Desperation

Hope springs eternal for sports bettors, as they typically expect to break even on future wagers even when they have consistently lost money in the past.

Now we know roughly how overconfident many gamblers are. A study by Stanford University researchers finds that the average online sportsbook customer expects a gain of 0.3 cent for every dollar wagered. In reality, sports bettors lose an average of 7.5 cents per dollar wagered, reflecting “widespread overoptimism about financial returns,” according to Matthew Brown lead author of the study.

The study also found that 20% of participants reported betting too much. To promote responsible gambling, online sportsbooks have rolled out features making it easy for users to track their results over time. But since most sports bettors are overly optimistic about their future betting, those measures likely won’t do much to curb problematic gambling,

Brown says. “Even when bettors know their past losses, they remained optimistic about the future, so that particular approach to consumer protection might not be enough,” he says.

Possible Preaching Angle:

As online gambling infiltrates society (and the church), there are more opportunities for temptation, people can hide their gambling addiction by not leaving their home. How many secret addicted gamblers are there in our churches?

A pastor and his family on an early morning flight had been delayed for hours and were feeling sleep-deprived and anxious. As the plane landed, another family behind them attempted to exit quickly, with the teenager rushing ahead. The pastor shares:

I stuck my arm into the aisle to block the rest of the family from passing, like I was Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. “None shall pass.” “We’re all trying to get off this plane,” I said to the family, “Let’s wait our turn!”

They had words with me that I cannot share here and pushed past my arm. I was fuming.

As the passenger disembarked, a flight attendant approached, explaining that the teenage girl had been experiencing a panic attack and needed assistance. The family had been trying to help her. The family was not rude; they were desperate.

How did I, a former chaplain trained to notice physiological signs of stress, miss that this young lady needed help? How did I let my core value of courtesy block my capacity to see what was really going on?

I was operating out of assumption and unable to see reality. Rather than see that this young lady needed help getting off the plane, all I could see was a family rudely skipping the line, and I must intervene.

Whether we move toward self-righteousness or self-protection, the common denominator is self. This is what every follower of God has in common: We get caught up in ourselves, we get triggered, we forget others, and we forget the Lord.

When disaster strikes and it’s time to evacuate, what valuables are you taking with you? One survey finds that answer often differs depending on your age — and not everyone makes wise decisions.

It turns out Americans are more likely to grab their cell phone than their Social Security card during an emergency evacuation. A survey of 2,000 U.S. adults revealed that in an emergency situation, Gen Zers are more likely to grab their laptop (35%) or a pair of shoes (35%) than their prescription medications (30%) if they only have five minutes to pack.

Gen X, on the other hand, is the least likely to take clothing with them (33%) and would rather save their family photo albums (43%). Meanwhile, baby boomers are more likely to grab their jewelry, including engagement rings and wedding bands, than they are to take water (21%) or food (17%) during an emergency evacuation.

When asked about the most important item (not including people or pets) in their home, it’s clear that Americans are clinging to sentimental value. Respondents had unique answers for things they’d grab, such as “the heart necklace that was my grandmother’s,” “the urns holding loved ones remains, and “the flag from my father’s funeral for his service in the military.”

In a more realistic sense, this may be why almost two-thirds of Americans take emergency preparedness more seriously today than they did 10 years ago. The top reason for being more prepared was concern over the increase in natural disasters.

The survey gave respondents just 60 seconds to select items from the standard Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) emergency preparedness checklist, mixed with a few other household items.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This could teach a valuable lesson about material possessions. The idea forces people to think about what they want versus what they really need and the consequences of their decisions. What are the absolute essentials in your life? This could also lead to a discussion about what you are sending ahead to heaven that is being guarded for you (Matt. 6:20; 2 Tim 1:12).

If there was any doubt that the national mood could need a dose of uplift, more evidence showed up in late January. On X (formerly known as Twitter), the account for Elmo, the red Muppet from Sesame Street, asked what seemed to be a simple, innocuous question.

“Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?”

