After the attempted shoe bombing 10 years ago, TSA made everyone remove their shoes. Then last year, someone put a bomb in their underwear: the underwear bomber. Thank God for ‘body scanners,” or who knows what new rules TSA might have implemented. But alas! This weekend, a 95-year old woman was made to remove her underwear—an adult diaper! And last month a 5-year old was given a pat-down. Everyone is wondering “what happened to common sense?” (Apparently, it got thrown out with the dirty diapers.) But this matter is not limited to TSA. What about the common sense of our elected officials? On what planet does it make sense to borrow and spend our way out of debt?
Considering the aforementioned, “common sense” seems to have been replaced by its alter ego, “collective insanity.” Let’s hope it is a temporary condition. But “temporary insanity” is not uncommon to fallen man. Adam had a spell of temporary insanity when he agreed to eat the “poison apple.” Wasn't David temporarily out of his mind when he slept with Bathsheba and tried to cover it up. Centuries later, Paul asked the Galatians, “Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth” (3:1). And even Jesus gave witness to this malady in His story of the Prodigal son: “After he came to his senses, he returned to his father “(Luke 15:18). The prodigal had a bout of temporary insanity.
Satan’s strategy has always been to cast a spell of deception on the unwitting. I don’t have much hope for our nation’s “collective insanity.” But I do hope and pray that we in the 21st century American Church won’t wake up one day (come to our senses) and find that we’ve been deceived into a “pig pen” mindset, “just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent” (2 Cor. 11:3).
Greg,
ReplyDeleteFor all of those "temporarily insane" individuals who let private panic determine their public response: I say, let them be the first ones to have their policy enacted upon them. Let their own children and elderly be the first ones to experience the indignity of being searched--publicly--in the ways that others must experience. Also, let the government officials who "borrow and spend" be the first ones to have a personal taste of the end result of our fiscal madness so they are given a clear reminder that they need to handle the government's money as if they were running their own household. When responsible individuals set up their household they never intend to lose all of their income and borrow themselves into slavery.
Your biblical examples of "temporary insanity" of notable people is a pertinent reminder of how even people "at the top of their game" can be deceived into making foolish choices that can undermine the blessings in which they are dwelling. This also goes for our American churches which have become so dependent upon a physical mortgage to accomplish their spiritual mandate. Something has become "lost in the translation" and there is much room to revisit the idea of what Jesus had in mind when He gave the Great Commission.
Stan