DogeCoin

Mark 12:17 “Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” In 2014, I arrived in Washington D.C. to attend a cryptocurrency gathering aimed at engaging policy makers. Like many crypto gatherings at the time, the fifty or so participants hailed from not-so-mainstream backgrounds and espoused some quirky ideas. I met two gentlemen who had launched a cryptocurrency based on an internet meme of a Japanese dog. “That’s gotta be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard” I thought to myself as I escaped the conversation, beelining to the bathroom. Well 7 years and 92 billion dollars later, Dogecoin’s market cap is larger than Uber, Zoom, Snap and Baidu. Shows you what I know. Dogecoin’s patron saint, Elon Musk, hosted Saturday Night Live this weekend. He called the coin a “hustle”, which makes sense because the coin is literally based on a joke. It has no value, and it has no utility. But then just a couple days later, he announced that SpaceX will be launching the Doge-1 rocket to the moon, creating the first meme and the first cryptocurrency in space. Payment for tickets on Doge-1 will be collected in Dogecoin, creating its first actual use case. In Mark 12, some teachers of the law attempt to ensnare Jesus by asking if Jews should pay taxes to Rome. The meaning of his response has been debated through the years, but I found one view from Dale Glass-Hess resonating with me today. “It is inconceivable to me that Jesus would teach that some spheres human activity lie outside the authority of God.” Though a coin has Caesar’s image on it, and though we are to submit to earthly authority, does not all money belong to God? Elon Musk has 50M followers on Twitter, but Jesus Christ has over 2B followers on this planet. I feel like God will probably use crypto to create a global community of Jesus-followers some day. I’ve been praying about what that looks like, but if experience is any guide I’m really not the best judge. So in the meantime while I wait for His guidance, I’m trying to humble myself and remember that Doge is part of God’s domain too. Lord, the earth is yours and everything in it. I ask that you erase any contempt I have in my heart. I humble myself before you, and submit all my plans to yours. I want you and you alone. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

The Karate Kid - Wax On Wax Off

John 10:27 “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” This weekend our family watched the original 1984 version of The Karate Kid. In it, a young boy named Daniel Larusso moves across the country and gets bullied by his new schoolmates. In what looked to be just another beating, the local maintenance man, Mr Miyagi, steps in and gives these young punks a taste of their own medicine. Shocked at his skills, Daniel begs Miyagi to teach him karate, and Mr Miyagi begrudgingly agrees. His new sensei then tasks Daniel with a whole list of chores including scrubbing floors and waxing cars. “Wax on… wax off. Make circle. Like dis. Make sure you breathe. Berry important.” Eager at first, Daniel’s enthusiasm quickly turns to exasperation as he performs these chores for days. Struggling to see their relevance to Miyagi’s promise of teaching karate, Daniel eventually blows up at his teacher. “Why are you making me do these chores?” “Daniel-san… wax on…” “What??” “Wax on… like on da car… make circle.” Daniel makes a circular motion with his hand and Miyagi punches his student in what would be a deathly blow. But the wax on motion blocks Miyagi’s punch with perfect precision. Then all of the sudden, Daniel realized that the days of training had in fact served a purpose. His teacher was not trying to extract free labor, but deposit valuable muscle memory into him. Because of this training, Daniel wins the karate tournament, the heart of the prettiest girl at school, and the respect of all those bullies. In scripture we often see God asking people to do things that don’t make sense. After promising Abraham the he would become the father of a nation, God asked him to sacrifice his son Isaac. Can you imagine what was going through his head? “But God… how is this relevant to your promise? This doesn’t make any sense!” It might have seemed like God was extracting a sacrifice from Abraham, but in fact he was depositing a testimony. He wasn’t going to just make Abraham the father of A nation, he was to make Abraham the father of THE nation through which the messiah would come and save the world. Developing a relationship with God can be terrifying at times. You learn to hear his voice and he often asks you to do things that don’t make sense. It can feel more comfortable to depend on principles and rules, rather than relationship. Daniel started learning karate from magazines before he met Mr Miyagi. All the lessons in the magazines made sense. But it was only when the true master taught him to wax on & wax off, that Daniel could achieve victory. Lord, I just want to hear your voice. I just want to know you and your will. Even if it doesn’t make sense to me now, I commit to obey because I know you love me and everything you ask of me is for my benefit. Please speak Lord… In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Desperation in India

Psalm 40:13 “Please, Lord, come rescue me! Come quickly, Lord, and help me.” Last year, I made my first investment into a company whose team I had never met. In the midst of the covid pandemic, I had no chance to travel to see them in India. Months later, I still haven’t met them, but I’m on a weekly call with the CEO and I somehow feel closer to him than many people I’ve spent a lot of time with in person. We had our first board meeting a few weeks back and as usual I asked how we as investors could help him. “As you can see, the business is performing well, but we have to do three times the orders with half the staff because everyone has covid. Our friends and family are dying all around us. If there’s one thing you can do, it’d be to help us find vaccines for the team. We really, really, really need some vaccines.” I consider myself a pretty resourceful person, and have been able to help my CEOs with some pretty desperate requests. But I’ve never heard a founder beg for something the way I’ve heard him beg for those vaccines. I made some calls after the board meeting, but it’s an incredibly dire situation, and that makes me feel desperate too. Usually I discount media accounts as overly sensationalist, but this is one case where I’m convicted it’s much worse than anything you can see in the news. This founder is a very devout atheist, and one small ray of hope is that covid has opened a window for me to share my testimony with him. I’ve started sending him prayers of protection, with the footnote “I know you don’t believe what I believe, but I think given the circumstances you’ll take what you can!” Today he wrote back “I can’t thank you enough for keeping us in your prayers.” It’d be preposterous to propose that tens of millions of people catching a life threatening disease was worth one person receiving prayer, but I do believe that what the enemy intends for evil, God always uses for good. Lord, today I’m really trying hard to see things as you see them. I know your heart goes out to the millions of desperate families in India. I know you feel their pain, just like when you wept with Martha at the tomb of Lazarus. But I also know that the name of Covid bows down to the name of Jesus. We know that the end is good, and if it’s not good, it’s not the end yet. Bless our brothers and sisters in India. In Jesus’ name, Amen.