A Sound-Bite World

                                                                

A Sound-Bite World

 

Wow, we sure are busy. Have you taken time to notice how fast life passes by? Twenty-four hours seem to slip past in mere minutes. By the time we have had our morning coffee (as normal people do) the day has given way to the noon time sun. The end of the week is upon us just as Monday evening, with all of its hectic high paced chaotic bewilderment, slams the door and opens into Thursday. And June becomes October with little remembrance of the summer activities.

 

In fact, we are so fast paced that we do not take time to think. We do not want to think. Our evening news (which I actually refuse to watch these days) consists or snippets of events condensed in a way that the public can tolerate. Because the general population does not slow down long enough to listen to anything that requires more than 45 seconds of concentration.

 

Ours is a sound bite world. Speaking with our son recently he reminded me that today, people simply do not pick up a book for the purpose of learning. We have at our fingertips (literally, with phones and iPads) whole libraries of great literature and we refuse to learn. Our communication with others is not a complex lengthy discussion of matters concerning God and mankind or difficulties facing our communities and how we can make a difference. We do not converse with others on intellectual levels built by years of educational prowess. Instead, we send 127-character messages, misspelled and poorly constructed and believe we have communicated.

 

Our communication with God is no different. Our hurried days filled with simplistic blurbs thrown from one communication device to another, which we have the audacity to call communication, are perfect examples of our time spent with God.

 

A library of 66 divine books is bound and sitting on our end table or nightstand, untouched, unruffled and very carefully preserved from wear…the Bible. We simply do not touch it. It takes too long to actually read the Word of God for understanding. We may quickly read a 47-word devotional “about” the Word. And we may even include a single verse to highlight the thought. But, we are too busy to truly study the Word; to spend time thinking and meditating on its meaning. The same devices that allow us to communicate with anyone in the world within seconds, also have the ability to provide us with an in-depth study of any passage of God’s Word at any moment in time...but we have no time.

 

And that same expedited nature carries over into our worship services as well. Make it fast. Make it simple. Keep it moving. Don’t focus too long on one thing. Start here…quickly move to next event…stop…go home. What about worship? What about hearing a message from God? What about meditating on His Word so that it changes our lives?

 

We have allowed society to make God inconvenient. Satan has successfully moved us, the Church, into a fast-paced routine that has no time to study the Word, worship and serve God, or to be effective witnesses in this world today…we are too busy.

 

If I could make a simple suggestion to the Church today it might be, “Put the phone down and turn it off. Move away from the computer/TV and turn it off. Sit quietly for an extended period of time with God’s Word, and studies concerning God’s Word, open in your hands and read with the intent to hear.” Slow down in this fast paced world. Give God time.

 

Jesus will do one thing quickly, 1Corinthians 15:52 “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” Will you be ready or will you be ashamed?