Just prior to going dark on my keyboard for August, I initiated the process of redesigning both lifetime.org and PrestonGillham.com. While the home page of lifetime.org looks okay, the same cannot be said for PrestonGillham.com.

However, the major impetus for redesigning these sites is the need to recode the backend of the sites. My mail delivery group, MailChimp.com, persists in progressively throttling delivery of my blog to you.

Bluntly, I pay this company a lot of money to deliver what I write to you. But given my audacity to write from a Christian perspective about social issues, MailChimp.com sees fit to only deliver to a portion of my subscribers. They are dedicated to throttling my Christian voice.

If you had told me a decade ago that major companies would be squelching Christian literature and viewpoint, I would have laughed. But, here we are.

So, in addition to a fresh appearance, the sites will have a redesigned backend (the coding), partnering with different companies, securing our resource files, and creating redundancy to guard against this sort of compromise in the future (if possible). I’ll keep you informed.

Again, if you notice I go quiet on the channel without prior notice, understand that I’ve been silenced. In that event, the only option will be going directly to PrestonGillham.com or Lifetime.org.

While on the subject of Lifetime Ministries (lifetime.org), the IRS has notified us that we failed to file our annual report for 2020. They are assessing the usual penalties and interest, etc. in the neighborhood of 8% of gross revenues. That’s right. It’s an onerous amount.

The truth of the matter is that Lifetime did file our Form 990, just as we have done each year for over forty years. But even a photocopy of the completed document, stamped by the IRS that they received our report, is thus far insufficient evidence to prove our filing. Even an electronic refiling of our Form 990 is insufficient. While I have appealed, and am awaiting a reply (the IRS asked for an extension), the IRS is pressing ahead with their penalties and threats.

You may recall the IRS targeted conservative nonprofits during the Obama administration. Mr. Obama asked Congress to increase the IRS’ budget by a billion dollars in order to hire 5400 new agents. Republicans in Congress instead reduced the budget to the tax service resulting in layoffs.

Almost five years ago, after years of denials, blatant lies, and prevarication, the IRS apologized for targeting conservative nonprofits and paid a penalty of $3.5 million distributed among the forty organizations they targeted. There were no criminal charges for Lois Lerner, et al, at the IRS.

It’s at this point Newton’s third law of motion comes to mind: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

While this is not my first experience dealing with the IRS, this is by far the dumbest interaction. It is blatant harassment by a governmental organization. Period.

I want to stay positive, but a government organization that asserts their own stamped form is not proof of filing is not a good omen for a positive resolution.

Following in his presidential mentor’s footsteps, Mr. Biden’s administration has successfully increased funding for the IRS. The agency’s new budget will make the IRS larger than the Pentagon, State Department, FBI, and Border Patrol combined.

Said another way, the IRS will soon be larger than the combined organizations that manage our national defense, our national representation abroad, our investigative capabilities of criminals, and our national borders against foreign incursion. One has to wonder who the bad actors are in the eyes of this government.

Approximately 84,000-87,000 new agents will be added to the IRS’ payroll. By the way, to add to their 5,000,000 rounds of stockpiled ammunition, the GAO reports that the IRS bought an additional $700,000 rounds of ammunition during the First Quarter of this year (2022). Your soon-coming audit could be unlike any before—and don’t bother defending yourself with your IRS-stamped form.

While promising the additional personnel are needed to go after wealthy tax avoiders, only a fool would believe that pledge—and indeed, when pressed, the Department of the Treasury acknowledged that new audits would target middle- and lower-income individuals five times more than the wealthy.

Lifetime landed in the IRS’ crosshairs before Congress’ increased funding, but the inane nature of this penalty has my attention. The IRS targeted their political enemies once before, with impunity, and $3.5 million is an inconsequential amount to an agency of this size.

There is a profound political disregard for Christians among Progressives and the media, so when an event so stupid as to defy logic occurs, my attention is gotten. That the IRS and its allies are lying through their teeth is alarming and utterly disgusting.

Whether the IRS is targeting Lifetime or not, I have no way of knowing beyond the circumstantial evidence and the hours of time and hassle it is taking to address their accusation, not to mention the financial compromise they are prepared to levy. But I do know this: Lifetime Ministries belongs to God. The donations you send are invested in His work, for His purposes, to advance His causes, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We must stay the course God has called us to.

Let’s not lose focus.

Father God is unfazed. He knows. He understands. He is the one who makes wrongs right, defends the powerless, and cares for those whom He loves.

One of the most reassuring passages of Scripture is recorded by John as he begins penning his Revelation. He states that in his vision he saw “…a throne in heaven, and One sitting on the throne” (4:2).

My friends, Apostle John’s point is that there is nothing in our history, our present circumstance, or in our future of sufficient alarm to cause God to stand up, gasp, pace, fret, or experience angst. Folks who are worried don’t sit down.

Our Father remains in perfect control.

Father is constant. Father is not threatened. Father is not stressed.

Father is seated on His throne and finds nothing in the world or the universe remarkable enough to stand up and pace.

Read the headlines. That’s part of your civic duty. How can you be light if you don’t enter dark places?

Elementary-age kids are being given gender transforming drugs without their parents’ knowledge. The FBI is proving itself corrupt at the highest levels. Our military is in unsustainable decline in terms of recruits, fitness, and preparedness—while war with China seems imminent. Those leading us and educating our children are obsessed with murdering our unborn and just-born children. In its woke wisdom, Facebook banned a Holocaust film because it violates their race policy. Young people are turning from Christianity in record numbers. Inflation is the highest it’s been in four decades. Drugs, traffickers, orphans, smugglers, gangs, cartels, and voluminous death pour across our Southern border while those in charge celebrate their success in securing the Southern border. Oh, and the Queen died. Long live the King.

As you read the preceding paragraph, did you feel your soul sink? Take note.

Now, turn your attention—set your mind—back to the throne in heaven that John told us about: There is One sitting on that throne. Said another way, the One who is in heaven is not pacing and fretting about the dark paragraph above.

Neither should you.

But you must be proactive: “Set your mind on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Col. 3:2).

Now, be confident in who you are, whose you are, and who lives in you. Your calling is to be light in dark places.

Catching Up