Beauty surrounds us, but we usually need to be walking in a garden to know it - Rumi
Isn’t modern technology wonderful? I put “seek and ye shall find” into my internet search engine just now and it returned 1,870,000 hits within 0.39 seconds. How amazing is that? Another quick search revealed that there are a vast number of Christian web-sites, blog spots available for everyone to use - and online versions of the Bible without number. There are even pod-casts so that you listen to a 3 minute retreat on your mobile phone whilst in a traffic jam on the way to work. Everything you ever wanted to know about God at the click of a mouse.
The question is how do we treat all that barrage of information now so easily available to us? Do we regard it warily, after all anyone can put up his own website and who knows what sinister message may be there? Or do we embrace it but use it wisely seeking those sites on which we can rely? Personally I have nothing against all this modern stuff. Most websites, blog spots and etc are very useful; they can be instructive, inspirational, thought-provoking or consoling whilst the online versions of the Bible, are an essential piece of kit for everyone. (That said; don’t forget that paper version on the bookshelf.) But is that really what God wants of us, to sit glued to a computer screen all day? Surely He had some better purpose for us than that when He made us? After all, He did make us in His own image. Until we ask him we will never know the answer to that one. Now, here is a thought why don’t we use this modern technology to look at a piece from the Bible perhaps using the daily Mass readings or the lectionary used by our church. We should read it through as many times as we feel we need to, then think about it, pray about it asking God’s help to understand the message He is giving us. We shouldn’t look at any of the commentaries or helpful devotional readings at this point in time since we are looking for God’s message for us; no-one else. God may have a different message from the same reading for others. Having read, thought about, and prayed about the passage we now need to listen to God’s answer, his instructions to us for the day ahead if you like. That guidance, those instructions may come in an unexpected way, it may be that looking at a devotional reading online will show us what He requires of us, for example. Then we should GET OUT THERE and DO SOMETHING wonderful with it. By the way, He doesn’t expect all of us to be great teachers or writers. He knows we cannot all heal the sick. He knows what we can and can’t do but He will make sure that we have the tools to do whatever it is that He requires of us. As someone said to me the other day “God does not call the qualified but qualifies those He calls.” It may be something simple we are called upon to do. Remember Matthew 5:16 which says: ‘ Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.’ Matthew 5:16King James Version (KJV)
1 Comment
3/1/2015 05:51:43 am
A wonderful start to what will certainly be a new bright spot in the Christian reflection blogosphere. Looking forward to reading more!
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AuthorI am an Authorised Local Preacher in an Anglo Catholic parish church, in the Diocese of Essex UK Archives
February 2022
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