How to Learn

            A young boy once approached his father to ask, "Dad, why does the wind blow?"

            His father responded, "I don't know, son." 

            "Dad, where do the clouds come from?"

            "I'm not sure, son." 

            "Dad, what makes a rainbow?"

            "No idea, son."

            "Dad, do you mind me asking you all these questions?" 

            "Not at all, son. How else are you going to learn?"

            Let’s hope that father, and those of us who are parents, do a lot better job when our children ask the question, “Why should I follow Jesus?”

Scattered Effort

Scattered Effort

            Here is something I read in the publication, BITS AND PIECES, twenty years ago; Henry Ford is the source of this quote, and it challenges those of us who have embraced the multi-tasking culture—of whom, I am chief.  

“A weakness of all human beings is trying to do too many things at once. That scatters effort and destroys direction. It makes for haste, and haste makes waste. So we do things all the wrong ways possible before we come to the right one. Then we think it is the best way because it works, and it was the only way left that we could see.”

            The psalmist issued a interesting related quote three thousand years ago:

 “Be still, and know that I am God…”

Mud Pies in a Slum

Today is a travel day, so what I have to share is not so much a story as a great quote, "We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." - C.S. Lewis

Amusing Ourselves to Death

In August, 2005, a South Korean man identified to the press only as “Lee”, sat down at a computer in an internet café to play video games. For the next 50 hours, he played almost non-stop. He played until he died.

Lee’s mother had sent former work collegues to find him, after he had not returned home. They found him in the cyberspace café and relayed his mother’s message. He replied that he would finish the game and then return home. He passed away a few minutes later.

Heart failure was the culprit. Lee’s death became an international sensation. "We presume the cause of death was heart failure stemming from exhaustion," a provincial police official from Lee’s South Korean province stated.

When I think of Lee, I think of how his life, and death, are warnings to us. As Paul wrote, “Learn to appreciate and give dignity to your body, not abusing it, as is so common among those who know nothing of God” (I Thess. 4:4-5.) THE MESSAGE

Satan’s Convention

This was sent to me a decade ago. The author is unknown, but the words are still relevant.

Satan’s Convention

Satan called a worldwide convention.  In his opening address to his evil angels, he said, "We can't keep the Christians from going to church. We can't keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth.  We can't even keep them from conservative values. But we can do something else. We can keep them from forming an intimate, abiding experience in Christ.

If they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken. So let them go to church, let them have their conservative lifestyles, but steal their time, so they can't gain that experience in Jesus Christ.

This is what I want you to do, angels.  Distract them from gaining hold of their Savior and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day."

"How shall we do this?”  shouted his angels.

"Keep them busy in the non-essentials of life and invent unnumbered schemes to occupy their minds," he answered. "Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, then, borrow, borrow, borrow. Convince the wives to go to work and the husbands to work 6 or 7 days a week, 0-12 hrs. a day, so they can afford their lifestyles.  Keep them from spending time with their children.  As their family fragments, soon their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work."

"Over-stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still small voice.  Entice them to play the radio or cassette player whenever they drive, to keep the TV, the VCR, and their CD's going constantly in their homes.  And see to it that every store and restaurant in the world plays music constantly.  This will jam their minds and break that union with Christ."

"Fill their coffee tables with magazines and newspapers.  Pound their minds with the news 24 hrs. a day. Invade their driving moments with billboards.  Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, sweepstakes, mail order catalogues, and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering, free products, services, and false hopes."

"Even in their recreation, let them be excessive.  Have them return from their recreation exhausted, disquieted and unprepared for the coming week.  Don't let them go out in nature.  Send them to amusement parks, sporting events, concerts and movies instead.

And when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip and small talk so that they leave with troubled consciences and unsettled emotion."

"Let them be involved in soul-winning.  But crowd their lives with so many good causes they have no time to seek power from Christ. Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family unity for the good of the cause."  It was quite a convention in the end.

And the evil angels went eagerly to their assignments causing Christians everywhere to get busy, busy, busy and rush here and there.

"Be still and know that I am God."  Have you taken time to listen lately?

The United State of Busyness

A few weeks ago, TIME magazine did a cover story on the American novelist, Jonathan Franzen. Here is a quote from Franzen that speaks to America today:

We are so distracted by and engulfed by the technologies we've created, and by the constant barrage of so-called information that comes our way, that more than ever to immerse yourself in an involving book seems socially useful. The place of stillness that you have to go to to write, but also to read seriously, is the point where you can actually make responsible decisions, where you can actually engage productively with an otherwise scary and unmanageable world.

Franzen was inspired by the 19^th century philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. Ahead of his time, Kierkegaard wrote that the problem of perpetual busyness is that which locks an individual into continuous distraction.

We live in a society with all of its cell phones, Internet capabilities, MP3 players and the like that seeks to distract us. With that distraction, as TIME so ably summarizes it, people are empowered to “avoid difficult realities and maintain self-deceptions.”

I like Franzen’s idea of finding a place of stillness, in order to read, process, and think. Rather than making any book your partner in that endeavor, I would recommend placing our priority upon one: the Bible. With that time, that place, and that book, I think each day we can find an oasis in our cultural desert. 

Could there be a more nourishing experience?