A friend sent me this funny video, and it seemed appropriate in light of our series on the Internet. Although this may be taking it a little too far!
See you all Monday,
Carolyn for my girls
The woman asks: “So dad, how do you like the iPad we got you?”
“But everyone else is doing it!”
What mom hasn’t been on the receiving end of this argument from a child? And what mom hasn’t o-so-cleverly retorted: “If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?”
As silly as a child’s reasoning may be, we often approach our online habits in the same childish manner. A new website entices us with its beautiful pictures or clever writing, or a new platform makes it easier for us to connect with others, to receive and share information and conversation. And everyone else is doing it!
We assume (like the child) that it must be OK. More than that, it must be good and desirable. More than that, we must have it, use it, be involved. We can’t possibly miss out on this opportunity! So with nary a nod to our conscience or a thought for God’s Word, we jump off the latest online cliff.
This little series aims to help us all stop and think. But more than that, to evaluate our online habits in light of God’s Word.
As one of my heroes in the faith, Elisabeth Elliot, has said “we can’t really tell how crooked our thinking is until we line it up with the straight edge of Scripture.” We must hold up the time and manner of our Internet use next to the Bible and see how crooked or straight it is. We must ask: are my online habits dictated, directed, and in line with the Word of God?
Given the pervasive influence of the Internet in every corner of our lives, surely we can agree on the importance of this question. And even though Holy Scripture was written thousands of years before the human invention of the Internet, in the fathomless wisdom of God its truth is ever-prescient. And as often happens when we come to God’s Word, we may be surprised by what we find.
So do you have your Straight Edge ready? Let’s measure.
Yesterday at lunch, while eating leftovers from my first attempt at Ethiopian cooking, my son Jude told us stories of orphanage life. How the nannies washed all their clothes and shoes by hand and the water flowed like a rushing river over the orphanage ground. How the girls showered first in the mornings while the boys watched TV—but not on school days, mind you. How he loved to play soccer and tag with his friends. How at night, after the nannies had put them to bed and closed the doors, he and the other boys would get up and play, only to rush back to their beds when they heard the nannies coming. How he ate lots of macaroni and spaghetti.
This morning I cuddled with Sophie after she woke up and discovered that her feet are very ticklish. This little girl is full of life and joy, so different from how quiet and clingy she was in the orphanage and our first few weeks at home. Sophie charges into a room with a yell and has absolutely no concept of “inside voice.” I instruct her a lot about using an “inside voice,” but recently it got lost in translation. I told her I would give her a drink once we got “inside” and she thought I meant to ask for the drink in an “inside voice” and so repeated her request in a whisper. Oh well.
Right now as I type, the four kids are running around like crazy downstairs because it is Daddy’s day off. As my husband recently wondered: how is it that twice as many children make more than twice as much noise? Already, it is hard to imagine what our family was like without these two precious children. I am so grateful to all of you for your prayers and encouragement along the way.
That’s all I have to say. Just, thanks. And that adoption really is wonderful.
“One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove that prayerlessness is not from lack of time.” ~John Piper
When was the last time you told a friend, by way of confession: “I’m ashamed to admit it, but I have been too busy to post status updates on Facebook lately.” or “I know I really should do better, but I just can’t seem to find the time for Pinterest.” or “I am so tired that I can’t possibly wake up early enough to read the news online or follow what’s trending on Twitter.”
If you’ve said anything like this recently, then this new series of posts is not for you. You can stop reading now, because you clearly have better things to do.
But if you, like me, ever experience nagging guilt over missed quiet times or avoided conversations or unfinished housework or schoolwork, and yet still find time to tweet and pin, then lets talk.
I know it’s easy to knock Twitter or Pinterest. Low hanging fruit. But it is much harder to steward these technological blessings appropriately. And in many ways, that is what the Internet and social media are—evidences of God’s kindness and common grace to mankind.
Through Facebook I can re-connect with au-pair friends from Europe and keep up on the latest progress in my friend’s adoption. I can pin recipes on Pinterest instead of typing them out, printing them up, sliding them into sheet protectors, and storing them in a huge notebook. I can go online to get advice for cleaning my ceramic tile kitchen floor or to upload videos of the kids for far away family to see. And if I discover that I am out of sour cream right in the middle of making Sour Cream Fudge Cake, I can google for substitutes and avoid disaster (and I did!).
But it is precisely because the Internet can be so useful, so beneficial, so enjoyable, that it can also be so dangerous. For it is often the good things that distract us from the best things. And never before have so many good things been so easy to access, just a click away.
So we’re going to start a new girltalk conversation today—about pinning and prayer, hashtags and our homes, blogs and biblical womanhood. Join us, won’t you?
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
~Horatio Spafford
