for counsel.
5. Cultivate hatred for your interrogator so you don't fall into his traps and start talking.

Common Interrogation Techniques

[See also: Criminal Interrogation and Confessions for details]

Modern interrogation is a study in human nature. Most of us are more likely to talk to people who appear to be like us. Once we start talking, it's hard for us to stop. Once we start telling the truth, it's harder to start lying. When a police officer tells us our fingerprints were found on the inside doorknob of a home that was robbed two days ago, we get nervous, even if we wore gloves the whole time we were inside.

With a few exceptions, the police are allowed to lie to a suspect to get him to confess. The belief is that an innocent person would never confess to a crime she didn't commit, even if she were confronted with false physical evidence of her involvement. Unfortunately, that's not always the case (more on false confessions in the next section), but it's a big part of the reason why the police are allowed to employ deceptive tactics in interrogation.

The psychological manipulation begins before the interrogator even opens his mouth. The physical layout of an interrogation room is designed to maximize a suspect's discomfort and sense of powerlessness from the moment he steps inside. The classic interrogation manual "Criminal Interrogation and Confessions" recommends a small, soundproof room with only three chairs (two for detectives, one for the suspect) and a desk, with nothing on the walls. This creates a sense of exposure, unfamiliarity and isolation, heightening the suspect's "get me out of here" sensation throughout the interrogation.

The manual also suggests that the suspect should be seated in an uncomfortable chair, out of reach of any controls like light switches or thermostats, furthering his discomfort and setting up a feeling of dependence. A one-way mirror is an ideal addition to the room, because it increases the suspect's anxiety and allows other detectives to watch the process and help the interrogator figure out which techniques are working and which aren't.

Before the nine steps of the Reid interrogation begin, there's an initial interview to determine guilt or innocence. During this time, the interrogator attempts to develop a rapport with the suspect, using casual conversation to create a non-threatening atmosphere. People tend to like and trust people who are like them, so the detective may claim to share some of the suspect's interests or beliefs. If the suspect starts talking to the interrogator about harmless things, it becomes harder to stop talking (or start lying) later when the discussion turns to the crime.

During this initial conversation, the detective observes the suspect's reactions -- both verbal and non-verbal -- to establish a baseline reaction before the real stress begins. The detective will use this baseline later as a comparison point.

One method of creating a baseline involves asking questions that cause the suspect to access different parts of his brain. The detective asks non-threatening questions that require memory (simple recall) and questions that require thinking (creativity). When the suspect is remembering something, his eyes will often move to the right. This is just an outward manifestation of his brain activating the memory center. When he's thinking about something, his eyes might move upward or to the left, reflecting activation of the cognitive center. The detective makes a mental note of the suspect's eye activity.

Bad Move In the United States, as many as 80 percent of suspects waive their rights to silence and counsel, allowing police to conduct a full-scale interrogation.

The next step is to turn the questioning to the task at hand. The detective will ask basic questions about the crime and compare the suspect's reactions to the baseline to determine if the suspect is being truthful or deceptive. If the interrogator asks the suspect where he was the night of the crime and he answers truthfully, he'll be remembering, so his eyes may move to the right; if he's making up an alibi, he's thinking, so his eyes might move to the left. If the interrogator determines that the suspect's reactions indicate deception, and all other evidence points to guilt, the interrogation of a guilty suspect begins.

The Reid technique is the basis of the widely used "Criminal Interrogation and Confessions" manual we already mentioned. It lays out nine steps or issues guiding interrogation. Many of these steps overlap, and there is no such thing as a "typical" interrogation; but the Reid technique provides a blueprint of how a successful interrogation might unfold.

1. Confrontation
   The detective presents the facts of the case and informs the suspect of the evidence against him. This evidence might be real, or it might be made up. The detective typically states in a confident manner that the suspect is involved in the crime. The suspect's stress level starts increasing, and the interrogator may move around the room and invade the suspect's personal space to increase the discomfort.

