Monday,
June 26, 2023
Every time I think
of you, I give thanks to my God. Whenever I pray, I make
my requests for all of you with joy, for you have been my partners in
spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until
now. And I am certain that God, who began the good work
within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when
Christ Jesus returns. Philippians 1:3-6
We ended yesterday’s thoughts with the question: Can you really experience joy? We can all probably agree on the definition
of joy; the main question is: what
produces it, and how can we have joy in our everyday life, continuously?
I want to show you two realities about joy – first, the characteristics of
our contemporary culture’s stab at joy; then, tomorrow – the Apostle Paul’s
thinking.
Culture Characteristic #1 – We are ALONE
Philosopher Thomas Wolfe said, Loneliness is and always has been the
central and inevitable experience of every man.[1]
In the contemporary scene we are isolated behind our air-conditioned
walls, transfixed moth-to-light-like, to our blaring computer
games on Smartphones and DVD players; we are protected from interruption by our
straight-to-voicemail.
Isolated from, and insulated against human touch, we find out about
ourselves from the nightly news. And the
news is lonely! There's little joy in
that Mudville.
Culture Characteristic #2. We are ASSERTIVE
From the first stamping of little, two-year-old feet that don't want to go
where mother said, to the constant mashing of the horn buttons on freeways,
assertiveness is the America we've come to know and despise.
Sacrifice and service have become
foreign words in America; corporate raids and takeovers make billions, and no
longer does it matter what happens to the person on the assembly line, or the
family having to stand in line for a handout.
Culture Characteristic #3. We are AMBIVALENT
Ambivalence is a strange development for a land of such passionate
beginnings. America was born in the
hearts of people with fire in their bellies.
There was a sense of right and wrong; of good and evil. Today’s culture is as dependent upon the
direction of the prevailing winds, as on any code of morals or values. A newspaper columnist pointed out how this
slide towards ambivalence has made us a nation of orphans where child-guidance
is concerned:
We are infinitely more comfortable
dealing with each other in the gray vastness of 'how does it feel for you?'
than in terms of right and wrong. One
look at the status of our children and we know that what we are doing isn't
working. Children need right and
wrong.[2]
One of the reasons our children take drugs, take little interest in life, and
take other students’ lives is that they see no firmness of commitment to an
ethic, ideals, or to each other. Options
dominate our thinking.
·
If I don't like this circumstance I'll change it.
·
If I can't change it I'll go elsewhere, where it feels better to me.
I like you alright, but if you
do something that displeases me I just might 'option you out' with a .357
magnum – or a divorce -- or an abortion – or some cocaine – or even just a glance. Hey! I can take you or leave you, dude!
For You Today
Alone…Assertive…and Ambivalent is our culture. But we were created for better than that; we
are hard-wired for community and its’ blessing…more
tomorrow.
There are about 2,500 devotional
posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.
Title Image:
via Pixabay.com Images without citation are in
public domain. Unless noted, Scripture
quoted from NLT©
[1]
Thinkexist.com
[2]Edwards,
Drew, Article, VIEWPOINT,
(Jacksonville, Fl, The Florida Times-Union, Oct 3,1992)