In thousands of responses, social media users let Elmo know that no, they were not doing too hot. Users began pouring out their hearts to Elmo:

• “I’m tired, Elmo,” said one user.
• “The world is burning around us, Elmo,” said another.
• “Elmo I’m depressed and broke,” one wrote.
• Others told Elmo that they were anxious about the 2024 election.
• “Each day the abyss we stare into grows a unique horror. one that was previously unfathomable in nature,” replied author Hanif Abdurraqib. “However, I did have a good grapefruit earlier, thanks for asking.”

“I don’t think anyone anticipated how deeply this particular question would resonate,” said Samantha Maltin, a marketing officer for the Sesame Workshop. Maltin believes that Elmo’s question provoked a lot of feelings because his character is rooted in the nostalgic memories of so many millennials.

After about nine thousand responses in about 24 hours, the account posted again. “Wow! Elmo is glad he asked!” it read. “Elmo learned it is important to ask a friend how they are doing.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

It is more important than ever to have dependable friends who will listen to us and to whom we will give a listening ear. Let’s remind ourselves and others that God is always available to hear our troubles and provide “mercy and find grace in time of need” (Heb. 4:16).

In a move sure to frustrate any enchanted princes cursed by evil witches, the National Park Service issued a warning in October 2022 to warn people about kissing, licking, or making any kind of oral contact with toads.

Apparently the Sonoran desert toad, also known as the Colorado river toad, secretes a white, milky substance called bufotenin, which scientists say can act as a hallucinogenic. This has prompted a series of celebrities who have talked about ingesting the substance as a way of inducing a psychedelic trip. Through exaggeration and repetition, the idea has morphed into the possibility that someone could get high simply by licking one of these toads.

In an abundance of caution, the Park Service decided to put that myth to rest in a post on its Facebook account:

These toads have prominent parotoid glands that secrete a potent toxin. It can make you sick if you handle the frog or get the poison in your mouth. As we say with most things you come across in a national park, whether it be a banana slug, unfamiliar mushroom, or a large toad with glowing eyes in the dead of night, please refrain from licking. Thank you.

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) Animals - When people use animals in ways contrary to their purpose, they abuse them and also hurt themselves in the process . 2) Addiction; Bondage; Drugs – This is more evidence how people misuse nature because of their addiction to pleasure and which ultimately results in their own harm.

The 61-year-old grandmother was sliding her groceries across the self-checkout at the Woodbury Walmart. Scanner beeping, her total climbing, Sarah Lindgren pulled from her cart a package of steaks. She had counted the money in her wallet. “I just didn't have enough.”

Holding the steaks she’d promised her family for dinner, Sarah made a split-second decision, “I didn’t have enough for them and I just bagged them anyway.” She was walking out of the store when a Walmart employee stopped her. The phone call from Walmart to the Woodbury Police Department was routine.

Sarah had been taken to a room away from other Walmart customers. Her 18-year-old daughter, Danielle, who’d accompanied her to the store, was sobbing when Officer Wagner entered. “Sarah told me her daughter was autistic.” The head of the Lindgren household has a lot on her plate. In addition to Danielle, eight other children and grandchildren live with Sarah. Sarah’s husband had been the family’s provider until his death 15 years ago. She said, “You get to a point where you're drained, you can't even think.”

Wagner wrote Sarah a citation, then returned to his car and ran a background check. Wagner said, “There was nothing. She has fewer speeding tickets than I do. That’s when I decided that she needed help.”

Sarah left the Walmart and drove home with her daughter. Roughly an hour later her phone rang. It was Wagner. Lindgren pictured herself being led away in handcuffs. She thought, “He's coming back to get me.”

He wasn't. Officer Wagner had made a stop at Christian Cupboard Emergency Food Shelf. The volunteers started packing. By the time they were done, boxes, cans, fresh fruits, and vegetables filled the backseat, passenger seat, and trunk of Officer Wagner’s squad car.

Then, Wagner drove to Lindgren's home and knocked on her door. Lindgren said, “I couldn't believe it. I was just overwhelmed, in disbelief.” She also experienced a rush of guilt. Wagner said, “She told me to bring it back. She said, ‘I don't deserve this, I committed a crime.’” Wagner wouldn’t hear of it. The food was delivered to Lindgren’s kitchen.