If the suspect starts fidgeting, licking his lips and or grooming himself (running his hand through his hair, for instance), the detective takes these as indicators of deception and knows he's on the right track.
2. Theme development
   The interrogator creates a story about why the suspect committed the crime. Theme development is about looking through the eyes of the suspect to figure out why he did it, why he'd like to think he did it and what type of excuse might make him admit he did it. Does the suspect use any particular mode of reasoning more often than others? For example, does he seem willing to blame the victim? The detective lays out a theme, a story, that the suspect can latch on to in order to either excuse or justify his part in the crime, and the detective then observes the suspect to see if he likes the theme. Is he paying closer attention than before? Nodding his head? If so, the detective will continue to develop that theme; if not, he'll pick a new theme and start over. Theme development is in the background throughout the interrogation. When developing themes, the interrogator speaks in a soft, soothing voice to appear non-threatening and to lull the suspect into a false sense of security.

3. Stopping denials
   Letting the suspect deny his guilt will increase his confidence, so the detective tries to interrupt all denials, sometimes telling the suspect it'll be his turn to talk in a moment, but right now, he needs to listen. From the start of the interrogation, the detective watches for denials and stops the suspect before he can voice them. In addition to keeping the suspect's confidence low, stopping denials also helps quiet the suspect so he doesn't have a chance to ask for a lawyer. If there are no denials during theme development, the detective takes this as a positive indicator of guilt. If initial attempts at denial slow down or stop during theme development, the interrogator knows he has found a good theme and that the suspect is getting closer to confessing.

4. Overcoming objections
   Once the interrogator has fully developed a theme that the suspect can relate to, the suspect may offer logic-based objections as opposed to simple denials, like "I could never rape somebody -- my sister was raped and I saw how much pain it caused. I would never do that to someone." The detective handles these differently than he does denials, because these objections can give him information to turn around and use against the suspect. The interrogator might say something like, "See, that's good, you're telling me you would never plan this, that it was out of your control. You care about women like your sister -- it was just a one-time mistake, not a recurring thing." If the detective does his job right, an objection ends up looking more like an admission of guilt.

5. Getting the suspect's attention
   At this point, the suspect should be frustrated and unsure of himself. He may be looking for someone to help him escape the situation. The interrogator tries to capitalize on that insecurity by pretending to be the suspect's ally. He'll try to appear even more sincere in his continued theme development, and he may get physically closer to the suspect to make it harder for the suspect to detach from the situation. The interrogator may offer physical gestures of camaraderie and concern, such as touching the suspect's shoulder or patting his back.

6. The suspect loses resolve
   If the suspect's body language indicates surrender -- his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees, his shoulders hunched -- the interrogator seizes the opportunity to start leading the suspect into confession. He'll start transitioning from theme development to motive alternatives (see the next step) that force the suspect to choose a reason why he committed the crime. At this stage, the interrogator makes every effort to establish eye contact with the suspect to increase the suspect's stress level and desire to escape. If, at this point, the suspect cries, the detective takes this as a positive indicator of guilt.

7. Alternatives
   The interrogator offers two contrasting motives for some aspect of the crime, sometimes beginning with a minor aspect so it's less threatening to the suspect. One alternative is socially acceptable ("It was a crime of passion"), and the other is morally repugnant ("You killed her for the money"). The detective builds up the contrast between the two alternatives until the suspect gives an indicator of choosing one, like a nod of the head or increased signs of surrender. Then, the detective speeds things up.

8. Bringing the suspect into the conversation
   Once the suspect chooses an alternative, the confession has begun. The interrogator encourages the suspect to talk about the crime and arranges for at least two people to witness the confession. One may be the second detective in room, and another may be brought in for the purpose of forcing the suspect to confess to a new detective -- having to confess to a new person increases the suspect's stress level and his desire to just sign a statement and get out of there. Bringing a new person into the room also forces the suspect to reassert his socially acceptable reason for the crime, reinforcing the idea that the confession is a done deal.

9. The confession
   The final stage of an interrogation is all about getting the confession admitted at trial. The interrogator will have the suspect write out his confession or state it on videotape. The suspect is usually willing to do anything at this point to escape the interrogation. The suspect confirms that his confession is voluntary, not coerced, and signs the statement in front of witnesses.

It should be noted here that if, at any point during the interrogation, the suspect does somehow manage to ask for a lawyer or invoke his right to silence, the interrogation has to stop immediately. That's why it's so important to interrupt the suspect's attempts to speak in the initial stages -- if he invokes his rights, the interrogation is over.

