Knowledge and People Travel Fast

Google CEO Eric Schmidt describes his life in the future: his bed will wake him up when he cycles out of R.E.M. sleep; a driverless car will take him to work; returning phone calls and scheduling events will be done by robots; and he will swallow a microchip to monitor his health and alert his doctor if anything is wrong. Thirty years ago such talk would have seemed ridiculous—but not anymore.  Such things are now quite believable.

God told His prophet Daniel that certain mysteries regarding the last days would be “revealed” when “knowledge increases” and men travel “back and forth” (Daniel 12:4). No one can argue that there has not been an exponential increase of both knowledge and speed. The cross-Atlantic voyage that took Columbus months is now done in a few hours!

And the increase of knowledge has been advanced by chip technology. We are living in ‘The Information Age.’  Knowledge is exploding in every direction. While Daniel’s phrase ‘increased knowledge’ means that some portions of the book of Daniel would not to be understood until the time of the end, many Bible scholars believe it also applies to an increasing knowledge of science, medicine, travel, and technology. If we have not reached that time yet, we must be amazingly close.

Something to Chew On

After WWII, automation accelerated. And by the mid-50’s we were imagining the day when ‘robots’ would make our lives much easier—and simpler. In my childish mind, I visualized robots walking around our homes, doing our work. We could never have imagined that these robots would be little computer chips automating everything from cars to toasters. But we did believe 'it' would make our lives simpler.

But the ‘digital’ age has not made life simpler. With the ability to do more, we do more—'multi-tasking.' The governing “value” of the day is speed—fast is good; slow is bad. My generation valued immediate gratification more than any preceding one. Now a ‘new’ generation—the ‘Millennials’—is addicted to speed.

Time is yet to tell how this new ‘value’ of speed will affect the spiritual principles of endurance, patience, longsuffering. God never serves ‘fast food.’ Serious students of the Bible know it takes much time to read and study, pray and meditate until the Word can be digested. Many have become accustomed to the 'fast food' of Internet ‘devotionals’ (one-minute meditations; word for the day) that enter through our web portals every morning. Consumption takes only minutes. Then we rush out the door at break-neck speed, with barely another thought about the 'word' or 'thought' of the day.

I hope my “Dying to Live” devotional postings have not become anyone’s “instant” devotions. My purpose is to give you something to think on; and however brief, to chew on throughout the day. Start chewing!

Please Be Quiet!

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer … Let my meditation be pleasing to You (Ps. 19:14; 104:34).

Almost 60 years ago, in his book “Pathways to Power,” Dr. Merrill Unger wrote:Meditation upon God’s Word is fast becoming a lost art among many Christian people. This holy exercise of pondering over the Word, chewing it as an animal chews its cud to get its sweetness and nutritive virtue into the heart and life, takes time… [And this] ill fits into the speed of our modern age. Today most Christians’ devotions are too hurried, their lives too rushed.

If that was true in the early fifties, how much more is it true today—in an age that has become faster than Unger could have imagined. Prayer and preoccupation are strange bed-fellows. Hurriedness and Holiness are incompatible. A deep knowledge of spiritual things can only come by the way of unhurried prayer and reflection upon the Word. The goal of our ‘quiet times’ is to internalize and personalize truth until it affects our thoughts, attitudes and actions.

Finding quiet time to meditate will not be easy as you attempt to pull away from the cacophony of modern media. But it is a much-needed Christian discipline. And as you reflect on God's Word during your quiet time, you will learn to recognize God's voice and really know Him.