Wagner had more news for Lindgren. He’d talked to Walmart and voided the citation he had written her. “Throw it in the garbage. God gives us second chances and you've got to take advantage of them.”

The pandemic has done a lot of strange things to the global economy over the last 14 months, from creating a massive shortage of semiconductor chips to a ballooning supply of hand sanitizer.

The US housing market has gone haywire too, as urbanites took advantage of remote work to leave expensive cities and resettle in smaller towns across the US. But it's not all that simple. Glenn Kelman, the chief executive of Redfin, broke down some of his observations of just how unusual the current US housing market is in a Tuesday Twitter thread:

Inventory is down 37% year over year to a record low. The typical home sells in 17 days, a record low. Home prices are up a record amount, 24% year over year, to a record high. And still homes sell on average for 1.7% higher than the asking price, another record.

It has been hard to convey how bizarre the US housing market has become. For example, a Bethesda, Maryland homebuyer included in her written offer a pledge to name her first-born child after the seller. She lost.

Possible Preaching Angle:

God’s people have no such worry. We have a guaranteed home in heaven, personally prepared by Christ, reserved in heaven for us. And, we should mention, it is fully paid for.

The American poet, Christian Wiman, wrote a poem about how all of his friends are finding new beliefs. One turns to Catholicism while another turns to pantheism. A Jewish friend now worships the pantheon of “Paleo, Keto, Zone, South Beach,” and “Bourbon.” Meanwhile, her “Exercise regimens [are] so extreme [that] she merges with machine.” A male friend turns to the god of sex by marrying someone twenty years younger. All of these friends use these gods to cope with the age-old challenges that we all must face: dementia, doubt, despair, and death.

Wiman writes that, “All my friends are finding new beliefs, and I am finding it harder and harder to keep track, of the new gods and the new loves, and the old gods and the old loves.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Wiman describes our changing religious world. While our culture may be less religious in the traditional sense of Christianity and Judaism, we are no less religious when it comes to the gods of dieting, fitness, and sex. Look beneath the advertising and you’ll see that all of these gods promise immortality in their own way. Age-old needs are being met by new-age beliefs.

Demi Lovato has been transparent about her battles with depression and addiction. At the 2020 Grammys, Demi Lovato gave her first performance in a year and a half. In July 2018, Lovato was treated for an apparent overdose after six years of sobriety. Just four days before her overdose, she wrote the words:

I tried to talk to my piano, I tried to talk to my guitar

Talk to my imagination, Confided into alcohol

I tried and tried and tried some more, Told secrets 'til my voice was sore

Tired of empty conversation, 'Cause no one hears me anymore

A hundred million stories, And a hundred million songs

I feel stupid when I sing, Nobody's listening to me

Nobody's listening, I talk to shooting stars

But they always get it wrong, I feel stupid when I pray

So, why am I praying anyway? If nobody's listening

Viscerally she cries into the microphone:

Anyone, please send me anyone, Lord, is there anyone?

I need someone, oh,

Anyone, please send me anyone

Lord, is there anyone?, I need someone

When Zane Lowe asked Lovato about these lyrics during her Beats 1 interview, she said:

I definitely feel that you can use things to cope in life. And music has been a huge coping mechanism for me. It’s been very therapeutic for me. But there’s only so much that music can do before you have to take responsibility and you have to take the initiative to get the help that you need.

Anna Merlan is an American journalist who specializes in politics and religion. In her book, Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists, she devotes a chapter to the psychology behind UFO conspiracies. Not just in the US, but globally:

… the intensity, depth, and breadth of the conversation about aliens throughout the world says something profound about human hopes. About our desire to not be alone in the universe. (About) our wish for some wise and mysterious force out there in the farthest reaches of space that is ready to show us the way. UFO enthusiasm coexists with a certain degree of New Age spirituality. There’s a sense that extraterrestrials don’t just exist. But that they will someday reveal to us … a better way to live, a higher state of being.

