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Moses – Unbelieving Leader

by applyingmybeliefs

Num 20:12-13 – And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.”  These are the waters of Meribah, where the people of Israel quarreled with the Lord, and through them he showed himself holy.  ESV

Moses is the biggest figure found in the Jewish scriptures, which we know as the Old Testament.  He was the baby placed into the Nile, the Prince of Egypt, a murderer, a runaway and he was also the person chosen by God to lead the people out of slavery and into the promised-land.

In this passage (Num 20:2-13) the Israelites had arrived at Meribah, they had run out of water, and as there were likely over a million people, this was a significant problem.  Moses, who had witnessed God’s amazing power, seen His ability to rescue His people, and experienced His provision, got angry with Him, and fell into disrespect and unbelief.  Because of this God told Moses that he would not be allowed to bring the people into the promised-land.  Notice that God had no problem with Moses being angry.  The problem is that Moses, who had experienced so much with God, fell into internal unbelief with the outward result that he did not uphold God as the Holy One of Israel.

Isn’t that like us in Christian recovery?  We see God’s power working in our lives, and the lives of those who journey through a spiritual wilderness with us.  We come to our own Meribah, a place where we feel stuck and spiritually dry.  We might even get angry with God, and we might also slide into internal unbelief that God is working in us, and make ourselves vulnerable to disrespectful or even contemptuous outward behaviors toward God.

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Incomplete

When we’re incomplete, we’re always searching for somebody to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we’re still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising. This can go on and on–series polygamy–until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimensions to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and to program for eventual failure every relationship we enter. Tom Robbins

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.” – C. S. Lewis

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Pastor outed on Ashley Madison commits suicide

Let’s pray for the family of John Gibson and for others that suffer through our problem.  This is why we have the empty chair in the middle of our circle.  Sometimes we lose hope if we don’t know there is a way out…

http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2015/09/08/gibson-family-interview.cnnmoney/

http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/08/technology/ashley-madison-suicide/

John Gibson was a pastor and seminary professor. When he wasn’t teaching at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, one of his favorite pastimes was fixing cars.

He was married with two children. His daughter, Callie, was teaching in front of 250 college students when she got the call. Her father had killed himself.

It was August 24, six days after hackers exposed the names of millions of people who had signed up for Ashley Madison, the notorious site for those seeking affairs. Gibson’s name was on the list.

His wife, Christi, discovered her husband’s body.

“It was a moment that life doesn’t prepare you for,” she told CNNMoney. “I had to call my kids. How do you tell your kids that their dad is gone and that he took his own life?”

In his suicide note, Gibson chronicled his demons. He also mentioned Ashley Madison.

“He talked about depression. He talked about having his name on there, and he said he was just very, very sorry,” Christi said. “What we know about him is that he poured his life into other people, and he offered grace and mercy and forgiveness to everyone else, but somehow he couldn’t extend that to himself.”

Ashley Madison was hacked in July, and hackers released users’ personal information in August. Since then, authorities in Toronto have said they’re investigating suicides that could be linked to the data dump. Hackers have also sent extortion emails to people who were on the list.

Gibson said her husband was likely worried he’d lose his job.

“It wasn’t so bad that we wouldn’t have forgiven it, and so many people have said that to us, but for John, it carried such a shame,” she said.

Gibson, 56, was known as a great teacher with a “quirky laugh,” but he had struggled with depression and addiction in the past, his family said.

In a statement, a spokesman for Avid Life Media, Ashley Madison’s parent company, expressed the firm’s condolences.

“Dr. Gibson’s passing is a stark, heart-wrenching reminder that the criminal hack against our company and our customers has had very real consequences for a great many innocent people.”

Since his death, his family has made a pact to be more transparent with one another about their struggles.

Christi Gibson has a message for the 32 million people exposed and their communities.

“These were real people with real families, real pain and real loss,” she says. But “don’t underestimate the power of love. Nothing is worth the loss of a father and a husband and a friend. It just didn’t merit it. It didn’t merit it at all.”

–Eric Marrapodi contributed reporting to this story.

 

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Hilton Hotel Chain Eliminates Porn from On-Demand Video Offerings

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/08/25/hilton-hotel-chain-eliminates-porn-from-on-demand-video-offerings/

by Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.25 Aug 20150

The international Hilton Hotel chain has decided to eliminate all specifically adult films from its on-demand offerings, saying that adult entertainment “is not in keeping with our company’s vision.”

The hotel chain said in a statement:

We are making immediate changes to our global brand standards to eliminate adult video-on-demand entertainment in all our hotels worldwide. While the vast majority of our properties already do not offer this content today, this content will be phased out of all other hotels subject to the terms of their contracts. We believe in offering our guests a high degree of choice and control during their stays with us, including Wi-Fi on personal devices.

