Lost: Part 3

Do you remember a time before cell phones?  Do you remember a time before email?  Can you imagine functioning in this world without computers, TV, or the Internet?  On one hand, these advancements in technology are GREAT!  On the other hand, we are allowing these things to suck the life out of us.  I love the commercial I've seen on TV now where the Dad comes home from work and he walks in to talk to his wife, and she's on the computer, he walks in his son's room and he's playing a video game, he walks in his daughter's room and she's hooked up to her iPod.  Everyone in his family is electronically plugged in, so what does the Dad do?  He shuts the breaker off and cooks dinner outside!  He FORCES his family to have family time!

Please hear my heart and don't get me wrong.  I DO think that email, Facebook, and cell phones are all great ways to stay in touch with people.  I am sad though because I feel like we've LOST that family time.  In one way, we are all more connected than ever through social networking and that's good!  We've found friends and found ways to stay in touch that no one ever thought possible (Skype, Face Time, etc.), but on the other hand, we've lost the art of face-to-face personal interaction.  Do you remember the days when you used to go over to someone's house and visit and have coffee or tea together?  Do you remember the days when you used to take the time to write a handwritten letter or send a card?

I know it's redundant to say "write" and "handwritten" in the same sentence, but did you ever think we'd see a day when teachers were actually having trouble getting their students to write actual words instead of writing their papers the same way they text?  Could you actually believe that some students have forgotten the real words and only communicate in "text talk"?  Who knew that one day they'd take cursive writing and penmanship courses out of elementary school because the art of handwriting is now a lost art?  I was talking to a youth the other day who said her friend was going to have to go to the doctor because she had "text neck".  TEXT NECK????  Do what???  She explained that her neck was hurt because of the way she holds her head to look at her phone all day.  I've also heard reports that texting is bad for your hands, your thumbs, and your wrists.  Who knew we'd ever have actual, physical ailments from TEXTING?  Who knew that one day people would actually be KILLED for texting while driving?

I started this series of posts with music from the 50's.  Back then, who would have ever thought you'd see a day and a future like today?  I know I can't pretend it's still 1957, but sometimes I wish it was.  Sometimes I wish we could go back.  Look how far we've come.  We've lost our moral compass...the line between right and wrong is almost non-existent now.  What was once done in the dark is now being done in broad daylight!  Children have lost respect for their parents and parents have given up.  The sanctity of marriage has now been attacked and everything has become permissible for everyone.  Where have we come from?  What scares me more is where are we going?  How did we get here?

We've got to put Christ back on the throne in our families and commit to fight against the tide and follow God no matter what!  We can't compromise and we can't fit in.  The Word tell us to be in the world, but not of it.  I'm finding the more I plug myself into all of this technology, the less I am plugged in to the Word and the Power of the Holy Spirit.  I can't forsake the reading of my Bible, the underlining, the journaling, the taking notes for a more convenient, electronic version.  Somewhere you lose the intimacy.  We can't forsake the meeting together of God's people in exchange for a more convenient, web conference demonstration.  We need the physical fellowship of God's people.  We need their hands for handshakes and pats on the back, their arms for hugs, and their faces for smiles and their mouths for words of encouragement.  Wonderful words of life...God's words are getting lost.  I find it best described this way in a warning from Amos:  "'The days are coming,' declares the Sovereign LORD, 'when I will send a famine through the land—not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD.'"  --Amos 8:11