Shine Your Light

    

    My grandma was recently relating to me her troubles with texts. She has a flip phone still so of course it takes a while compared to our modern I-phones but she is more able to cope with it. However, she was a little exasperated when I talked to her because someone had been asking her questions via text which she had taken a couple hours to think over before responding. 

    "What kind of questions?" I asked. 

    "Oh just everyday questions, but they threw me off guard," she laughed. 

    What she said didn't make sense. How could normal polite questions befuddle you? But then it got me thinking. I used to be that way. When I had a few precious contacts in my phone, I thought of a text as a letter, something to be considered on both sides when actually, a text is often used as a thought, sometimes even partial and flippant. You could be asking a question out of curiosity, mere politeness, a bridge to another question, etc. The receiver can make their answer calculated or quickly make up an answer that doesn't provide a ton of details. Ma Glo was slightly confused with the questions because she didn't know in what context to answer them. Were they actually caring - like, did they want to know her whole history of how her day was going? 

While Grandmas still have a full set of attention span brain cells (mostly), we are a generation of attention span deficiency - thought provoked, yes, but only for a second. I deal with this often myself as I jump from one thing to the next in rapid succession.  Messages often zip through our phones and computers constantly as we send out fragments of thoughts through the air to end up miles away. 

In 1986, the Telegraph UK magazine estimated we sent out – mainly by post, telephone and fax – around two and a half pages of newspaper each day. By 2007, this estimate had increased to six full newspapers thanks to email, digital photography, Twitter and social network sites. Twelve years later, Pintrest, Instagram, and Snapchat have all joined the ranks. How many newspapers does your brain give out now? I assume more than six. Unfortunately, no one has time to do the math. 

One site I visited showed a study in 2018 has calculated that on average, Americans send and receive about 94 text messages per day. To check out this interesting article, head to: https://www.textrequest.com/blog/how-many-texts-people-send-per-day/ While this is only in the text sphere, imagine how much information we give out between all our connections with the world. We need to be mindful that we are the light of the world according to Matthew 5:14. As candle bearers of God's flame, we have a very important responsibility to hold to the Word with truth. If we send messages or pictures that do not show the light of Christ then we are not being good stewards of the light He has entrusted in us. When we are solely focused on God alone, then He will be able to send out emanating powerful beams for others to see even through hardship. But if we are self-focused, his light will be faded for we are putting our own dusty filter over his purity. 

The devil tries to imitate Christ's light as warned in 2 Corinthians 11:14. Think of a tanning salon versus the sun. The sun is Christ. It warms the earth and us. Powerful and bright, it can hurt our skin if we're not careful. But it still is the sustainer of life on our planet. Without it, we would wither away. However, the tanning salon was made to copy the sun for the sole purpose of enhancing the UV radiation rays onto our skin. It does not cause life to grow. In fact, it roasts our skin to a rich shade of brown to look like we've been in the sun for our whole life. Over time, if a person continues to us tanning salons, it will lead to skin cancer, premature aging, eye damage, immune system suppression, etc. The devil takes something good like the sun's rays and twists them to work for his own devious purposes. People go to him for their "tan" because it works better and faster. But the consequences are not worth the risk. 

Out of the many texts, posts, stories, etc. that come from our creative brains, remember to take time to think this week. Are we allowing the devil to roast someone's heart, to cause anger or hurt through what we advocate for? At the same time, are we consciously mindful of how we demonstrate Jesus to others? Do we  need to reduce our overload of newspapers to others in order love sincerely? Let Jesus shine through you out of love, not obligation. 

“For to speak the truth, there are but few that care thus to spend their time, but choose rather to be speaking of things to no profit.” 
― John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress