random thoughts on what's important to us

This is something that has been bothering me for the last couple of days. As I look around at the different news sites (I told you before I don't read the newspaper due to blood pressure issues), I happened to notice what they were carrying as the 'headlines' or major stories. Some of them deal with the important issues of the day (economy, war, etc.) but there are also quite a few stories that I would best categorize as 'news of the weird': bizarre things happening to people, unusual stores opening, and other things that, as a reader make me say 'interesting' but on further reflection I can't say that it improved my life at all.

Maybe I spend too much time looking into the past. It seems to me that far too often, the debate about the issues of today and what should be of importance to us is kicked to the side to make room for items that whose sole purpose is to shock and amaze. I would be curious to see how people one to two hundred years ago would do in debating some of today's 'intellectuals', all other things being equal. To me, if nothing else, they would certainly outlast most everybody. You read and hear about speeches and debates going on for hours on end, and writings that were very lengthy. What do we have today? I'm sure a lot of us get antsy if something goes longer than an hour (I'm thinking of church services and ceremonies, not our beloved sporting events). We'd quit the field before they would even be warmed up.

Now, that's not to say there wasn't the interest back then in the things I described above,it just seems these items didn't have the prominence and importance that they enjoy today. We need things to be exciting, entertaining, strange, bizarre, and in some cases even gross in order to hold our attention. When we look to the Bible about things we are to be interested in, we find in particular throughout the Psalms and Proverbs that wisdom is highly treasured, along with fear and knowledge of the Lord. When we see stories about people with extra digits, or some other strange, gross, or other story, are we adding to our wisdom? I would dare say we're not adding to our fear or knowledge of the Lord (you have to acknowledge He exists for those to exist).

Far too often we fill our minds, eyes, ears, etc. with those things which dull the mind and senses, as opposed to searching out the deeper truths about our lives and faith. As a society, if we can't find the answer immediately, or prove our theory or point of view in 30 minutes or less (the time it takes to get a pizza delivered), we lose interest and walk away. If we want to learn the meaning of something, or find out more about a certain person, place, or thing we go immediately to the Internet to 'Google' it or find a site. We have far too often given in to the immediate desires of our bodies instead of doing the hard work to determine the truth.