have you ever wondered what the term “Black Friday “ means. Well, actually it has transitioned from, a term used for; the affect of the bubonic plague on the general population; the factory works calling off sick; turning the business accounts running in the red to recovery into the black; now today it is a day where gigantic sales are striving to draw crowds out to Main Street businesses to buy for Christmas gifts at reduced prices.

Friday 11/25

Well, believe it or not yesterday I was granted the title of Lord Ben Markley by becoming the owner of property in Scotland. Near Edenbury, Scotland, now called Markley Manor. (5 foot square feet in size ) So the next time that you address me you may call me Lord Markley. How funny is that? Hahaha

Prov. 25:19 “Putting confidence in an unreliable person in times of trouble is like chewing with a broken tooth or walking on a lame foot.”

Have you ever bitten down on a piece of meat, only to realize that your filling has fallen out? If you have never experienced that; The pain you feel is halting, and the pain is pretty intense. The warning of this verse, is that this experience; is just about as painful as you will feel when you have entrusted your precious gifts (children, wife, home, etc.) with an reliable person, and they have endangered these important people with no seeming regard.

Then the next part of the warning also compares this mistake to trusting someone with important hard work, when they can’t even hardly walk.

So, the emphasis is two fold: 1) be careful when you place any trust in someone who is inconsistent in their life

2) the most vital quality in leadership is being responsible, committed

to fulfill to carry out duties that you have promised to carry out

Early in our lives we had a person on our church staff, who had a sick baby that needed open heart surgery. We were going out of state, so we offered our car for times that they needed to travel to the hospital. I warned them that the car had an oil leak that needed to be attended to. I had placed oil in the trunk if needed.

They not only paid no attention to my warning, but they also took advantage of the amount of use they were to follow. Long story short, they burned the engine out. I learned an important lesson, take time to observe the reliability of a person before you entrust anything that has value. If you aren’t willing to say goodby to something, don’t lend it out.

So Go With God for He has entrusted us with many things, expecting us to be responsible for their care. This experience has been beneficial to me over the years, most of all to place value on all that Our Father has left in our care.