Internet: The New Golden Calf by Miz Pink

So knowing that Deke has been lacking in Internet connection the past few days I strongly considered the possibility of simply taking over the blog and making a few housekeeping changes. Ya know, a brighter cheerier main banner, a WordPress template thats heavy on the pinks and purples…But then I remembered that he knows where I live.

Instead I’ve used Deke’s internet woes as inspiration and got to wondering if the Internet is our modern day idol to worship. The latest false god to put before God himself.

No, I’m not planning on giving up my Web fixes. Not asking you to either. But I think alot of us if we looked really hard at our use of the Internet (blogs, discussion boards, online games, social networking sites, online publications, etc etc etc) I think we might find that we spend more time there than we used to in front of the boob tube. And alot of us still spend a lot of time sucking the glass teat too to get our fix of reality TV and whatever else.

I think alot of us feel lost and/or angry when we lose that Internet connection. We start fiending like addicts in some cases. And I think many of us are TOO connected now thanks to Blackberries and Twitter and stuff like that.

No I don’t think giving up the online action is the answer because being connected has many positives. But I think we need to watch ourselves, lest we put our online desires before our more pressing needs like actually working on important things, spending time with family and…oh yeah…God too.

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Blessings from Somewhere

I have a weird hangup. I don’t like to talk about my blessings a lot. I appreciate them, but I feel odd talking about them.

That’s a shame, because as a Christian, I should be talking about the blessings God brings to me in the midst of struggles in this world. Because it’s sometimes through seeing our blessings that people who aren’t Christian sometimes want to learn more or may feel drawn to considering Christ.

There have been so many times that I have gotten an insight at just the right time. Or been delayed in doing something I planned to only to find that the delay allowed me to get some greater blessing I would have missed otherwise. Or the many times, particularly early in my marriage, when I would be in a huge bind with something and not enough money to handle the problem, and that would be when I would get a surprise freelance assignment or a gift or something else, almost always in an amount so close to what I needed that it seemed too coincidental to be anything but a blessing from on high.

Or the fact that my house is now paid off.

Mind you, it wasn’t more than a few months ago I was afraid I might not have a house soon. That’s how hairy finances have been.

But in the midst of a time when it is hard enough to keep the utilities on and meeting some other financial requirement is eating at my ever shrinking income, making payments on the house was becoming harder and harder. It seemed almost impossible.

And then my dad talked with someone who had an idea and helped him work some magic that got this house’s mortgage totally paid off.

There’s no reason that should have happened. Lord knows I probably don’t really deserve it. But it happened, and now all I have to worry about are taxes and insurance.

I feel weird saying this, not because I feel some sense of shame that someone else bailed me out (my heavenly father and my earthly one) but because I know so many people are struggling, just as I continue to in many ways other than the house.

People I know who are having relationship problems or terrible health woes and so much else, and I have this huge burden lifted. I feel bad in a sense feeling good about it.

But it’s a blessing, and one that I should be sharing because I truly believe it was God at work here, and I shouldn’t be shy about making that known.