Sermon - TLIS - 0.7.3 - Four right answers on CISSP questions
Ecclesiastes 3:22
So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?
Ecclesiastes 6:12
For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?
John 18:38
"What is truth?" retorted Pilate.
Proverbs 16:9
In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.
For a quarter of a century, I have facilitated seminars for those seeking their certification as professionals in the field of information security. The particular exam that I have conducted seminars for is the CISSP, or Certified Information Systems Security Professional. The exam is probably the hardest exam that you will ever encounter.
That isn't just my assessment. In one of the seminars, one of the candidates came up to me towards the end of the seminar and said that if he was ever recruiting, for any job, regardless of what it was, and one of the candidates had passed the certification exam, he would hire that person. He figured anybody who could get through this exam could get through anything.
The exam used to consist of 250 questions. That was back when it was paper-based. These days, there are computer-based exams, and candidates can get through in as few as 100 questions.
The exam is multiple-choice. When I say that, most people think that means it's an easy exam. That is definitely not the case. Over the years, preparing testing instruments for a wide variety of courses, the multiple choice exam has come to be my testing instrument of choice. It's much harder to write, for the instructor, but if you do it properly, it is the most reliable. I, and a number of the other exam instructors, spend a considerable time getting students prepared for the style of the questions that they will see. Each question has the question, maybe with a bit of background, and then four options to choose from.
Again, most people think that a multiple-choice exam is going to be easy. Far from it. Sometimes you are presented with four correct answers. You have to choose the answer that is most correct out of those four correct options. Sometimes you are presented with a question that gives you four wrong answers as possibilities. You have to select the answer that is the least wrong among the four wrong options. One of the other instructors characterises these questions as "which answer stinks the least".
The kind of questions that give you four correct answers, or four incorrect answers, can be extremely challenging. Candidates will agonise over the choices. All four answers are correct. Which answer is the *most* correct? How do you even determine an answer to the question, "most correct?"
Most correct tends to mean that it is the answer that will provide the most benefit, if the question calls for a benefit, in the most situations, to most companies and most individuals trying to protect those companies.
So, I hear you ask, "What has this to do with the Christian life?" Once again, it has a lot to do with the Christian life. A lot of times, in life, we are presented with multiple options. Sometimes we are presented with a number of seemingly equally correct and valid options to follow. Which one do we choose? Sometimes we are presented with a huge range of wrong or impossible options. Which do we choose? Which is the lesser of two, or a great many, evils?
In dealing with the question of the exam, we do tend to tell the students that you should not overthink the question. Do not agonize too long over the answer. Do not think, and rethink, and second guess yourself to the point where you are paralyzed by indecision. One of the things that we tend to tell the candidates is that, if you have any chance of getting through the exam at all, very often your first response to the question is, in fact, the correct one.
It is the same with the Christian life. Do not beat yourself up over the options. Maybe the options are all correct, but you ask yourself, which path is the path that God wants me to follow? Again, sometimes all of the paths before you, all of the options, appear to be wrong, but you have to do something. What do you do? Which do you choose, among a range of bad options?
The thing is, you have to answer. You have to choose. You have to make a choice and make a decision, and sometimes there is actually no perfect decision to make. We live in a fallen world. Do not try to find the perfect answer. If the perfect answer is not one of the options before you, then you cannot pick the perfect answer. This often happens in the exam as well. Students who try and force one of the available options to be the "perfect" answer are the ones who make mistakes.
In terms of the exam, we tell students that if you really cannot figure out how to answer the question, then just guess. If you just guess, you have a twenty-five percent chance of getting the right answer and the points that you would get for that answer. If you do nothing, if you do not choose, then you get nothing. You get zero. In a sense, it is the same in life. If you do nothing, then you get nothing. If you do not choose, then you choose nothing. There is a similarity here to the parable of the servant who, given a certain amount of money, wraps it in a cloth and buries it, thinking that it will be safe. Of course, he is told that he has done wrong because he could have invested the money with the bankers, and then at least there would be a bit of interest.
In the same way, in the Christian life, if we do not have a perfect solution before us, it is because we live in a fallen and sinful world. We have to pick the best option available to us, and then go on. Don't do nothing. Never let what you can't do prevent you from doing what you can do. As Voltaire tells us, "the best is the enemy of the good." And James as well: James 4:17 “If anyone knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin.”
