This morning, Mike and I went out for breakfast and while waiting for it to arrive, we browsed the newspaper.
I had the property section and was looking at a particular apartment. The strangest thing happened. I found myself sort of trying to find a mouse so I could click for more information! I wanted to see the photos and to do so, I needed to click through them all! Now, friends, I’m not going mad. It was only for a split second. I didn’t actually REACH for the mouse. But it got me thinking about how our lives have changed. Information is at our fingertips and browsing property online is so much easier than peering at poor print and dull photos in a paper.
I seldom read newspapers these days. In fact my morning routine is usually to click onto either News 24 or CNN website on my cell phone and read the headlines.
Truth be told there’s not too much good news and the media seems to take great delight in pouncing on the worst of the news in the world and spreading it feverishly across the pages of the digital screens. You have to be picky about what you choose to read because of the overload of violence and smut. It’s one of the reasons I don’t go onto IOL any longer. They hide vulgar stories under the guise of human interest. I have seen similar falseness on News 24 but have got wise to it. I clicked on a so called ‘weight loss’ story the other day to find it veiled advertising for a magazine.
I’ve carried a degree of personal censorship through to Facebook. I have a number of family members and friends saved in my Facebook search and I look there to see who has new posts and will go in individually and check them out. It keeps me up to date without tripping up over adverts or unsolicited spam.
Our lives have become so digital that it’s difficult for me to go out without my cell phone and it’s difficult to sit through an entire meal without checking to see if my friends have made their scrabble moves or if I have received a work email. I can’t stand myself checking my cell phone at the table, but it’s going to take some serious discipline to stop myself. The other day when we were out at dinner, I was out of data and air time and at the end of the meal, Julian exclaimed, “I wondered why you weren’t looking at your phone!” It’s a bad habit I must break!
This photo was taken a few years ago. Mike still has his cell phone but I think the Blackberries at the end are no longer in use.
Time and technology march on.
Not much lasts forever.
Isaiah 40:8
“The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.”
The fact that we still have the Word of God today points to the truth of Isaiah’s words. Isaiah who lived 700 years before the coming of Christ, so that’s 2700 years ago and we still read his words today.
We need writing today that has stood the test of time – that has proven true – that is founded on a strong spiritual foundation – we have that in the Bible and it’s available to all.
I am grateful for that!
These are the days!
Keep the smile going.
God bless you.
In His Grip,
Helga xx 🙂