Merlan quotes astronomer and leading ufologist Jacques Vallée, who wrote: “The UFO mystery holds a mirror to our own fantasies. It expresses our secret longings for a wisdom that might come down from the stars in new, improved, easy-to-use packaging, to reveal the secrets of life and tell us, at long last, who we are.”

In Deep Down Dark, Hector Tobar tells the story of 33 Chilean miners who were trapped 2,000 feet below the surface for 69 days. They had to live in the dark, with almost no food, cut off from the rest of the world. They didn't know if they would ever see daylight again. Many of the miners, face-to-face with imminent death, took stock of their lives and realized they had a lot of regrets. Somebody asked Jose Henriquez, a Christian, if he would pray for everyone.

As he got down on his knees, some of the other men joined him, and he began to talk to God: "We aren't the best men, Lord, but have pity on us." He actually got more specific: "Victor Segovia knows that he drinks too much. Victor Zamora is too quick to anger. Pedro Cortez thinks about the poor father he's been to his young daughter …"

Nobody objected. It was the beginning of something special. In the deep down dark, buried under the earth, with death staring them in the face, the men got real before God and each other. They met every day to eat a meager meal, hear a short sermon, and then get on their knees and pray: "God, forgive me for the violence of my voice before my wife and my son." Or "God, forgive me for abusing the temple of my body with drugs." They confessed to each other too: "I'm sorry I raised my voice." Or "I'm sorry I didn't help get the water."

Meanwhile, above the surface a rescue effort had begun. People from all over the world began trying to help, or give, or pray for the men to be saved.

Unfortunately, the happiest part of the story is also the saddest. The drill cuts a narrow hole through the rock. The miners get food and supplies and iPads; they know that eventually they'll be rescued; they find out they're becoming famous and they might get rich. And then the confessing stops. The praying stops. The lure of money and fame undoes the transformative community that had developed in their shared suffering.

They were at their best when life was at its worst. "The Deep Down Dark" is the place where you know you can't make it on your own. "The Deep Down Dark" is the place where you realize you need God.

Possible Preaching Angles: Christmas; Christ, birth of—To use this as a Christmas illustration say something like, "God knew we all have Deep Down Dark places. He knew we could not make it on our own. He knew we could not find our way up to him. So he came down to us at Christmas …

In December 2016, Legacy, a small fishing boat cruising near Bodega Bay, California ran into a whale entangled by crab pots. The three fisherman on Legacy didn't have time to call for help. One of Legacy's crewmen, Valentine Parnell, described how they noticed the whale "absolutely trapped," with its blowhole spouting. Ken Garliepp, Legacy's deck boss, said, "I mean it was cutting into him to where he was bleeding, so I don't know how long it would have been 'til he's getting ripped apart by sharks. He definitely needed help."

Using boat hooks, the men snagged lines and started cutting. Piece by piece the old lines slowly came off. At first the whale resisted, but then something miraculous happened. "It would come and it would roll over and be like, almost showing us where the lines were on its fins," Parnell said. Garliepp said, "Once we started getting stuff cut off, it was like he knew we were trying to help him, you know." Once freed, it swam around the boat several times, staying close. The men say it seemed to be saying thanks, but no one knows for sure.

Back on shore, getting ready to head back out, the skipper and the crew of the Legacy were still thinking about how they saved the life of a dying whale. "To see this massive, beautiful creature, that could absolutely crush you, but doesn't … It was the most intense thing I've been a part of …," Parnell said. Garliepp added, "It was a great feeling, a really great feeling. If I was to die today, you know, I would know I did something good with my life."

Novelist William Giraldi, a contributing editor to The New Republic, wrote an essay on the modern phenomenon of online hate mail, most often found in the comments section below an article. Comments often devolve into hate-filled insults, but Giraldi draws some conclusions that Christians could agree with. First, Giraldi writes that hate mail proves that, "People are desperate to be heard, to make some sound, any sound, in the world, and hate mail allows them the illusion of doing so. Legions among us suffer from the [boredom] and [unhappiness] of modernity, from the discontents of an increasingly [isolated] society."

