Why I'm here (#9)

It occurred to me that some of you may not know why I'm blogging from Taft Correctional Institution's Camp. The reason began over 4 years ago. I was working for a company managing their cash investments, among other things. At this point in time the interest rates on cash investments were very low (less than 1% on 1 yr treasury bills - VCmoney edit). I thought I had found a way to make a higher return without adding additional risk to our investment portfolio. In order to make this investment I would have to disregard the company's investment policy. Well, that was rather prideful, and I thought I could do better than our brokers and money managers. I also wrongly thought that this was the way the business world worked. I tried to separate my Christian values from work. That was an incorrect deduction. I made the investment knowing that it was unethical and not worthy of Christ. I did not know it was illegal to do what I did, but I can see, looking back, how it was. The investment did not work out the way I had hoped. The investment lost $2 million. This is a huge amount of money to anyone. I was dealing with millions of dollars every day in my job as it was. I probably moved $20 million around every week, but still, $2 million is a lot to lose. Because I had not followed the investment policy, and because I tried to hide the fact that I did not follow the investment policy, I was arrested for wire fraud in early 2004. I fought the case for 3 years. I knew that my intent was not to defraud this company, but my actions did not make it easy to prove that. Anyway in Feb. 2007, I was sentenced to 3 years in a Federal Prison Camp for my actions.

There is a similarity in what I did to our Christian lives. We may have the best of intentions in our hearts. We may want to minister to our friends, help the poor, fight social injustice, give our lives to the Lord, support missions projects, pray for people in the church, etc., etc. However, what we want to do and what we actually do is the difference between living for yourself and thinking you are living for Christ and actually living for Christ. I only know this because I deal with it every day and have been hit in the face with my actions because I did not follow my words with my deeds. You can't profess to be a Christian in a prison without having the actions to support it. What you believe and what you do are inseparable. It's the same outside of prison.

Jeff