I used to ponder what power stoplights had over us. In the universal language of safety and survival, they are a tool of utmost importance. Imagine the chaos if one day we simply decided to ignore their "stop" and initiate our own "go."
Safety, survival.
Then it struck me that newspaper editors and television producers control what news we hear as well as the political slant they wittingly or unwittingly paint on each story. If we get our information from a conservative newspaper or news broadcast, we may hear a different focus than if we interact with liberal counterparts. Either way, our thinking and thus, belief system, may tend along the lines of the sources from which we are informed.
Learning, thinking, belief system.
Enter Google (or your search engine of choice): today's technological filter to what we learn. Who doesn't love that we can ask Google any question and receive the answer? In fact, lots of answers in record time. I just typed in "Tim Tebow" and got 24,200,000 results in 0.12 seconds. Impressive. But what strikes me is that somehow Google chooses the first page of information and I tend to read what comes up on that page. Whatever I learn about him will be "chosen" for me in the first page of results and however deep into the rest I am willing to go.
Does Google have power over my learning? My thinking? My belief system?
Today I ponder that we are getting our information about God--who He is, who He is not, how He figures into our everyday lives--from somewhere. If He made us and if He authored the Bible, then that source is a bit like the stoplights--simple, direct, and very consequential if we decide to "go" elsewhere. The Bible has safety and survival built right into its pages.
But please don't underestimate the 24,200,000 other bits of information that are seeping into our minds at record rates by those who want to filter what we hear. At the end of the day, safety, survival, learning, thinking and belief system are a package collected and directed by our best efforts at wanting truth and nothing less.
Go, Google and God...a ponder package for our week.
Happy Monday.