Hilton’s move has garnered kudos from industry watchers such as the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE). Dawn Hawkins, executive director of NCOSE, says she is grateful that the hotel chain will no longer be seeking profits from hardcore pornography, which inevitably leads to sexual exploitation.

“We want to publicly thank Hilton for its decision to create a safe and positive environment for all of its customers,” Hawkins said. “Hilton has taken a stand against sexual exploitation. Pornography not only contributes to the demand for sex trafficking, which is a serious concern in hotels, but it also contributes to child exploitation, sexual violence and lifelong porn addictions.”

Hawkins said that thousands of supporters contacted Hilton through the organization’s website since 2013 to state their opposition to the availability of hotel porn.

“Earlier this year, Hilton Worldwide reached out to us explaining that they were looking at making these changes and to set up a meeting to talk about these issues in person,” Hawkins said. “At the meeting, we learned that Hilton Worldwide is committed to helping curb sexual exploitation and certainly open to changing policies they have that contribute to exploitation.”

The NCOSE has subsequently removed the hotel chain from its list of “leading contributors of sexual exploitation,” otherwise known as its “Dirty Dozen List.”

The list comprises the 12 primary contributors to sexual exploitation, including American Apparel, American Library Association, backpage.com, CKE Restaurants, Cosmopolitan magazine, Department of Justice, Facebook, Fifty Shades of Grey, Sex Week, Verizon, and YouTube.

In its statement, Hilton said that “Adult video-on-demand entertainment is not in keeping with our company’s vision and goals moving forward.”

Hilton’s decision is in keeping with a broader trend to remove on-demand porn from major hotel chains. In 2012, Catholic law professor Robert P. George of Princeton teamed up with the well-known Muslim intellectual Shaykh Hamza Yusuf to write letters to the CEOs of major hotel chains asking them to consider removing hotel room pornography, noting its “degrading, dehumanizing” and objectifying nature.

Omni Hotels and Resorts also stopped selling pornography in 1998, and Marriot has said it is “phasing out” pornography sales, while the Hilton chain had previously defended its continued sales.

In 2013, Nordic Hotels – a major Scandinavian hotel chain – announced that it was eliminating pay-per-view pornography channels from its 171 hotels.

Revenue from video-on-demand services has reportedly fallen in recent years as guests bring their own movies or stream content via hotel-provided Wi-Fi.

Robert Mandelbaum, director of research information services at PKF Hospitality research, said that the “decline over the past seven years has been really dramatic, profits from on demand services have dropped by half since 2007.”

“Between 2013 and 2014 demand for pay-per-view services fell by 12 per cent, and that’s while the hotel industry is achieving record profitability,” he said.

“It’s not like we’re in the middle of a recession. The hotels themselves are full, people just aren’t paying to use these services anymore,” he said.

Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter @tdwilliamsrome

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Why some couples just can’t seem to reconcile–Part 3

http://affaircare.com/2014/02/23/why-some-couples-just-cant-seem-to-reconcile-part-3/

by Cindy at Affaircare

Have you ever known a couple who decided to reconcile after one of them had an affair?  They even went to a marriage counselor and everything! Yet they just spun their wheels and never could really get ahead, and they ended up divorcing even though they really tried?

Or is that maybe where you find yourself today? Your spouse had an affair -OR- you were unfaithful, and the two of you made a choice–a decision–to reconcile, but it just isn’t working?  Oh you are going to marriage counseling and the counselor told you to “try dating” but how in the world do you DATE someone who tore your heart out?  How do you DATE someone who gave you the silent treatment when you desperately needed and wanted their attention?  You’re trying…and I mean really trying, not that faking it stuff… and yet somehow you get no traction and your marriage just is not recovering.  You worry if you will ever feel loved again and wonder if you’ll just end up divorcing even after all this effort.

Today is the final in our series examining why some couples have so much difficulty reconciling. (If you want to catch up, here is Part 1 and Part 2.)  There is an uncomplicated reason, but in order to understand the explanation, you need to understand our Basic Concepts here at Affaircare.  Let me summarize:

To keep it simple, envision that the love in your marriage is like a campfire. There are actions that people do to stoke the fire of love and make it hotter–those are Love Kindlers (we will be going over the Love Kindlers over the next week). Much as adding fuel to a fire keeps it burning, makes it brighter and warmer, so concentrating on Kindlers, making them part of your daily interaction, builds the fire of love in your marriage. There are actions that people do that are like putting water on a fire–some are like dribbles out of a holey bucket, and some are like dumping a big bucket of water on the fire. Smothering a fire will eventually put it out. Actions that kill the fires of your love are Love Extinguishers.

