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Day 1492 – My Job Resume – Humor Unplugged

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Welcome to Day 1492 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

My Job Resume – Humor Unplugged

Wisdom – the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your Captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1492 of our Trek, and time for a 3-minute mini-trek called Humor Unplugged. Our Thursday podcast will provide a short and clean funny story to help you lighten up and live a rich and satisfying life. Something to cheer you and give a bit a levity in your life. We are told in Proverbs 15:30 A cheerful look brings joy to the heart; good news makes for good health. We are also encouraged in Proverbs 17:22 A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength. Consider this your vitamin supplement of cheer for today. So let’s jump right in with today’s funny which is titled:

My Job Resume

Little Joey was over at his favorite Uncle Louey’s apartment visiting for an afternoon, and they were chatting as they often did. Now, Uncle Louey wasn’t noted for being able to hold down a job very long, and he always had some story to tell. That is probably why little Joey liked visiting him so often. As Joey and Louey were chatting about adventures and going fishing, Joey looked at him and said, “my mama says you can never keep a job. Uncle Loey, why is that?” Uncle Louey agreed and stared off into the air for a bit and then said, “well, let me explain the reasons.”

  1. My first job was working in an orange juice factory, but I got canned… couldn’t concentrate.
  2. Then I worked in the woods as a lumberjack, but I just couldn’t hack it, so they gave me the ax.
  3. After that, I tried to be a tailor, but I just wasn’t suited for it…mainly because it was a so-so job.
  4. Next, I tried working in a muffler factory, but that was too exhausting.
  5. I tried to be a barber, but I just couldn’t cut it.
  6. Then I tried to be a chef — figured it would add a little spice to my life, but I just didn’t have the thyme.
  7. I attempted to be a deli worker, but any way I sliced it, I couldn’t cut the mustard.
  8. My best job was being a musician, but eventually, I found I wasn’t noteworthy.
  9. I studied for a long time to become a doctor, but I didn’t have any patience.
  10. Next was a job in a shoe factory – I tried, but I just didn’t fit in.
  11. I became a professional fisherman but discovered that I couldn’t live on my net income.
  12. I managed to get a good job working for a pool maintenance company, but the work was just too draining.
  13. I got a job at a zoo feeding giraffes, but I was fired because I wasn’t up to it.
  14. So then I got a job in a workout center, but they said I wasn’t fit for the job.
  15. After many years of trying to find steady work, I finally got a job as a historian until I realized there was no future in it.
  16. My last job was working at Starbucks, but I had to quit because it was always the same old grind.
  17. So, then I retired…and found out I was perfect for the job!

I hope that brought a smile to your face today. If it did pass your smile onto some else, we all could use a kind smile each day. Our Thursday thought is, “Success seems to be connected to action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they never quit.”

Here is our verse for today:

Proverbs 13:11

Wealth from get-rich-quick schemes quickly disappears; wealth from hard work grows over time.

Just as you enjoy these nuggets of humor, please encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along tomorrow for another day of ‘Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.’ If you would like to listen to any of our past 1491 treks or read the Wisdom Journal, they are all available at Wisdom-Trek.com.  I encourage you to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek on your favorite podcast player so that each day will be downloaded to you automatically.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most importantly, I am your friend as I serve you in through this Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this Trek of life together, let us always:

  1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
  2. Love Unconditionally
  3. Listen Intentionally
  4. Learn Continuously
  5. Lend to others Generously
  6. Lead with Integrity
  7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

I am Guthrie Chamberlain….reminding you to ’Keep Moving Forward,’ ‘Enjoy your Journey,’ and ‘Create a Great Day…Everyday’! See you tomorrow for Futuristic Friday!

Day 1491 – Imager – A God-Breathed United Council – Worldview Wednesday

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Welcome to Day 1491 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

I am Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Imager – A God-Breathed United Council – Worldview Wednesday

Wisdom – the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. Today is Day 1491 of our Trek, and it is Worldview Wednesday. Creating a Biblical Worldview is essential to have a proper perspective on today’s current events. To establish a Biblical Worldview, you must have a proper understanding of God and His Word. This week, on our Worldview Wednesday episode, we will continue our study based on a course I recently completed taught by Dr. Michael Heiser. Our study is titled “Sons and Daughters of God: The Believer’s Identity, Calling, and Destiny” Throughout this multi-week course, we will demonstrate that, in the Old Testament, “sons of God” and “holy ones” refers to supernatural beings whose Father is God and who work with God to carry out His will and that this divine family was present before humanity. By fully engaging with biblical texts such as Psalm 82; Psalm 89, and Deuteronomy 32:8–9, our study will show that this divine family functions as a template for God’s human family. God desires of humans, as His imagers, to participate in His council. This study addresses issues such as polytheism, the nature of the (little ‘g’) “gods,” and Yahweh’s uniqueness. This study will apply insights to the New Testament texts and show how the metaphor of being in God’s family informs our sense of identity and mission as believers.

