Protect Yourself

I swear I am really not stupid, but this is not evidenced by what happened recently.

One of our daughters got me a firetv stick for Christmas, which gives us access to Hulu.  The other evening, as my husband and I sat down to resume a movie we had been watching on it, we couldn’t find it.  So we began searching.

Not being super familiar with Hulu, it took a little exploring.  We couldn’t exactly remember the name of the movie we had been watching, so I started searching for movies that had some of the same words in the title.

We came across one, but when we clicked on it, we discovered it was not the same movie.  In the process, I clicked on a little box right next to the movie box that asked if I wanted to watch it on Hulu Live TV.  Well, sure, I guess that must be where it was.

Nope.  But here’s where it gets interesting.  I swear, I even pinky swear, with my husband as my witness, I never clicked on anything that accepted a subscription to Live TV.  I don’t have any of our daughter’s TV account information and I really do know to be careful about such stuff.  Apparently clicking on the little box was all it took.  Way too easy.

Anyway, five minutes later, our daughter called us.  “Are you using Hulu?”  “Yes!” I said naively, “we are watching a movie right now!”

Well, she said, her credit card had just gotten charged $21 and she was now signed up for a $55 a month subscription! 

Oh my.  I felt terrible.  How is that possible? Anyway, a call to Hulu got everything straightened out—she got her money refunded and her new $55 a month subscription canceled—but she did lose her Black Friday $1.99 a month deal in the mess.  Now it would be $5.99 a month instead (and yes, we are covering the difference so she can continue watching, since it was my mistake.)

You have to be so careful now because companies make it so easy to catch you.  Years ago we put the parental controls on our cable tv provider because all it took was a click of a button to order all kinds of programs accidentally.

We had to do it on a phone as well, because it was way too easy to inadvertently get subscriptions we didn’t want.

It seems like protecting ourselves today requires a defensive strategy.  We have to be so careful, and in situations like my tv debacle, it can even require significant time trying to fix it all, and get a setup that meets our needs.

In today’s world, we also need a defense strategy when it comes to being taken in by off the wall, new age spiritualities.  To protect ourselves, it is best to stay with a tried and true, mainline church that doesn’t change with every new fad that comes along. Look for a place with history, and by history I mean one that is over 2,000 years old!

It is too easy to be taken in by spiritualities that play to our ego, our ignorance, and our vulnerability.

I hope that if you are searching for a place that will meet your desire to have a closer relationship with God, that you will do your homework and protect yourself from those who offer you a quick, easy path, because anyone that tries to entice you in that way is not of Christ.

Just look at the cross.

Janet Cassidy
janetcassidy.blogspot.com
janetcassidy.blubrry.net


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