{"id":1,"date":"2009-03-12T12:04:57","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T16:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cuneogtd.com\/jbarry\/?p=1"},"modified":"2009-03-12T13:39:44","modified_gmt":"2009-03-12T17:39:44","slug":"hello-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/12\/hello-world\/","title":{"rendered":"What Do You Believe?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Today I had the privilege of helping a friend shake hands with Jesus. Shaking hands is what you do when you meet someone for the first time. This 30 something friend of mine works for our company and has for several months. We\u2019ve recently been talking about who he is and where he\u2019s headed. Ultimately he shared with me that he knew about God, but that God wasn\u2019t necessarily relevant in his daily life, and that his knowledge of God wasn\u2019t personal&#8212;there was no relationship. You can\u2019t have a relationship with someone you\u2019ve never met, and you can\u2019t have a relationship with God unless someone helps you understand how to do that. So, he and I are working on that together. But the first meeting has taken place. It did so this morning in my conference room.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-31\" title=\"sky\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cuneogtd.com\/jbarry\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/sky-300x240.jpg\" alt=\"sky\" width=\"300\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/sky-300x240.jpg 300w, https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/sky.jpg 420w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>This got me to thinking. What do you believe? Do you believe anything strongly enough that you think other people ought to believe it? If not, then, I\u2019d posit that you really don\u2019t believe.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">It\u2019s become almost a requirement in our culture that we not foist our beliefs on one another. Where\u2019d that come from? Wasn\u2019t America founded by people who had strong beliefs\u2026..\u201dWe hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal,\u201d that was a foundational belief. Seems to me like the early patriots risked it all because of what they believed, and that they worked like the dickens to convince others to adopt their views.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">What do you believe so strongly that you\u2019d try to persuade someone else to adopt that belief? Surely there\u2019s something. Politically. Philosophically. Morally. Spiritually.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">If there\u2019s nothing you believe so strongly that you\u2019d try to persuade someone else to adopt your view, then, what does that indicate? That you are superior because you aren\u2019t pushing your beliefs on someone else? Or, that you aren\u2019t thoughtful enough to have sorted through things and developed a framework of belief about various things? Or, that you don\u2019t care enough about your friends to persuade them to adopt your beliefs (they are better, aren\u2019t they? If not, why don\u2019t you trade them in for better beliefs?).<\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Quit taking up space. Make a difference. The world needs you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today I had the privilege of helping a friend shake hands with Jesus. Shaking hands is what you do when you meet someone for the first time. This 30 something friend of mine works for our company and has for several months. We\u2019ve recently been talking about who he is and where he\u2019s headed. Ultimately [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3,4],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-belief","tag-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/33"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/old.jbarrywatts.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}