I have, elsewhere, mentioned that, following Gloria's death, in trying to determine what I should do in terms of rebuilding my life, someone mentioned the passage in Philippians about whatever is pure, think on these things. I took this as an indication that I should de-emphasise my work in information security. Later, certain events seem to indicate that this was, in fact, the wrong choice. That I should be continuing with my information security work, but possibly in a different way.
At the moment, I am writing sermons based on specific lessons out of my seminar materials for the study of information security. I am going through my curriculum for information security, with all of its frauds, scams, attacks, and adversaries, and using those concepts to create and write sermons, one of which is this one. Did I make the wrong choice? Did I make the right choice? Only God can answer that question. I certainly don't know for sure, but it certainly seems that the advice, and my interpretation of it, was holding me back from what God might be now directing me to. It might be that I needed a delay in order to do this, and that God provided that delay. Once again, I don't know, but what I can say is that, presented with any range of options, in our fallen, sinful world, all that we can do is to pick the path which, in our current state of fragmentary knowledge and understanding of God's will, does look like the best. Even if it's the best among a range of bad options, or a range of good options, of which we can take only one.
I spent the day recently with a young man who is trying to consider how best to live and structure his life. He is a thoughtful young man, and although he does not have a vast range of experience, he is considering his whole life: should he marry? What kind of business should he be involved in? Should he be pursuing business primarily, or charitable endeavours? He is faced with many options. A number of them are good, but he can only pick one. There is only one that he can concentrate all his energies on. Which one should it be?
You don't have to be young to face this kind of paralyzing indecision. After Gloria died, a friend told me that now I had the chance to reinvent myself. I knew what he meant, since he himself had lost two wives and a son in the course of his life. My first reaction was, "Thanks, but I'll pass on the opportunity." That ship had sailed. That wasn't an option.
Now, what do I do with my life? I am writing the words to sermons that nobody hears. I am writing seminars, and materials for them, that no one ever attends. I am working with volunteer organizations which are falling apart for lack of volunteers and lack of funding.
At one point, many years ago, I was working in a place where I could ride my bike to work. One time Gloria needed to come and pick me up after work. As we headed home, we reached a point on Boundary Road in Vancouver where you could see pretty much my entire bicycling route stretched out ahead of me, terminating at a point high in the North Shore Mountains. She burst out, "How do you possibly keep going when you know that you have to drive all of that?" I replied, "You don't drive all of that. You look at the road twenty feet ahead of you, and you drive that."
Often, our paralyzing indecision comes from the consideration of "all of that." Our entire life stretches out before us, and we think that the choice that we make now will determine what we do for our entire future. That is seldom the case. I take issue with the career planners who say that you need to plan, very early, in great detail, how your life is going to work. If you do not, you will not be a success. I never wanted to be a teacher because my parents weren't particularly good at it, and certainly didn't love it. When I was forced into it, I loved it. I thought my life was over when I got fired from teaching. The fact that I got fired from teaching resulted in me teaching on six continents. All my life I seem to have been forced into situations, and often jobs, that I would not have chosen. Looking back, it is astonishing to consider how perfectly chosen all of them were.
It's almost as if somebody else knew the right answer.
Theological Lessons from Information Security
Sermon - TLIS - 0.1.1 - Security is a hindrance with no benefit
Sermon - TLIS - 0.2 / 47 - Integrity/Robert Slade is a world renowned speaker
Sermon - TLIS - 1.1.3 - Functional and Assurance Requirements
Sermon TLIS - 1.1.5 - "Footprints" and key performance indicators/metrics
Sermon - TLIS - 1.1.7 - Security Frameworks
Sermon - TLIS - 1.2.1 / 34 - Edit, Audit, Prophet
Sermon - TLIS - 1.5.1 - Manage Everything
Sermon - TLIS - 1.7.1 - Organizational Roles and Body Parts
Sermon - TLIS - 9.8.5 / 73 - Muster station, safe and secure
Sermon - TLIS - 10.3.1 - Intellectual Property
Sermon - TLIS - 10.5.1 - Privacy
Sermon TLIS - 10.6.1 / 54 - Liability and Negligence
No comments:
Post a Comment