The Pour Over Today - Friday, December 17, 2021

Episode Date: December 17, 2021

Omicron hits sports, the Fed pivots, and other top news for Friday, December 17. Stay informed, while remaining focused on Christ, with The Pour Over.-----Today's podcast is brought to you by MediShare.It feels like not understanding health care costs but paying gobs of money anyway is just standard practice. Which is, well… dumb. Traditional health insurance may be the best option for you and your family, or it may be simply the more expensive option that was chosen for you by default.  Medi-Share is the alternative you may have missed: The average family saves $500/month (no, seriously) They have a 98% customer satisfaction rating Finding out what your Medi-Share pricing would be is fast and 100% free Medi-Share may not be right for you… but taking the time to find out definitely is. Learn more and find out your pricing. -----Become a TPO Barista today.

Omicron hits sports, the Fed pivots, and other top news for Friday, December 17th. Stay informed while remaining focused on Christ with The Pour Over. Here's the quote of the day. God doesn't want our success. He wants us. He doesn't demand our achievements. He demands our obedience. Chuck Colson Let's get started with some espresso shots. It's not just you with deja vu.

We've got another Omicron update, and parts of it are starting to feel a lot like 2020. As of Wednesday, the variant had spread to at least 36 states and accounted for 3% of U.S. cases. Though it multiplies faster than Delta, research still indicates that Omicron is less severe. The main reason this may give you some flashbacks, other than, you know, like your DoorDash delivery guy becoming your best friend, is that professional sports and universities are re-reeling things back. In the NBA this week, the Chicago Bulls had to cancel games, and the Sacramento Kings canceled practices.

The NFL and NHL are dealing with their own outbreaks and benching star players, prompting the NFL to revise its COVID procedures. Between the three leagues, more than 100 athletes have entered health and safety protocols this week. In the Ivy League, Princeton and Cornell join a growing list of universities that are moving classes and finals online in response to rising cases. Canada announced that it would reduce indoor venue capacities and discouraged all non-essential international travel. Across the pond, the EU is also increasing border restrictions. The UK recorded its highest day ever of positive cases, and the Queen cancelled a pre-Christmas family lunch due to the surge. The English Premier League

has cancelled several matches, and some clubs have called for a full shutdown. South Korea, also seeing cases spike, announced that it would reintroduce strict restrictions, closing cafes, restaurants, and bars. There may be good reasons to be worried or feel hopeless about this day, month, or year. God does not promise good days. He promises a great eternity. Stay focused on eternity because it changes everything. Don't worry about anything. But in everything, through prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Philippians 4, 6. The Federal Reserve has been watching enough fixer-upper during the pandemic to know when

to start thinking about renovating. On Wednesday, Fed Chairman Powell announced plans to wind down the Fed's bond-buying program in half the time promised just last month and said they expect to raise interest rates three times higher in 2022 than previously planned. These decisions are significant pivots and aggressive steps to cool down inflation. Recent polls show that 80% of Americans are concerned about inflation, which has erased gains made by many workers' recent pay raises. The stock market reacted positively to the idea of the economy graduating from spoon feeding to chewing its own food. Markets jumped almost 2% Wednesday afternoon. Our goal is to keep the big things big and the small things small. It's not that inflation isn't important. It is having a real impact on people, and people do

matter. But it's not God of the universe important. Regardless of inflation, over the next six months, your eternity with Christ remains secure. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand. Edward Mote, 1863. Today's podcast is brought to you by MediShare. It feels like not understanding healthcare costs, but paying gobs of money anyways is just standard practice, which is, well, dumb.

Traditional health insurance may be the best option for you and your family, or it may be simply the more expensive option that was chosen for you by default. MediShare is the alternative that you might have missed. The average family saves $500 a month. No, seriously. They have a 98% customer satisfaction rating, and finding out what your MediShare pricing would be is fast and 100% free. MediShare might not be right for you 100% free. MediShare might not be

right for you, but taking the time to find out definitely is. Learn more and find out your pricing by clicking the link in our show notes. In other brews, we've got a rapid round of updates. On Wednesday, Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer responsible for George Floyd's death, pleaded guilty to violating Floyd's civil rights. Chauvin is currently serving 22 and a half years in prison following his state-level murder conviction, and this is expected to add around six years to his sentence. NASA has touched the sun. This week, NASA announced that the Parker Solar Probe became the first spacecraft to successfully reach the sun's outer atmosphere, called the Corona, during its mission to study the origins of solar flares.

It was a toasty 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit. The release of 1,500 new JFK-related documents was anticlimactic. The formerly classified documents were revealed to largely be duplicates of previously released documents, with a few new details like the name of an investigating CIA officer. 10,000 documents still remain locked away and are expected to be released in December of 2022. In mid-October, 17 missionaries, six men, six women, and five children were kidnapped by the Haitian gang 400 Mawazo. As of yesterday, all the missionaries are free. The gang's leader previously demanded $17 million for their release, and it is still unclear if any ransom was paid.

While Kentucky and the surrounding states begin rebuilding from last week's deadly and unseasonable tornadoes, hurricane-force winds whipped across the Midwest, killing at least five people. We do have an encouraging update, though. Over 200 TPO readers and listeners donated $27,984 to Tornado Relief. We're amazed at the generosity of this community. Well, thank you so much for listening with us this morning. If you found this podcast helpful or encouraging in any way, we would really appreciate it if you shared it with a friend

or left us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. If you would like to support the podcast or the newsletter at a deeper level, consider becoming a TPO barista. TPO baristas aren't known for their latte art. Instead, they're a group of people that pays for what they could get for free. Their bad money management has helped launch this podcast, the TPO store, and allowed us to reach thousands of new readers. If you want to help keep the world informed, encouraged, and focused on Christ,

become a barista today at just $5 a month. Check the link in our show notes. We hope you have a great rest of your day, and we'll see you back here on Monday.