Dear Reader,
I have been thinking today about why I don't watch the news or listen to the radio. Some may disagree with me, but I've decided it's not worth my time. I don't like turning on the radio and hearing only what "we want to hear" and then seeing the same things on news and politics. However, I realize I should be more "up-to-date" on these things because people tell me they're important. They say things like, "It's something you're able to vote for, you should know about it" or "You can't make a difference unless you know what you're talking about." These things are true I guess, but to me it's like sports. I've never learned enough to make a stance on anything and I don't really know where to begin to catch up. Most importantly, I don't have any care for it. I feel like it's all meaningless and lost (not sports). I see politicians lie, people argue, people die every day on the TV, but no one laments, stories twisted for pleasure, people entertaining themselves with other's failures, shortcomings, wrongs, and making "their own stance" on just about every possible thing.
I see a nation with a big mouth. Deaf and becoming dumb. The more we exercise our freedom of speech the more it seems we've been drown out. Have you ever noticed that the more people fill a room the louder you have to talk. That's how I feel the world is getting. Like I said, some may disagree with me, but I see it consistently.
Reader, all this brings me to say that I may just delete my Facebook pretty soon. I'm tired of the selfishness behind it. It just tempts me to say "my life is important" "like me!". Not like this. I feel like this is something very exclusive and people won't waste their time reading this unless they actually care. Facebook is eye candy.
Which brings me to the Bible. Lately, I've been treating the word like that, eye candy. Read a verse, "WHOO! How refreshing. Cool I'm set for the day!" As if God's status for the day was "Psalm 51:1" and I skim it, like it, move on. Words are thrown about so foolishly and nonchalantly that they have no depth or meaning. It robs the Living Word of it's power. Not that God could ever be constrained! But I believe we've become those deaf ones Christ was talking about when He began to end His parables with "let he who has ears hear".
My thoughts keep going back to Switchfoot's new song, Selling the News. It brings up some very valid arguments, like everything Jon Foreman writes.If you haven't heard of it yet please look up the lyrics.
Reader, the state of my "free" nation is depressive. We've never been so enslaved as we are now. Oh how I long for our Exodus.
Chelsy.
I totally agree! I've been thinking the same thing lately about Facebook. Eye candy is the perfect way to describe it: temporarily satisfactory while our eyes "taste" it, then it disappears and it has no impact on the rest of our day.
ReplyDeleteI tend to agree with you on the whole news thing too, but I do think we should be informed. There should be a Christian news station that only broadcasts things from a Christian point of view; without unnecessarily getting into people's business, slandering, finding humor in people's faults, etc.
The part you said about the Bible convicted me, because I tend to do that too. Its like my bible reading is just another check mark off my list of things to do, although it is something I should do. I'm going to get back into the habbit of praying for God to help me absorb what he is saying and help me to learn something new that may be applicable to my life before I read my Bible.
Thanks be to God that He's using you to achieve his will through this blog! I will try to spread the word around about it;D
-Megan N.
We actually talked about something similar tonight in my small group. We're doing the Crazy Love video series, along with most of us reading the book, and somehow got around to discussing how we've seen that most American Christians don't truly understand what we have, or what we've done. We live in a free nation, yet we don't value it as much as we should. We (the girls in my small group) have come into contact with so many people who have served in other countries for extended periods of time, and it is unfathomable the things they do for Christianity. They literally give up EVERYTHING. Their job, their family, their old life- all because the Gospel changed them. That's a lot. That's huge. And then here in America, where we are not necessarily persecuted to that degree, we are afraid, even ashamed to admit our faith, or to reach out and share it. God really burdened my heart tonight for the friends and people that I see every day that either refuse to listen to the good news, or that have heard it and just don't care. In this loud world of choices, Christianity is being put on the back burner. Christ is coming back, though. We're getting closer every day, and when that glorious day comes, I'm afraid there will still be too many lost. The only thing now is praying that we can rise up in this noise and help the truth be heard.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to say I see something in what both of you said I'd like to bring up. Yes the world is messed up. We abuse freedom and fail to see things from a right perspective. But honestly I don't think the solution is creating more Christian themed television or "Christianizing" Facebook or even losing freedom. Maybe instead we should take advantage of what we've been given. We don't have to rely on the news to fund truth, and we'e been given so much information that, although sometimes it's a challenge, we can learn so much! Sometimes it's helpful to look at how the world sees things first and then determine for ourselves what the truth really is. Our freedom is one of these blessings we've been given. Maybe we should take a radical approach and instead of trying to speak louder than the world, say what needs to be said to those who are willing to hear and speak it always and boldly. The world will always be corrupt. It's important to know how to be counter culture through all the noise.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I think you're right.
ReplyDelete-Megan