Imager – A God-Breathed United Council

·      Segment 24: Humans Animated by the Breath of God

Introduction

Last week we left off talking about the one outlier in our list of candidates for what the ‘image of God’ idea might be: the possession of a soul, soul/spirit. People use different terminology; we’re not worried about parsing the terms necessarily here, and you’ll quickly see why.

Animals Like Humans

If we’re going to go with biblical language, the idea of having a “soul” is having a nephesh. In Genesis 2:7—this is when God breathes into the man, into Adam, and he becomes a living soul—the Hebrew there is the nephesh chayyah. That’s biblical language. It turns out, though, that if you go back to Genesis 1:21, we read this: “So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves. [the term there is ‘every nephesh hachayyah’]” So animals and humans are described with the same terminology with respect to the “soulishness” of each of them. What it refers to—the nephesh chayyah in both passages—is a reference to this sort of animate life that we sort of know and experience.

I can look at my dog and know that my dog is an animate life form. It looks at me. Something is going on up there in the head. It moves around; it makes decisions, so on and so forth. It decides to go into that room or this room. That’s what animate life is.

Animals and humans are both described with the same vocabulary in the Hebrew Bible. Animals also have a ruach. So for those who want to say, “Well, the nephesh is different than the ruach; the soul is different than the spirit,” we have a problem there too. Ecclesiastes 3:21 has animals possessing a ruach; it’s the same word for “spirit” used of humans.

 Nephesh and Ruach Interchangeable

The problem becomes even more than that. If you studied the terms, you would discover that ‘nephesh’ is often translated “soul” in English Bibles, and “spirit” comes from the Hebrew ‘ruach.’

If you studied both of those Hebrew terms, you would learn very quickly that they are used interchangeably to describe animate life, the source of emotions, the source of volition. In other words, decision-making capacity and just generally one’s internal disposition.

So if you are going with Old Testament terminology, nephesh and ruach are not different things. They are interchangeable terms, and the biblical text points that direction in many, many places. According to the Bible, animals are described in the same way from this analysis, the idea of having a soul/spirit as our arbiter if we’re deciding what God’s image means. So we can’t use that as our definition. So this is not the right way to determine the uniqueness of humans being in the ‘image of God.’

Summary

So we seem to have a problem. If we go back to last week, the rest of the list’s characteristics are all linked to brain function. Of course, the situation is that not all humans at all stages of life, from conception until death, have the same cognitive functions. If they are used that determine possession of the image of God, it leaves some people out.

So all of these standard definitions of being in the image of God have serious weaknesses. We need to understand a little bit better what the image actually is. That realization will take us right back into the family motif and the participatory coworker idea we need to focus on. We’re looking at the Old Testament family of God, specifically the divine beings. We need to look at what God tasked them to do, how they relate to Him, their purpose, and how that becomes a template for how God thinks about humans and how we should think about ourselves.

·      Segment 25: Imaging Is What Unites Us

Introduction

I’ve said a couple of times that the plural language of Genesis 1 is related to this idea of imaging, and imaging, the image of God, is what unites God with humans and the members of His heavenly host. We’re talking about how to understand “imaging.” We know what it doesn’t mean, so what does it mean?

First, I think it would be wise for us to have a sentence, a specific way, to think about this in our heads. As human beings, and they as divine beings or the supernatural family of God, they and we were made like Him, like God, for the specific purpose of working with Him. Keep that in mind, and let’s talk about what imaging means. We can see the relationship between He and us once we grasp what the image idea means.

Image of God Is a Status

The image of God is not a thing put into humans. It’s not an attribute or an ability, especially one connected with brain function or any other organ. It’s not a quality; it’s a status. We’re going to unpack that. The key to understanding this idea is the preposition “in” in the phrase “God created humankind in the image of God” or “in His image.” 