According to Giraldi hate mail also means that at least someone is listening to your viewpoints—even if they hate you for it. Giraldi writes, "Part of a writer's [we could insert Christian here] job should be to dishearten the happily deceived, to quash the misconceptions of the pharisaical … to unsettle and upset. If someone isn't riled by what you write, you aren't writing truthfully enough. Hate mail is what happens when you do."

Possible Preaching Angles: Jesus promised that we would be hated for his name's sake. Even if we speak the truth in love, some people will still be unsettled and riled by what we write or say.

Franklin and Phileda Nelson went to Burma as missionaries in the 1940s. They served there eight and a half years before the government closed the country to further missionary work. They returned to the United States where Franklin served several churches in various pastoral roles.

While in Burma they worked among remote tribes, and Franklin found his sense of gratitude for God's providence rekindled. When reflecting on his missions work, he said:

In the Burmese hill country, the only way to get to remote villages was by "shank mare." (That's walking, in case you've never heard the phrase.) It was not at all uncommon for me to walk twenty miles a day in the dry season. When I got back to the States and worked as a pastor and church leader, I rarely walked a mile a day; the telephone and car made walking unnecessary.

In Burma, if one of us got sick, the nearest hospital was ten days away. In the States, medical care is minutes away. In Burma, we'd go months without bread. Once we asked our daughter Karen to say grace before a meal, and she said, "Why do I have to pray for my daily bread when I don't ever get any?" I have often coveted that experience for our youngest daughter who never had to wonder where her food came from. It's hard to have that sense of helplessness and humility so vital to prayer when you sit down to your daily bread and don't even think about how you got it.

I don't in any way blame people here for not knowing what God can do. We're victims of our prosperity. But I sometimes wish we had a few more hard times so people could experience firsthand how wonderful it is to be totally dependent on God.

Shawna Pilat had had enough. It was Sunday morning in January of 2000, and her husband, Rick, still wasn't home from his Saturday night partying. "I was at home with my son, Drake, who was 3 at the time," Shawna remembers. "It was very common for Rick to be out all night…. I always knew there was unfaithfulness. That bothered me, naturally, but I was worried about Rick's safety—that he was going to turn up some place dead. And that morning I was at the end of my rope."

As Shawna angrily washed dishes in the kitchen, she noticed a man speaking on the television. She was quickly drawn to his message—he was funny and warm, and seemed to be speaking at her level. "I felt something come over me that I can't explain," she remembers. "I couldn't quit crying. At the end of the program it said, 'Join us,' and it gave the name of a church in Winnipeg. I couldn't get my son dressed fast enough."

On the way to the church, Shawna had one purpose in mind: getting emotionally strong enough to kick Rick out. She had tried using marijuana, alcohol, and various relationships to put Rick out of her heart. Now she thought she'd found the answer. But God had a surprise for her.

At the end of the message, the pastor invited people to give their lives to Christ. Shawna raised her hand. "I never looked back," Shawna says. "Three weeks later, Rick asked if he could join me at church."

Rick knew that his behavior was hurting his family, but he was held captive to drugs and sexual addictions. After four or five weeks of attending church with his wife, he recognized his need for Christ. Still, the following months weren't easy. "I was going to church and wanting to do right," he says, "but I kept doing wrong." It wasn't until a Promise Keepers seminar that he finally came to understand the importance of repentance and accepting the forgiveness God offers through Jesus Christ. That day, Rick went home and told his wife, "I can be the husband you need me to be now."

Rick and Shawna's lives took a 180-degree turn that day. They became active in their church and now serve as Promise Keepers volunteers who share the hope of God's restoration and forgiveness with struggling couples. "When I think how Jesus can change people—no matter how deep in sin they are—that overwhelms me," Rick says. "If he did it for us, he can do it for anybody."

This article was taken from Decision magazine, December 2006; ©2006 Billy Graham Evangelistic Association; used by permission, all rights reserved.