The steps we've laid out here represent some of the psychological techniques that detectives use to get confessions from suspects. But a real interrogation doesn't always follow the textbook. Next, let's take a look at an actual police interrogation that ended with an admissible confession.

Thoughts from Perspectives

The Perspectives course has been extremely valuable and has truly changed my perspectives. I will always remember the discussions of methods of evangelizing Muslims. The oval diagram was enlightening. It shows that the fundamental goal of Muslims, Christians, and Jews is “How do I enter the Kingdom of God?”

This led to musings about the foundational "milk" versus "meat" of Christianity. I understand that our eternal salvation, "going to heaven," is a function of God's gracious election and that it is certain. That is a done deal. But Jesus spent most of his time talking about the Kingdom of God. Although the physical Kingdom of God will manifest at his return, we can begin to experience the spiritual Kingdom right now, as we know Jesus and worship him in spirit and truth. Many scriptures state that the key to entering the Kingdom [as opposed to having eternal life] is loving God and God measures that love by how much we love others.

This leads to a broader view of the great commission. “make disciples” includes inviting them into the Kingdom. “baptize them in the name...” means to immerse them in God's name / reputation / glory: His compassion, grace, patience, abundant lovingkindness, truth, forgiveness, and justice.

This leads a new perspective on “church.” What is it, really, at the core? How much of what we do leads directly to the Kingdom and how much is a diversion? Do we expect that unbelievers will come to our church to be converted? Are we properly equipping the believers to actually do the work of the Kingdom or are we depending on paid staff? How much is western culture and tradition and how much is God? God views every person as a precious made-in-His-image being. Do we treat everyone that way? Are we going out of our way to find the oppressed and downtrodden? Our local organic ministries suddenly become more important: His Hands, Aid to Women, Serve The City, J-Street Outreach, etc.

The broken line in the diagram indicates that it is possible to know and love Jesus and to worship in spirit and truth without changing one's worship to a western style. What a new perspective!

Alex Pearson Election Video

Sept 17 2008

Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully - in Ten Minutes

by Stephen King (reprinted in Sylvia K. Burack, ed. The Writer's Handbook. Boston, MA: Writer, Inc., 1988: 3-9)

I. The First Introduction

THAT'S RIGHT. I know it sounds like an ad for some sleazy writers' school, but I really am going to tell you everything you need to pursue a successful and financially rewarding career writing fiction, and I really am going to do it in ten minutes, which is exactly how long it took me to learn. It will actually take you twenty minutes or so to read this essay, however, because I have to tell you a story, and then I have to write a second introduction. But these, I argue, should not count in the ten minutes.

II. The Story, or, How Stephen King Learned to Write

When I was a sophomore in high school, I did a sophomoric thing which got me in a pot of fairly hot water, as sophomoric didoes often do. I wrote and published a small satiric newspaper called The Village Vomit. In this little paper I lampooned a number of teachers at Lisbon (Maine) High School, where I was under instruction. These were not very gentle lampoons; they ranged from the scatological to the downright cruel.

Eventually, a copy of this little newspaper found its way into the hands of a faculty member, and since I had been unwise enough to put my name on it (a fault, some critics argue, of which I have still not been entirely cured), I was brought into the office. The sophisticated satirist had by that time reverted to what he really was: a fourteen-year-old kid who was shaking in his boots and wondering if he was going to get a suspension ... what we called "a three-day vacation" in those dim days of 1964.

I wasn't suspended. I was forced to make a number of apologies - they were warranted, but they still tasted like dog-dirt in my mouth - and spent a week in detention hall. And the guidance counselor arranged what he no doubt thought of as a more constructive channel for my talents. This was a job - contingent upon the editor's approval - writing sports for the Lisbon Enterprise, a twelve-page weekly of the sort with which any small-town resident will be familiar. This editor was the man who taught me everything I know about writing in ten minutes. His name was John Gould - not the famed New England humorist or the novelist who wrote The Greenleaf Fires, but a relative of both, I believe.

He told me he needed a sports writer and we could "try each other out" if I wanted.

I told him I knew more about advanced algebra than I did sports.