Different Meanings of the Preposition “In”

The preposition “in”: you need to think about this because it’s going to be the linchpin upon which everything turns in one direction. In our English language, in the course of our everyday conversation, we use the preposition “in” in a lot of different ways. We don’t even think about it, but we do.

For instance, if I say, “Put the dishes in the sink,” what do I mean? I’m asking you to put the dishes in a specific place; I’m talking about location. If I say, “I broke the vase in pieces,” I’m certainly not talking about location; I’m talking about the result of some action: I broke the vase in pieces. If I say, “I wrote the letter in pencil,” I’m not talking about the location of course; I’m talking about the instrument that I used, how I’m doing something: I wrote the letter in pencil.

Those are three different uses of the word “in,” just a little two-letter word. You think, “Well, that can’t be very complicated,” but look at those three examples; they’re all quite different. Let me add a fourth one. If I say, “I work in medicine,”; “I work in education,”; “I work in the ministry,”; what do I mean? I mean, I work as a doctor or a nurse or a PA, something like that. I work as a teacher; I work as a principal, an administrator. In the ministry, I work as a pastor, a youth pastor, maybe some other kind of work, a missionary, something that has to do with Christian ministry—all of these options.

Genesis 1:26–27 Uses Functional “In”

“I work as” treats the preposition “in” in a phrase like “I work in medicine” as functional. I’m using the preposition “in” to denote a role or a function. That is how we need to understand the image of God. That is what we need to take back to Genesis 1: “Let us create humankind [as] our image”—to be our imager, to be like us. How does this unite God and humans, the divine beings of God’s heavenly family? Well, it means that to be an imager means to be God’s representative.

Created as Representative

To be an imager means to be God’s representative. To be created as God’s image is to be created as His representative. I’ve been using a little bit interspersed here; the term “imager” like it’s a verb, and I’m doing that because I think that’s an excellent way to understand it. The image of God isn’t a thing given to you; it is a status you have to do something and to be something. If you were created as God’s imager, you are, by definition, a part of His family, and you are like Him. He has shared His attributes with you, so that you can work for Him and with Him. Now, what unites all of us?

One Creator

The plural language lets us know that he also created the divine members of God’s family; they also image Him; they’re also His representatives; they are like Him. We will be like Him, and we’re going to be like them because we have the same creator. We’re just tasked in different ways.

It’s essential to understand the language goes back to singular because the point of the plural part, “Let us create humankind as our image, our representative,” is to bring humanity into that relationship that they will be part of the same family. They’re also going to be part of the same enterprise. The enterprise, of course, is doing God’s will, doing what God wants. The heavenly host does that in their realm; we do that in our realm. Their realm is supernatural; our realm is terrestrial. That plural language brings us into the picture on sort of an equal footing. We share the status of family members and coworkers, and then when it switches back to the singular, it’s evident that we all only have one creator. We don’t have many creators; we have one, and it’s His image; it’s His imager, that all of us are.

So there’s a very deliberate reason why we go from plural to singular language there. It’s telegraphing some essential concepts and some points. Fundamentally, for us, it’s about family being brought into that relationship, and it’s about being a coworker with God, being His representative in the earth that He has put us on.[1]

That will finish our study for this week’s Worldview Wednesday. Next week we will continue covering “Human Family As Imagers.”  Tomorrow we will enjoy our 3-minute Humor nugget that will provide you with a bit of cheer, which will help you to lighten up and live a rich and satisfying life. So encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along with us tomorrow for another day of ‘Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.’

If you would like to listen to any of our past 1490 treks or read the Wisdom Journal, they are available at Wisdom-Trek.com. I encourage you to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek on your favorite podcast player so that each day’s trek will be downloaded automatically.

Thank you so much for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and, most of all, your friend as I serve you in through this Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.

As we take this Trek together, let us always:

  1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
  2. Love Unconditionally
  3. Listen Intentionally
  4. Learn Continuously
  5. Lend to others Generously
  6. Lead with Integrity
  7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

I am Guthrie Chamberlain….reminding you to ’Keep Moving Forward,’ ‘Enjoy your Journey,’ and ‘Create a Great Day…Everyday’! See you Tomorrow!