On July 30, 1945, the battle cruiser USS Indianapolis was returning from a mission delivering enriched uranium to allied forces in the Pacific. It did not make it home. A Japanese torpedo hit the cruiser on its way back. It sank in minutes. In only 12 minutes, 300 of the 1,200 men died. Nine hundred went into the water, enduring four days and five nights without food, without water, and under the blazing sun of the Pacific. Of the 900 men that went into the water, only 316 survived the lack of water and the sharks. One of those who survived was the chief medical officer, who recorded his own experience. He wrote:

There was nothing I could do, nothing I could do but give advice, bury the dead at sea, save the lifejackets, and try to keep the men from drinking the water. When the hot sun came out, and we were in this crystal clear ocean, we were so thirsty. You couldn't believe it wasn't good enough to drink. I had a hard time convincing the men they shouldn't drink. The real young ones…you take away their hope, you take away their water and food, they would drink the salt water and they would go fast. I can remember striking the ones who were drinking the salt water to try to stop them. They would get dehydrated, then become maniacal. There were mass hallucinations. I was amazed how everyone would see the same thing. One man would see something, and then everyone else would see it. Even I fought the hallucinations off and on. Something always brought me back.

Only 12-years-old, and in a moment one Ethiopian girl's world turned into a nightmare. Seven violent men abducted the pre-teen, intending to force her into marriage. The men held the girl for seven days, beating her repeatedly.

Such incidents are common in Ethiopia, as several men band together to abduct young girls for the purpose of securing a bride. The girls are typically beaten into submission and raped. In this particular instance, there was not a human being within earshot to hear the cries of this girl. But her cries were heard.

The unlikely heroes were three majestic Ethiopian lions. Famous for their large black manes, these lions are the national symbol of the country. In response to the girl's cries for help, three large lions leapt from the brush and chased her captors away. Perhaps the child thought she had traded one danger for another, but remarkably, her heroes formed a protective perimeter around her. A half-day later, when the police arrived, the guardian lions simply stood up and walked away. Sgt. Wondimu Wedajo said, "They stood guard until we found her, and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest."

Among the explanations for the lions' unusual behavior, one wildlife expert suggested the girl's whimpering could have sounded like a lion cub. For whatever reason, the predator served as protector. The carnivore became a sentinel. "Everyone…thinks this is some kind of miracle," Wondimu commented.

This 12-year-old girl was helpless, powerless to change her horrific circumstances. Her deliverance had to come from a power greater than, and outside of, herself. In the same way, we are powerless to save ourselves from sin and death. Our only hope is in Christ, the Lion of Judah.

Author Barbara Brown Taylor writes:

Several summers ago, I spent three days on a barrier island where loggerhead turtles were laying their eggs. One night while the tide was out, I watched a huge female heave herself up the beach to dig her nest and empty herself into it while slow, salt tears ran from her eyes. Afraid of disturbing her, I left before she had finished her work but returned next morning to see if I could find the spot where her eggs lay hidden in the sand. What I found were her tracks, only they led in the wrong direction. Instead of heading back out to sea, she had wandered into the dunes, which were already hot as asphalt in the morning sun.

A little ways inland I found her, exhausted and all but baked, her head and flippers caked with dried sand. After pouring water on her and covering her with sea oats, I fetched a park ranger, who returned with a jeep to rescue her. As I watched in horror, he flipped her over on her back, wrapped tire chains around her front legs, and hooked the chains to the trailer hitch on his jeep. Then he took off, yanking her body forward so fast that her open mouth filled with sand and then disappeared underneath her as her neck bent so far I feared it would break.

The ranger hauled her over the dunes and down onto the beach; I followed the path that the prow of her shell cut in the sand. At ocean's edge, he unhooked her and turned her right side up again. She lay motionless in the surf as the water lapped at her body, washing the sand from her eyes and making her skin shine again.

Then a particularly large wave broke over her, and she lifted her head slightly, moving her back legs as she did. As I watched, she revived. Every fresh wave brought her life back to her until one of them made her light enough to find a foothold and push off, back into the water that was her home.

Watching her swim slowly away and remembering her nightmare ride through the dunes, I noted that it is sometimes hard to tell whether you are being killed or being saved by the hands that turn your life upside down.