Gould nodded and said, "You'll learn."

I said I would at least try to learn. Gould gave me a huge roll of yellow paper and promised me a wage of 1/2¢ per word. The first two pieces I wrote had to do with a high school basketball game in which a member of my school team broke the Lisbon High scoring record. One of these pieces was straight reportage. The second was a feature article.

I brought them to Gould the day after the game, so he'd have them for the paper, which came out Fridays. He read the straight piece, made two minor corrections, and spiked it. Then he started in on the feature piece with a large black pen and taught me all I ever needed to know about my craft. I wish I still had the piece - it deserves to be framed, editorial corrections and all - but I can remember pretty well how it looked when he had finished with it. Here's an example:

(note: this is before the edit marks indicated on King's original copy)

Last night, in the well-loved gymnasium of Lisbon High School, partisans and Jay Hills fans alike were stunned by an athletic performance unequaled in school history: Bob Ransom, known as "Bullet" Bob for both his size and accuracy, scored thirty-seven points. He did it with grace and speed ... and he did it with an odd courtesy as well, committing only two personal fouls in his knight-like quest for a record which has eluded Lisbon thinclads since 1953....

(after edit marks)

Last night, in the Lisbon High School gymnasium, partisans and Jay Hills fans alike were stunned by an athletic performance unequaled in school history: Bob Ransom scored thirty-seven points. He did it with grace and speed ... and he did it with an odd courtesy as well, committing only two personal fouls in his quest for a record which has eluded Lisbon's basketball team since 1953....

When Gould finished marking up my copy in the manner I have indicated above, he looked up and must have seen something on my face. I think he must have thought it was horror, but it was not: it was revelation.

"I only took out the bad parts, you know," he said. "Most of it's pretty good."

"I know," I said, meaning both things: yes, most of it was good, and yes, he had only taken out the bad parts. "I won't do it again."

"If that's true," he said, "you'll never have to work again. You can do this for a living." Then he threw back his head and laughed.

And he was right; I am doing this for a living, and as long as I can keep on, I don't expect ever to have to work again.

III. The Second Introduction

All of what follows has been said before. If you are interested enough in writing to be a purchaser of this magazine, you will have either heard or read all (or almost all) of it before. Thousands of writing courses are taught across the United States each year; seminars are convened; guest lecturers talk, then answer questions, then drink as many gin and tonics as their expense-fees will allow, and it all boils down to what follows.

I am going to tell you these things again because often people will only listen - really listen - to someone who makes a lot of money doing the thing he's talking about. This is sad but true. And I told you the story above not to make myself sound like a character out of a Horatio Alger novel but to make a point: I saw, I listened, and I learned. Until that day in John Gould's little office, I had been writing first drafts of stories which might run 2,500 words. The second drafts were apt to run 3,300 words. Following that day, my 2,500-word first drafts became 2,200-word second drafts. And two years after that, I sold the first one.

So here it is, with all the bark stripped off. It'll take ten minutes to read, and you can apply it right away ... if you listen.

IV. Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully

1. Be talented

This, of course, is the killer. What is talent? I can hear someone shouting, and here we are, ready to get into a discussion right up there with "what is the meaning of life?" for weighty pronouncements and total uselessness. For the purposes of the beginning writer, talent may as well be defined as eventual success - publication and money. If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.

Now some of you are really hollering. Some of you are calling me one crass money-fixated creep. And some of you are calling me bad names. Are you calling Harold Robbins talented? someone in one of the Great English Departments of America is screeching. V.C. Andrews? Theodore Dreiser? Or what about you, you dyslexic moron?

Nonsense. Worse than nonsense, off the subject. We're not talking about good or bad here. I'm interested in telling you how to get your stuff published, not in critical judgments of who's good or bad. As a rule the critical judgments come after the check's been spent, anyway. I have my own opinions, but most times I keep them to myself. People who are published steadily and are paid for what they are writing may be either saints or trollops, but they are clearly reaching a great many someones who want what they have. Ergo, they are communicating. Ergo, they are talented. The biggest part of writing successfully is being talented, and in the context of marketing, the only bad writer is one who doesn't get paid. If you're not talented, you won't succeed. And if you're not succeeding, you should know when to quit.

