ENCOURAGEMENT 62 SEPTEMBER 2025 www.goodnewsfl.org Good News • South Florida Edition Information is power. The man shares with his wife what God told him about not eating from a certain tree in their homestead. She in turn shares this precious inside intelligence with the wrong individual, and lo and behold, sin comes into the world. Adam and Eve learned a bitter lesson about discretion and the devastating consequences of dispensing pivotal facts without checks or balances. Matthew 7:6 gives us a subtle hint on the matter as Jesus reminds us "not to cast our pearls before swine." He also urges us a few chapters later to "be as shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves," a marked contrast to original sin where Satan was the serpent and Eve was the "innocent dove.” As we face today's complicated and intricate world, it stands to reason why some have taken the posture that "less is more." Informants Less was the norm during my formative years; the newspaper in the morning and the network news in the evening.... That was it, with no interpretation or personal comments, the only precondition being critical thought. Then things got complicated; the main feature of properly performing my work duties revolved around the utilization of confidential informants, also known as human sources and vulgarly referred to as "snitches." Without them I might as well not have showed up for work, for they were the most prized tool in the box, a must for investigators. They provided the information necessary to probe drug organizations, and most importantly they introduced agents in covert fashion to their bosses, which in turn allowed us to infiltrate their operations. They had inside information, which they sold in return for lenient prison sentences and possibly downright freedom. Conversely, we were forced to "allow" them to continue their illicit activities in order to keep their "credibility" intact. The more you knew, the more you had to bargain with; the more involved you were, the better for us. Dirty information, a necessary evil, the price of doing business, sleeping with the enemy; call it what you will; these con games took me places I never knew existed. Finding the truth In this environment, success was measured by how to best extract credibility from the myriad of half-truths and outright lies received from those trying to convince you. Skepticism became the norm on the job, and unfortunately it bled into the rest of my personal life where cynicism reigned supreme. My family and personal relationships suffered immensely as a result. And then, as a newfangled churchgoer, I discovered that "Jesus was the Way, the truth and the life and that I would know the truth and it would set me free." It took me years to truly understand the simplicity and power of this certainty and many more to give it continued access. And yet therein lies the conundrum in our daily lives; the world incessantly showers us with fabricated erroneous, misleading and distorted information as the Holy Spirit calls us to simplify our lives by adhering to His truth. We know it in our hearts and souls, but the mind pays no mind. Intelligence Interestingly enough, shortly after retiring and starting my own business, I took a personality test at a national intelligence conference. It revealed that my EQ (Emotional Intelligence/ Emotional Quotient) was superior to my IQ (cognitive abilities and logical reasoning), which meant that although I was not very smart, my self-awareness, motivation and social maneuvering more than made up for my denseness. Admittedly, my "peculiar" personality has afforded me some dividends throughout the years, but we now live in a society where social interactions are mostly conducted in isolation guided by an apparatus. We live in a world ruled by intelligence, data, compilations and measurement; "no country for old men." It would not be a stretch then to assume that as a society we have become cultural outliers controlled by a system of inhuman artificial information. I started as a simple consumer of basic but mostly factual original information which could only be dissected by personal critical thinking, an active and careful analysis of the evidence or facts that facilitated the path to a sound judgment or decision. Then I became an information forecaster, having to make life or death decisions utilizing adulterated data to determine where accuracy rested within a broad spectrum of "truths and falsehoods." Sound decisions were now harder to come by and the consequences of misinterpretation were often severe, which led to second guessing and skepticism. Then I was exposed to the Word of God, a totally truthful work that has ALL the information we need to live a fruitful life but must be contemplated through the prism of the Holy Spirit to be understood and acted upon. Thus, the Lord influences our decision making regarding collected information, all without surrendering our free will. And finally, here I am in the twilight of my life dealing with information created in labs, where nothing is what it seems to be. One need not be an eschatology expert to catch a glimpse of the reality of the situation. Our church's maxim for many years was "Until the Whole World Hears," a reference to Matthew 24:14, which states that "this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." As information systems continue to advance at breakneck speeds, it would seem that the time is quickly approaching. Regardless, it would behoove us to live our lives with the corresponding urgency and to seek enhanced informational systems. Thus, instead of relying on human sources, we should put our trust in the most prized tool in the box of a practicing Christian, the Confidential Spiritual Informant, or C.S.I. The Holy Spirit is described as a comforter, counselor, guide and advocate among many names; He is all of that and more, our spiritual informant. It is He who enlightens Julianne and I in our most important decisions as a family, He who guards our marriage, He who guides our steps... our holy informant. Omar Aleman is a retired federal agent and consultant. He and his wife Julianne assist and support several Christian non-profit organizations both here and abroad. –t p F F F Ff g g s m o u ( i t N M e P w s L P t F c k a c a al dt m g n a Fact Finding Mission - Omar Aleman - Aleman and Associates Positive ID
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