[1] Heiser, M. S. (2019). Sons and Daughters of God: The Believer’s Identity, Calling, and Destiny. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

Day 1490 – Catch Excellence – Wisdom Unplugged

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Welcome to Day 1490 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Catch Excellence – Wisdom Unplugged

Wisdom – the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1490 of our Trek, and it is time for our 3-minute mini trek called Wisdom Unplugged. This short nugget of wisdom includes an inspirational quote with a little bit of additional content for today’s trek. Consider this your vitamin supplement of wisdom for today. So let’s jump right in with today’s nugget:

Today’s quote is from  Vince Lombardi, and it is:    If we chase perfection — we can catch excellence. 

Catch Excellence

Certainly, we know that no human is perfect. That is plainly evident each day of our lives. While perfection is not attainable, achieving a level of excellence in a particular area of life is possible. Becoming excellent requires focusing on the fundamental steps in the area we desire to become perfect. There is an old saying that ‘practice makes perfect.’ While that may sound logical, a more accurate statement is ‘perfect practices makes perfect.’ As stated, we cannot achieve perfection; we can chase perfection, which will allow us to become excellent in any number of life areas where we choose to succeed.  So on your path to excellence, invest the time, talent, and treasures in chasing perfection; you will then catch excellence. If we have this philosophy in life, we can agree with the Apostle Paul when he wrote Philippians 3:12-14 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

That’s a wrap for today’s Wisdom Unplugged quote. If you would like free access to my database of over 11,000 inspirational quotes, the link is available on the main page of Wisdom-Trek.com. Just as you enjoy these nuggets of wisdom, encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along tomorrow for another day of ‘Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.’ If you would like to listen to any of our past 1489 treks or read the Wisdom Journal, they are available at Wisdom-Trek.com. I encourage you to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek on your favorite podcast player so that each day’s trek will be downloaded automatically.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most importantly, I am your friend as I serve you in through this Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this Trek of life together, let us always:

  1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
  2. Love Unconditionally
  3. Listen Intentionally
  4. Learn Continuously
  5. Lend to others Generously
  6. Lead with Integrity
  7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

I am Guthrie Chamberlain….reminding you to ’Keep Moving Forward,’ ‘Enjoy your Journey,’ and ‘Create a Great Day…Everyday’! See you tomorrow for Worldview Wednesday!

Day 1489 – Bible Study – Start Now and Follow the Trail – Meditation Monday

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Welcome to Day 1489 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Bible Study – Start Now And Follow The Trail – Meditation Monday

Wisdom – the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. This is Day 1489 of our Trek, and it is time for Meditation Monday. Taking time to relax, refocus, and reprioritize our lives is crucial in order to create a living legacy. For you, it may just be time alone for quiet reflection. You may utilize structured meditation practices. In my life, Meditation includes reading and reflecting on God’s Word and in prayer. It is a time to renew my mind, refocus on what is most important, and making sure that I am nurturing my soul, mind, and body. As you come along with me on our trek each Meditation Monday, it is my hope and prayer that you, too, will experience a time for reflection and renewing of your mind.

 

We are continuing our series this week on Meditation Monday as we focus on Mastering Bible Study through a series of brief insights from Hebrew Scholar, Dr. Michael S. Heiser. Our current insights are focusing on study habits to build a strong foundation. Today let us meditate on:

 

Bible Study – Start Now And Follow The Trail

·      Insight Twenty-Five: It’s Never Too Late To Start Studying the Bible

I’ve met people over the years who want to get serious about Bible study but think it’s too late. Some are new to the faith and “past their prime’ as they’d put it. Others have been Christians for decades but have never invested time to get into Scripture in a way that moves beyond occasionally reading the Bible. Most of the time, when people say those things. I know they aren’t making up an excuse. They do believe it’s too late. If that’s you, take this in the right spirit: that’s nonsense.

Studying the Bible is as easy as moving beyond reading in simple ways: looking up cross-references, using the concordance in the back of your Bible, reading through notes in a study Bible, thinking critically about what you see, and probing it with questions.

Experts like to say it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in something. That’s nonsense too, unless you want to be a sports Hall of Famer, perform surgery, practice law, or be a lead chef at a five-star restaurant. I’m not talking about getting a Ph.D. in biblical studies. That isn’t a requirement for being a serious Bible student. I’m talking about becoming proficient at using specific techniques and tools and then being tenacious in their use. Five minutes a day, every day, will achieve that. I know because I’ve done it.