When is that? I don't know. It's different for each writer. Not after six rejection slips, certainly, nor after sixty. But after six hundred? Maybe. After six thousand? My friend, after six thousand pinks, it's time you tried painting or computer programming.

Further, almost every aspiring writer knows when he is getting warmer - you start getting little jotted notes on your rejection slips, or personal letters . . . maybe a commiserating phone call. It's lonely out there in the cold, but there are encouraging voices ... unless there is nothing in your words which warrants encouragement. I think you owe it to yourself to skip as much of the self-illusion as possible. If your eyes are open, you'll know which way to go ... or when to turn back.

2. Be neat

Type. Double-space. Use a nice heavy white paper, never that erasable onion-skin stuff. If you've marked up your manuscript a lot, do another draft.

3. Be self-critical

If you haven't marked up your manuscript a lot, you did a lazy job. Only God gets things right the first time. Don't be a slob.

4. Remove every extraneous word

You want to get up on a soapbox and preach? Fine. Get one and try your local park. You want to write for money? Get to the point. And if you remove all the excess garbage and discover you can't find the point, tear up what you wrote and start all over again . . . or try something new.

5. Never look at a reference book while doing a first draft

You want to write a story? Fine. Put away your dictionary, your encyclopedias, your World Almanac, and your thesaurus. Better yet, throw your thesaurus into the wastebasket. The only things creepier than a thesaurus are those little paperbacks college students too lazy to read the assigned novels buy around exam time. Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule. You think you might have misspelled a word? O.K., so here is your choice: either look it up in the dictionary, thereby making sure you have it right - and breaking your train of thought and the writer's trance in the bargain - or just spell it phonetically and correct it later. Why not? Did you think it was going to go somewhere? And if you need to know the largest city in Brazil and you find you don't have it in your head, why not write in Miami, or Cleveland? You can check it ... but later. When you sit down to write, write. Don't do anything else except go to the bathroom, and only do that if it absolutely cannot be put off.

6. Know the markets

Only a dimwit would send a story about giant vampire bats surrounding a high school to McCall's. Only a dimwit would send a tender story about a mother and daughter making up their differences on Christmas Eve to Playboy ... but people do it all the time. I'm not exaggerating; I have seen such stories in the slush piles of the actual magazines. If you write a good story, why send it out in an ignorant fashion? Would you send your kid out in a snowstorm dressed in Bermuda shorts and a tank top? If you like science fiction, read the magazines. If you want to write confession stories, read the magazines. And so on. It isn't just a matter of knowing what's right for the present story; you can begin to catch on, after awhile, to overall rhythms, editorial likes and dislikes, a magazine's entire slant. Sometimes your reading can influence the next story, and create a sale.

7. Write to entertain

Does this mean you can't write "serious fiction"? It does not. Somewhere along the line pernicious critics have invested the American reading and writing public with the idea that entertaining fiction and serious ideas do not overlap. This would have surprised Charles Dickens, not to mention Jane Austen, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Bernard Malamud, and hundreds of others. But your serious ideas must always serve your story, not the other way around. I repeat: if you want to preach, get a soapbox.

8. Ask yourself frequently, "Am I having fun?"

The answer needn't always be yes. But if it's always no, it's time for a new project or a new career.

9. How to evaluate criticism

Show your piece to a number of people - ten, let us say. Listen carefully to what they tell you. Smile and nod a lot. Then review what was said very carefully. If your critics are all telling you the same thing about some facet of your story - a plot twist that doesn't work, a character who rings false, stilted narrative, or half a dozen other possibles - change that facet. It doesn't matter if you really liked that twist of that character; if a lot of people are telling you something is wrong with you piece, it is. If seven or eight of them are hitting on that same thing, I'd still suggest changing it. But if everyone - or even most everyone - is criticizing something different, you can safely disregard what all of them say.

10. Observe all rules for proper submission

Return postage, self-addressed envelope, all of that.

11. An agent? Forget it. For now

Agents get 10% of monies earned by their clients. 10% of nothing is nothing. Agents also have to pay the rent. Beginning writers do not contribute to that or any other necessity of life. Flog your stories around yourself. If you've done a novel, send around query letters to publishers, one by one, and follow up with sample chapters and/or the manuscript complete. And remember Stephen King's First Rule of Writers and Agents, learned by bitter personal experience: You don't need one until you're making enough for someone to steal ... and if you're making that much, you'll be able to take your pick of good agents.

