Last week I started with a new
series about the three little pigs. One built his house of straw,
one with sticks and the only one who kept on standing was the house
built with bricks. I also asked the question whether your life was
filled with straw, sticks or bricks? Which one consumes most of
your time?
This week I want to start with the
straw that can fill one's life and eat at the time that you ought
to be spending on the bricks. There could be much more than these
that I am going to discuss, but these are the ones I feel is most
common amongst people.
1.
The internet
Now before some of you want to
stone me for saying this, please hear me out first. The internet is
a wonderful thing. Information is at hand, we can handle all our
transactions through it, we can stay in touch with people who live
in another part of the world, we can learn so much, we can make
money through using the internet and so I can go on and on. It is
no doubt a good thing, you wouldn't even be able to read my blog if
it wasn't for the internet. I cannot imagine a corporate world
without internet, it is totally unthinkable and it makes me wonder
sometimes what our clever human race will think of next. But for
now the internet is an irreplaceable part of our lives.
But as anything in our lives, it
can become too much. If the internet replaces your contact with
human beings around you, I have a problem with it. I would like to
point out a few examples to bring my statement across.
A friend of mine works at a
design company. She loves working there, but when I asked her about
the people working with her she said they are okay. When I asked
her to elaborate further, she simply said, "Well, they don't talk
much really. When they want to ask/tell me something they email me
even though I am sitting right next to them." Now I found that very
interesting. God made us as human beings who interact with one
another, who need one another. He made each of us with unique
qualities that communicate with one another in interesting manners.
He didn't make us loners who cannot look someone else in the eyes.
We are human beings, made for interaction and if that interaction
is through a cold computer, whilst we have the alternative to be
polite and talk to the person next to me, I have a problem with
it.
Another example is when I went to
say hallo to a friend of mine, her sister was visiting her from
overseas. But the whole time I was there she was on Facebook.
The whole time updating her status and checking the status of
everyone she knew to see if something changed in the meantime. I
barely got a nod. Now I don't have a problem with Facebook per se,
but when it is more important than the people around you, and most
importantly your family around you, then I have a problem. She was
on Facebook most of her stay with her sister and it made her sister
feel less important than all her 'friends' on Facebook, which is
very sad to me.
Also I have heard numerous times
examples of men coming home from work, who slumps in front of the
internet to search the net for the latest news and trends. I am not
talking about men that come home that still need to finish work, I
am talking about men putting general news on the internet in front
of their wives and children. The children are keen to spend some
time with their father they haven't seen all day and the wife would
like to chat about things with her husband, but he prefers the
internet above them. I have a problem with that. Nothing should
come ahead of your family, except God.
Last, but definitely not least,
think about the time you spend on the internet, and now I am not
talking about your working hours/ hours paying bills etc, but the
physical time you spend simply 'surfing the net'. Is it more than
the time you spend with the Lord? If it is, then you need to start
looking for ways to decrease your time because (maybe unknowningly)
you are creating an idol, you are idolizing and valuing the
internet more than God. In the Old Testament times it was easy to
recognize an idol and it is easy for us to condemn them today for
worshipping dead wooden images. But today the internet can also be
classified as a 'dead wooden image'.
It is with examples such as these
that the internet becomes straw to me. When the first wolf comes
and blows at your house, in other words, if something comes and
rattles your life, the internet will blow away very quickly. You
need something more solid to keep you standing, and there is
nothing more solid than our Rock, Jesus.
Lord please give us the strength to
value You and our family more than the internet. It sounds so easy,
but it is not. Please help us, we don't want an idol above You
Lord. Amen.