Proficiency in Bible study is about perseverance, not intellect or intuition. Most of the things we’d consider ourselves good at are like that. Sure, you can read about a kid who has a photographic memory and became a chess grandmaster before he was ten, but 99.9 percent of chess experts aren’t that kid. They got to their proficiency through repetition.

Age is no obstacle to this, either. An eighty-year-old who devotes time every day to Bible study has a year’s worth of experience (and knowledge) by their next birthday, precisely the same as if a thirty-year-old did it. What matters is doing it. The mind has an amazing ability to store information and recognize patterns. It just has to be trained through repetition.

So don’t put off getting into Scripture. Everyone you know will be a year older at this time next year, but only those who engage in Bible study will know Scripture any better.

·      Insight Twenty-Six: Follow Someone Who Leaves A Trail

A good strategy for becoming adept at Bible study is to find a mentor, someone who models skilled Bible study and can pass on what they know. That transmission happens either by verbal instruction or modeling. In a perfect world, one’s pastor would fill this space. I was blessed to have teachers and pastors who took us through the text. I didn’t know it, but I was learning to study the Bible. If you can say the same, thank God for your pastor.

However, I’ve heard hundreds of Christians’ complaints about the pulpit’s lack of biblical content in their church. Granted, I may be hearing a distorted number of those laments because I interact with people online. But other lines of evidence have convinced me there may be a serious problem in this regard.

First, some recent studies have confirmed the vacuous state of biblical knowledge in Christian churches, including those in the evangelical orbit. A 2009 Bama Group study sent shockwaves through thousands of churches after it reported significant declines in biblical literacy and the Bible’s engagement among churchgoers between the ages of eighteen and forty-four. This was offset by a rise among the same group in desire for Bible knowledge. The divergence suggests a disconnect between what people want and what they’re often getting in church.

Second, I have regular exposure to the books being produced by pastors and lay teachers for the church at large. Many of them are light on biblical and theological content, focusing instead on advice, encouragement, and cultural engagement. Those things are good, but they don’t feed the hunger for biblical content.

Pastors have a difficult job. Most are insanely busy with administration, counseling, visitation, and meetings. They have little time to study Scripture in depth. But that recognition doesn’t solve the problem. Christians are starving for serious biblical content, not the basics of the faith with adult illustrations. If pastors don’t preach and text the text, they don’t provide a template for how- to study Scripture. If you can’t retrace your pastor’s sermon in the biblical text after Sunday, you may need to find a mentor somewhere else.

Joshua 1:8

Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.

That is a wrap for today’s Meditation. Next week we will continue our trek on Meditation Monday as we take time to reflect on what is most important in creating our living legacy. On tomorrow’s trek, we will explore another wisdom quote. This 3-minute wisdom supplement will assist you in becoming healthy, wealthy, and wise each day. Thank you for joining me on this trek called life. Encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along tomorrow for another day of ‘Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.’  If you would like to listen to any of the past 1488 daily treks or read the daily Journal, they are available at Wisdom-Trek.com. I encourage you to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek on your favorite podcast player so that each day will be downloaded to you automatically.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most importantly, I am your friend as I serve you through this Wisdom-Trek podcast and Journal.

As we take this Trek of life together, let us always:

  1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
  2. Love Unconditionally
  3. Listen Intentionally
  4. Learn Continuously
  5. Lend to others Generously
  6. Lead with Integrity
  7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

I am Guthrie Chamberlain….reminding you to ’Keep Moving Forward,’ ‘Enjoy your Journey,’ and ‘Create a Great Day…Everyday’! See you tomorrow!

Day 1488 – Artificial Intelligence and Shopping – Ask Gramps

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Welcome to Day 1488 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me. 

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Artificial Intelligence and Shopping – Ask Gramps

Wisdom – the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. Today is Day 1488 of our Trek, and our focus on Fridays is the future technological and societal advances, so we call it Futuristic Fridays. My personality is one that has always been very future-oriented. Since my childhood, I have yearned for the exploration and discovery of new technologies and advancements for the future. I grew up with the original Star Trek series, and even today, as I am now on my 65th revolution around the sun, I still dream of traveling in space. Each week we will explore rapidly converging technologies and advancements, which will radically change our lives. At times, the topics may sound like something out of a science fiction novel, but each area that we explore is already well on its way of becoming a reality over the next couple of decades.

