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It’s been more than 26 years, but I still remember my inner debate about the free hibachi grill.
I was living in Gainesville, FL at the time and had received a postcard promising me a “Free BBQ grill with a chance to win $1,000 cash!” if I’d just take a few hours to visit a St. Augustine timeshare complex.
It was late 1983 and I had nothing planned the following Saturday, so I loaded up the family and drove the 1 hour and 45 minutes to the Hibiscus Resort on St. Augustine Beach.
I was determined to get my new grill, those shysters weren’t going to get me to sign anything and then we were going to have a nice breakfast and later a fun afternoon at the beach or at least in the pool.
That was the plan, at least.
The resort was nothing more than a bunch of octagonally shaped, two-story duplexes on a plain-jane rectangle of sand that fronted the ocean a couple of miles south of the activity area of St. Augustine Beach.
And the weather turned ugly during the trip over and we arrived in the midst of a windstorm and temperatures in the 50s.
So much for frolicking on the beach or in the pool.
The breakfast? Coffee and some cold, store-bought pastries. Should I have really expected anything more?
Most of you know the routine when it comes to time-share spiels. There’s the soft-sell, then the hard-sell, then the “top gun” salesman is brought in and then the effort to make you feel dumb for not buying.
My response to all this?
“I’m sorry that you think I’m making a mistake. Can I please have my grill?” I asked.
I received my grill, all right. But only after I asked the unsuccessful salesperson #2 to give it to me.
It was a piece of Chinese junk that took me 20 minutes to assemble because of manufacturing defects and could accommodate just about four hamburgers. I could have purchased several of the scrawny, flimsy grills for the same amount that I spent on gas to drive to the St. Augustine Beach.
We live and learn, don’t we?
Today’s reading in the One-Year Bible triggered this timeshare recollection in a backdoor way.
The world so often promises something good but then doesn’t deliver on the promise because the motive was tainted all along.
Truthfulness and sales were seemingly polar opposites in the minds of the Hibiscus Resort salespersons.
The sales team decided that doing things the right way would have cost them too much and so they chose the shortcut.
Their shortcut, however, short-circuited their future.
Forsaking the high road, their efforts followed the low road into failure and extinction.
Just like the tribe of Dan’s choices in the Old Testament.
Simply stated, one of the original 12 tribes of Israel became extinct from scripture because, I believe, its leaders chose the low road.
They didn’t want to follow the path of integrity because they deemed it too costly in time and effort.
Joshua 20:47 says the tribal leaders rejected the inheritance apportioned them by God because the pagans put up a tough fight. And so, the Danites substituted an easier shortcut to obtain a place of their own and murdered the peace-loving people of Lesham and then renamed it Dan.
This was an evil strategy that had to have thrilled Satan and infuriated God.
And when heaven’s roll of Israel’s 12 tribes is listed in Revelation 7, Dan is absent.
No surprise, huh?
Here’s the wrap-up — don’t take shortcuts when it comes to integrity and to pursuing the promises of God.
Satan will always paint the “easy way” as the best way even when it goes against God’s values and promises.
Do the right thing. Always avoid Satan’s syrup-coated shortcuts. Even when the world is telling you that wrong is right.
I promise you that God will make sure that you get something a whole lot more valuable than a grill made in China.
As always, I love you
Martin
