I remember how it started. A customer called and asked,
"Got a fax machine?"
"What's that?"
"It hooks up to a phone line and lets you send images right away."
"Sounds great."
"I'll mail this blueprint, but you've gotta get a fax."
Anything on paper could be in my hands within minutes. It was fast, but insistent. Once a fax was transmitted, there was no excuse for not dealing with it immediately. In a small way, technology started to control my day.
PC's and email came next. Letters and telephone conversations became less important as email took over. Along with speed came volume, and the number of communications exploded. Checking email several times a day became essential and so did quick responses, even if they interrupted the current workload.
Cell phones became universal and it seemed that when you traveled your office came along. Gone were the days of quiet time and reflection as you drove. Your privacy was gone, too, since the phones doubled as cameras that could capture your - and everyone else's - flaws and put them on the web. They could be posted worldwide, instantly and irretrievably.
We accessed information on the web, and lots of it. The concept of casually browsing a newspaper, magazine or book and unexpectly learning something of value disappeared. In the meantime, the specific information you sought was fast, voluminous and, in many cases, unreliable. Truth somehow became subjective.
Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, iPod, Smartphones, blogs, texting...and on...and on. Just keeping up with the technology is daunting. The world continues to accelerate and may reach a point where the human mind is overwhelmed by it. It might already be there.
Tom Hayes and Michael S. Malone, in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal titled "The Ten-Year Century" note that 60-second TV commercials are compressed into 30-second spots "as we multitask our way through emails, text messages and tweets."
Time compression extends to the world at large: "Changes that used to take generations...now unfurl in a span of years. Since 2000 we've experienced three economic bubbles, three market crashes, a devastating terrorist attack, and a global influenza pandemic."
"Moore's Law" postulates that semi-conductor chips double their performance every 18-24 months. This means faster access to greater volumes of information crunched by chips that go "through as many computations in a second as there are heartbeats in ten lifetimes." Decisions are made with snippets of data snatched from a constantly enlarging stream of ever changing information. Decision-makers are hanging onto a tiger by the tail because they're inundated by data and pressured to act quickly.
In the past, things sometimes got out of control but at least we had an idea of what was going on. Now they're getting beyond comprehension.
Hayes and Malone believe that "trust will become a critical factor. Without the luxury of time, trust will be the new currency of our times, whether in news sources, economic systems, political figures, even spiritual leaders. As change accelerates, it will remain one true constant."
The track record of "news sources, economic systems, political figures and spiritual leaders" up until now isn't encouraging. Everyday people don't provide reasons for optimism, either. I know a person who tries to do the right thing, but can't be trusted in time compression. Me. I once had a customer who demanded pricing instantly as he snapped his fingers over the phone. With no time to update costs, I repeatedly jacked up the prices and added a percentage for aggravation each time. And they were accepted because this guy, in his focus on speed, never questioned them. This went on until the buyer - incredibly - moved on to a bigger job. As the world intensifies, "trust" suffers. It sure doesn't become more common.
The accelerating speed of change leaves us without a solid foundation. It seems that anything can be here today and gone tomorrow or true today and false tomorrow.
Anything except Christ.
Jesus provides peace, strength and hope that transcend the world's craziness. If you're looking for trust and the "one true constant," He's the answer.
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I'm curious: what would you say to the person who then says 'I have all the peace and hope I need, all by myself. I don't need Jesus for that.'?
ReplyDeleteHelen Keller lived an amazing life despite being unable to hear or see. She wasn't able to truly know what a rainbow looks like or how a symphony sounds. But she never missed them because she never experienced them.
ReplyDeleteLots of people get through life with what they think is "all the peace and hope they need, all on their own." But it's a stunted version of what they could have. Just as Helen couldn't truly know things of sight and sound, people who refuse to open their minds can't know the peace and hope of Christ. And because they never
know Him, they never miss Him, and they think they've got it all figured out.
I thought I did, too, but only after I came to know Jesus did I realize how shallow and dead-ended my self-made peace and hope were.
Others will find this, too, if they shed their egos and open their minds.
You make a good observation. However, I think you make my point by stating that 'they will find this too if they shed their egos and open their minds'. We have a command from our risen Savior to be His hands and feet and spread the gospel. We need to be clear in telling others of the Good News! Yes, Jesus provides peace, strength, and hope. But these are ancillary. He provides life eternal. He rescues us from a certain death-and eternal separation from our Creator- because of our sin. Christ did not die so we could be happy. He died so we could be His, and be holy. We would be doing a diservice to the unregenerate to let them believe anything else (ie: all the health and wealth preachers).
ReplyDeletehttp://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/2108_as_nice_as_they_let_me_as_mean_as_they_make_me/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DGBlog+%28DG+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
ReplyDeleteI understand what you're saying, but here's where I'm coming from:
ReplyDeletewhen I was an unbeliever, I avoided conversations with Christians (It was similar to what people feel when they see Jehovah's Witnesses coming up the walk).
I think it's more productive to initiate a conversation in a low-key way that relates to what a person already believes, rather than immediately challenging him on it. As a response to the original question of talking to a person who doesn't think they need Jesus, I'd say "that's what I thought, too. I was getting along with as much peace as anyone else until I looked into Christ. It surprised me to find there's a lot more to Him than I ever thought - and I found he brings far more peace than I ever had."
This doesn't deny Christ or eternal life by any measure. But it does open a conversation that may take place over a long period.
Better to have an open door that starts with slow, non-threatening conversation than to close the door immediately by providing too much, too fast.