To keep with our theme of “Ask Gramps,” I will put our weekly topics in the form of a question to get us on track. This week’s question is, Hey Gramps, Covid-19 has accelerated the drive to online shopping, but what type of changes in retail shopping and customer service can we expect during this next decade? 

Artificial Intelligence and Shopping

Last week our focus will be on the 3-D printing revolution. This week we will learn how Artificial Intelligence will change our shopping experiences. I am using some of the information mentioned in Peter Diamandis’s blogs and book “The Future is Faster Than You Think.”

 

AI and 5G broadband are radically changing retail shopping as we know it. During 2019, there were over 25 major retail bankruptcies. In 2020, especially with the on-going impact of Covid-19, the retail apocalypse is only accelerating.

What’s coming next is astounding. Why drive to a store when you can speak? Revenue from products purchased via voice commands is expected to quadruple from today’s $2 billion to $8 billion by 2023.

Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and 3D Printing are converging with AI, drones, and 5G to transform shopping on every dimension. As a result, shopping is becoming dematerialized, demonetized, democratized, and delocalized in a top-to-bottom transformation of the retail world. 

A Day in the Life of 2030

Let’s time travel together to October 2, 2030, a sunny day in Dallas. You have an important speech to give at a luncheon tomorrow, but nothing to wear. The last thing you want to do is drive through congested traffic and spend several hours at the mall.

That is no longer a requirement. Your body image data is still current, as you were scanned only a week ago. Put on your VR headset and have a conversation with your AI.

“It’s time to buy a suit for tomorrow’s luncheon speech,” is all you have to say.

In a moment, you’re teleported to a virtual clothing store. Zero travel time. No freeway traffic, parking hassles, or angry hordes wielding baby strollers.

Instead, you’ve entered your own personal clothing store. Everything is in your exact size. I mean everything. The store has access to nearly every designer and style on the planet.

Ask your AI to show you what’s hot in Paris, France, and presto, you have an instant fashion show. Every model you see looks exactly like you, only dressed in Paris’s latest design.

When you’re done selecting an outfit, your AI pays the bill. As your new clothes are being 3D-printed at a warehouse—before speeding your way via drone delivery—a digital version has been added to your personal inventory for use at future virtual events.

The cost? Thanks to an era of no middlemen, less than half of what you pay in stores today. Yet this future is not all that far off..maybe only ten years 

Digital Assistants

Let’s transport back to today and begin with the basics: the act of turning desire into a purchase.

Most of us navigate shopping malls or online marketplaces alone, hoping to stumble across the right item and fit. If you’re fortunate enough to employ a personal assistant, you have the luxury of describing what you want to someone who knows you well enough to buy that exact right thing most of the time. But let’s come back to reality, since for most of us who don’t. In the not too distant future, we can turn to our digital assistant.

Right now, the four horsemen of the retail apocalypse are waging war for our wallets. Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Now, Apple’s Siri, and Alibaba’s Tmall Genie are going head-to-head in a battle to become the platform du jour for voice-activated, AI-assisted commerce.

For baby boomers like myself, who grew up watching Captain Kirk talk to the Enterprise’s computer on Star Trek, digital assistants seem a little like science fiction. But for millennials, it’s just the next logical step in a world that is auto-magical.

As those millennials enter their consumer prime, revenue from products purchased via voice-driven commands is projected to leap from four-fold in the next three years.

We already see a significant change in purchasing habits. On average, consumers using Amazon Echo spent more than standard Amazon Prime customers: $2,000 versus $1,500. As far as an AI fashion advisor goes, those are already available, courtesy of both Alibaba and Amazon.

During its annual Singles’ Day shopping festival, Alibaba’s FashionAI concept store uses deep learning to make suggestions based on human fashion experts’ advice and store inventory. This deep learning drives a significant portion of the day’s  $25 billion in sales. Similarly, Amazon’s shopping algorithm makes personalized clothing recommendations based on user preferences and social media behavior.

Customer Service

But AI is disrupting more than just personalized fashion and e-commerce. Its next big break will take place in the customer service arena. According to a recent Zendesk study, good customer service increases the possibility of an increase in purchases of 42%. Lousy customer service translates into a 52% chance of losing that sale forever. This means more than half of us will stop shopping at a store due to a single disappointing customer service interaction.

These are significant financial stakes. They’re also problems perfectly suited for an AI solution.