When you go to marriage counseling, and you’re told to “try dating” …what the counselor is focusing on is the Love Kindlers. But what happens is that the husband tries to think of some nice “kindler” to do for his wife but picks the wrong love language, so she doesn’t notice or if she does notice…she’s underwhelmed. Well hey–it didn’t mean love to her in her language! So he gets upset that he put ALL THAT EFFORT into it, and got no benefit, no brownie points, no passion…and he starts finding fault with everything she does, and one step forward just became three steps back! Or the wife tries to win her husband with his favorite meal and a ticket to the ballgame (what guy wouldn’t love that?) but she works herself into a frenzy that he’s going to meet “her” at the game and ends up bringing up the affair and making several disrespectful judgments about why he’d rather go to a sporting event than be with her. One step forward…three steps back!

Love Kindlers are lovely. They are! They are what make us fall in love with each other, and we often call them “romance.” But we can not fall in love with each other if we are sabotaging the relationship with LOVE EXTINGUISHERS. So before you can get to the rather fun part of adding Love Kindlers, it is vital to first look at yourself (not your spouse, and I don’t care if they were the Disloyal or not), and be honest.  Have you been doing these things?  If you have, forget the Kindlers for now and practice stopping these Love Extinguishers!! Last week, we looked at the first four extinguisher: Emotional Neglect, Spiritual Neglect, Physical Neglect, and Financial Neglect–and today we address the final three Love Extinguishers: Family Neglect, Social Neglect, and Security Neglect.

1.  Emotional Neglect

2.  Spiritual Neglect

3.  Physical Neglect

4.  Financial Neglect

5.  Family Neglect

  • Refusing to Leave and Cleave–Are you still a ‘Mama’s Boy” or do you still run to your Mommy every time you two disagree? Do you drag your In-Laws into your marital business?
  • Not Making Time for Personal Adult Time–Do you go to the gym, PTA, board meetings, church activities, and out with friends…but make no adult time for your spouse?
  • Not Making Time for Each Child-Child Rearing–Do you have so many activities so that you are neglecting spending time with the children? Do you just let your spouse do that stuff with the kids and shirk that parental responsibility?
  • Inequitable Distribution of Household Chores–Do you expect your spouse to do all the household chores (like vacuuming, laundry, dishes and mowing) and never notice or thank them, while you sit and watch TV or relax?  Do you do ever give your spouse a “break” from their chores and do for them what you expect them to do for you?
  • Getting Too Comfortable: Giving Up–Have you gotten lax and don’t put any effort into the family, the marriage, yourself or life? Are you a slug that just sits there and won’t interact?

6.  Social Neglect

  • Irritating Habits (Discourteous)–Do you chew your food with your mouth open? Leave stuff all over the counters? Make piles all over the house? Interrupt?  Do what your spouse has asked you a thousand times to stop doing?
  • Independent Behavior–Do you ignore your spouse’s thoughts and interests, and just do what YOU want to do? Do your have your own set of friends and do your own activities that EXCLUDE your spouse?
  • Not Sharing Activities or Free Time Together–Do you sit at home like a lump and ignore your spouse? Do you ignore your spouse’s need to occasionally see another living being? Do you refuse have any couple friends or do anything with your spouse that you both enjoy?
  • The Silent Treatment or Not Listening Actively–Do you give your spouse the cold shoulder for DAYS ON END? Do they try to talk to you and you ignore them? Do you let them talk but they can tell you are just planning what you are going to say and not really listening at all?

7.  Security Neglect

  • Angry Explosions–Do you ramp up a disagreement until there is yelling and an explosion? Do you try to ‘hurt them back’ or punish your spouse for hurting you? Do you rage at your spouse?
  • Attack Dog (Verbal/Emotional Abuse)–Do you “go for the jugular” in a particularly cruel way? Do you use words to just lay them to waste? Do you emotionally DESTROY your spouse just for disagreeing with you?
  • Passive Warmonger (Passive-Aggressive)–Do you always say you”forgot” to do the the things you agreed to do? Do you say nasty things about your spouse and then say “It was just a joke! You have no sense of humor!”?
  • Physical Abuse–Physical abuse isn’t always “hitting.” Have you ever THREATENED a pet? Punched the wall right near your spouse’s head? Grabbed them? Pushed them? Kept them awake all night arguing? Thrown something at them? Attacked them with a knife or knitting needles or scissors? Stood in the way so they couldn’t leave?
  • Not Being a Safe Haven—Can your spouse be their True Self with you and know that they are safe and loved and accepted? When they come to you for support or comfort during a time of vulnerability do you add to the hurt?