Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him,
    to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly
    for the salvation of the Lord.
It is good for a man to bear the yoke
    while he is young.

• Lamentations 3:25-27

I have written once before about my Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.  It was a free download.  I pulled it from a list of the top OCR programs that were free.  I had others to choose from, but this one got consistently good reviews.

But if you use OCR to copy a quote from a book, you have to review it.

The errors in mine are different with each book.  A couple of books see the capital “J” as a lower case “L”.  This next comment is dripping with sarcasm.  Having that error is no problem in that I never use such words as Jeremiah, Jerusalem, Joseph, James, John, and Jesus.  But what is worse is that another font changes the capital “J” to a “]”.  Yes, an italics close bracket, not even a letter.

Another font changes the word “It” to “LT”, just using the lower case.  Why?  The language is set for English.  While Lt. is the abbreviation for lieutenant, the “L” is capitalized and there is a period after the “t”.  That same font has fun with the letter “f”.  “For” becomes “Tor.”  “Often” often becomes “Otten” or even “Otter.”  And that is the weird part, it is not consistent.

But, why did I write this update?  I was copying a pastor’s quote on Lamentations 3:25-26.  In the author’s quote of the Scripture, these words jumped out at me.  “The Lotto is good.” 

Woah!  Timeout!  The OCR software often gets confused with the word “Lord,” especially if the original text used small caps.  But this horrifically bad theology was made even worse when the next line included “it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lotto.”

Please, everyone, if this happens to you, do not go out and buy a thousand dollars of lottery tickets.  This is not a sign from God that your finances will gain salvation from the Lottery.  This is an OCR software that cannot read “Lord.”

When this software changes “Jesus” to “lesus” and “Lord” to “Lotto” and (admittedly rarely) “God” to “Cod,” I am thinking I either need a new OCR software or an exorcist to drop by the house.  In the meantime, I need to edit carefully.

But how many people today reject God and impatiently, and not quietly, wait upon salvation from the Lotto.  Salvation is not found there, even if you are one of the rare ones that make some money.  Most winners quickly lose their winnings and are worse off than before.  Very few are like a neighbor who each year adds an extension on his modest house or buys a new RV every ten years, living off the interest of his lottery winnings.

God is good, and only Jesus can ultimately save us.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.