During the 2018 Google I/O conference, CEO Sundar Pichai demoed the Google Duplex, their next-generation digital assistant. Pichai played the audience a series of pre-recorded phone calls made by Google Duplex. The first call made a reservation at a restaurant, the second one booked a haircut appointment, amusing the audience with a long “hmmm” mid-call. In neither case did the person on the other end of the phone have any idea they were talking to an AI. The system’s success speaks to how seamlessly AI can blend into our retail lives and how convenient it will continue to make them.

The same technology that Pichai demonstrated can make phone calls for consumers can also answer phones for retailers—a development that’s unfolding in two different ways:

·      (1) Customer service coaches:

First, there’s Beyond Verbal, a Tel Aviv-based startup that has built an AI customer service coach for organizations interested in keeping humans involved.

Simply by analyzing customer voice intonation, the system can tell whether the person on the phone is about to blow a gasket, is genuinely excited, or anything in between.

Based on the research of over 70,000 subjects in more than 30 languages, Beyond Verbal’s app can detect 400 different markers of human moods, attitudes, and personality traits.

It’s already been integrated in call centers to help human sales agents understand and react to customer emotions, making those calls more pleasant and more profitable.

For example, by analyzing word choice and vocal style, Beyond Verbal’s system can tell what kind of shopper the person on the line is. If they’re an early adopter, the AI alerts the sales agent to offer them the latest and greatest. If they’re more conservative, it suggests items more tried-and-true.

·      (2) Replacing customer service agents:

Second, companies like New Zealand’s Soul Machines are working to replace human customer service agents altogether. Powered by IBM’s Watson, Soul Machines builds lifelike customer service avatars designed for empathy, making them one of many helping to pioneer the field of emotionally intelligent computing.

With their technology, 40% of all customer service interactions are now resolved with a high degree of satisfaction, no human intervention is needed. Because the system is built using neural nets, it’s continuously learning from every interaction—meaning that percentage will continue to improve.

The number of these interactions continues to grow as well. Software manufacturer Autodesk now includes a Soul Machine avatar named AVA (Autodesk Virtual Assistant) in all of its new offerings. She lives in a small window on the screen, ready to soothe tempers, troubleshoot problems, and forever banish those long tech support hold times.

For Daimler Financial Services, Soul Machines built an avatar named Sarah, who helps customers with arguably three of modernity’s most annoying tasks: financing, leasing, and insuring a car.

This isn’t just about AI—it’s about AI converging with additional exponentials. Add networks and sensors to the story, and it raises the scale of disruption, upping the FQ—the frictionless quotient—in our frictionless shopping adventure. 

Final Thoughts

AI makes retail cheaper, faster, and more efficient, touching everything from customer service to product delivery. It also redefines the shopping experience, making it frictionless and—once we allow AI to make purchases for us—ultimately invisible.

We need to be preparing for a future in which shopping is dematerialized, demonetized, democratized, and delocalized—otherwise known as “the end of malls.”

Within this next decade, it may not truly be an end to malls. They will be transformed into a more immersive, whimsical, and imaginative shopping experience complete with many other entertainment venues. Either way, it’s a top-to-bottom transformation of the retail world.

Changes like these mentioned today will also change how we interact with others as Christ-followers. Let’s be prepared for the changes and adopt them as we are able. These technologies will facilitate the building of God’s Kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven.

1 Corinthians 4:20

For the Kingdom of God is not just a lot of talk; it is living by God’s power.

That is a wrap for today’s question. Join us again next Futuristic Friday as we look at another exciting exponential technology area on our ‘Ask Gramps’ episode. Our next trek is Meditation Monday, where we will help you reflect on what is most important in life. So encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along on Monday for another day of ‘Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.’

If you would like to listen to any of the past 1487 daily treks or read the associated journals, they are available at Wisdom-Trek.com. I encourage you to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek on your favorite podcast player so that each day will be downloaded to you automatically.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, but most importantly, I am your friend as I serve you in through this Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.

As we take this Trek of life together, let us always:

  1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
  2. Love Unconditionally
  3. Listen Intentionally
  4. Learn Continuously
  5. Lend to others Generously
  6. Lead with Integrity
  7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

I am Guthrie Chamberlain….reminding you to ’Keep Moving Forward,’ ‘Enjoy your Journey,’ and ‘Create a Great Day…Everyday’! See you on Monday!