I Got an E-mail From Jesus

My spam filter let an e-mail from am “unknown sender” named Jesus get through to my mail box today. My first reaction was to immediately delete it or hit the spam key, but instead I opened it. I thought to myself, “What if…?”

What if the “big guy” had something to tell me? Would he e-mail me like this or would he do the “burning bush” trick? Surely he is hip to the web and the possibilities of social networking. The burning bush is so last millennium (or, maybe older). I suppose Jesus could have left me a voice mail or sent me a text message. He must have many options to call upon us these days.

The e-mail read “Be grateful”. That’s all it said. No link, no parable. It just said be grateful. I paused a moment and then wrote this blog.

Hmmm. I guess I do have a lot to be grateful for—-a beautiful wife of 22 years, three great kids, my health, a good horse in the barn, enough money to do as I please, etc. The list could go on and on. I am truly blessed when compared to the others in the world; I recently read that over 800 million people go to bed hungry at night.

But, wasn’t this just a spam message? If it was just spam, now you understand why spammers spam. This unsolicited e-mail caused me to think and to take action, which is the goal of every spammer—they want to change the world (for better or worse) in some small way.

Essentially, spammers spam because they know that spam works. It may be that out of a million unsolicited e-mails only a few hundred people respond to the call to action. That click through rate may be enough for the spammer to feel successful (or grateful).

I responded to the call to action. This time the call was not to buy Viagra or hit on a link to a porn site, but nonetheless I did what the spammer wanted me to do. The spammer made me think.

Or, was it an e-mail from Jesus?

John Bradley Jackson
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