12. If it's bad, kill it

When it comes to people, mercy killing is against the law. When it comes to fiction, it is the law.

That's everything you need to know. And if you listened, you can write everything and anything you want. Now I believe I will wish you a pleasant day and sign off.

My ten minutes are up.

(The above article is copyright Stephen King, 1988)

This work is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license. Please send comments or questions to mike@mikeshea.net.

What would Sully do?

Excerpt from a posting in Politico by By: Eamon Javers
February 9, 2009 04:56 PM EST

Here are the top five lessons from the crash of flight 1549:

1. Don’t panic: Sullenberger told CBS’ Katie Couric that he immediately knew he was in a life-or-death situation: “It was the worst sickening pit-of-your-stomach, falling-through-the-floor feeling I’ve ever felt in my life,” he said. But he didn’t let that fear keep him from acting calmly and effectively. On the cockpit recording, Sullenberger’s tone of voice is even and controlled as disaster loomed.

Lesson: You can’t lead from the fetal position. There are both Democrats and Republicans who would prefer not to have to revisit the notion of a financial rescue package, especially after the debacle of the Troubled Assets Relief Program last year. Sully didn’t want to crash into the Hudson, either – but he didn’t have a choice.

2. There’s only one pilot at a time: The instant his engines cut out over New York City, Sullenberger turned to his co-pilot, Jeff Skiles, and said “my aircraft,” taking control of the airplane. Stiles responded quickly and simply: “your aircraft.” Notice what the two men did not do: They did not argue over who was in charge, or whose theory of crash landing was better. They had only one chance to get it right, and Sully was in the captain’s seat, so he made the call.

Lesson: Leaders have to be allowed to lead. The back and forth tussling we have seen between congressional Democrats and the White House over who’s responsible for certain planks in the stimulus bill is just the opposite of what we saw with Sully and Stiles.

3. Improvise, Improvise, Improvise: Sully cranked through a list of options with his co-pilot and with air traffic control. Return to La Guardia Airport? Couldn’t make it. Bear right toward Teterboro? Still too far. Sully weighed the advice he was getting, and made a unilateral decision, telling air traffic control simply: “We’ll be in the Hudson.”

Lesson: Weigh the options, and then move on. Sometimes, the worst choice on the table is the only one available. Both President Bush and President Obama have been making it up as they go along – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Franklin Delano Roosevelt once called it: “bold, persistent experimentation.” For Congress, most economists agree, that means do something – this problem won’t solve itself without a lot of collateral damage.

4. Experts matter: Sullenberger was perhaps the ideal pilot to handle the Hudson landing: He’d flown for more than 19,000 hours, ran his own transportation safety consultancy, and had participated in several National Transportation Safety Board accident investigations. Contrast that with Washington, where all 535 lawmakers on Capitol Hill have an opinion – whether they know what they’re talking about or not. President Obama himself bemoaned this tendency in the stimulus process: “These days, everybody thinks they’re economists,” he joked.

Lesson: Some people are better qualified than others – sometimes you’re the pilot, and sometimes you’re the flight attendant.

5. Don’t worry about public opinion – success makes for great numbers: Couric asked Sullenberger whether he thought about the passengers while he was struggling to land the plane. Sully said, in essence, no. Instead, Sully was focused on the task immediately in front of him. “I knew I had to solve this problem,” he said.

Lesson: The passengers – and the American people – are along for the ride. As difficult as this is to swallow in a democracy, a fast-moving crisis simply doesn’t allow a lot of time for deliberation. Hesitation can mean disaster. Imagine Sully conducting an opinion poll – if asked, surely some of the passengers would have wanted him to try for Teterboro, some for La Guardia, and some for the water landing. By the time he’d decided what to do, it would be too late to do it. What’s more, it’s sometimes better to make a bad decision than none at all. After all, maybe Sully could have landed at Teterboro and saved a $60 million aircraft as well as the lives of the passengers and crew. We’ll never know. But debating the option any longer would surely have cost the lives and the plane.