An Apple A Day Keeps The Doctor Away (signed Eve)

I think Adam and Eve kept eating the apples.  In so doing they kept the Great Physician out of their lives.  Literally and figuratively all the generations of humankind have eaten the apples and struggled and served the god of this world since the fall of Eve and Adam.  We now live in a time when people ask “are we on the brink of the end.”  Changes in technology, warfare, and increasing moral relativism are affecting the world in ways never before imagined.

I recently read an article by a “futurist” of some credibility that said within 20 years we will be having robots that do virtually everything and people will find it hard to even get a job.  While I find the argument has holes in it that you could drive a battleship through, it does have limited validity in that we will have ever greater technology to rely on (and yes, inevitably robots will be a part of that in some way as they already are.)  How that will change mankind remains to be seen, but what I am sure of is that it won’t make us closer to the God who created us.

Many think we are on the brink of World War III now that Russia is committed to retaking Ukraine.  There are many arguments in favor of that, considering that Eastern Ukraine is and always has been predominantly Russian speaking inhabitants.  Russia has changed enormously since the fall of Communism in that country.  The Russian Orthodox Church has been resurrected and 90% of Russians identify themselves as Christians…though like the U.S. only about 10% actually attend services.  Plus, other surveys show that 30% of Russians identify themselves as atheists.  Conflicting statistics, but still indicating a change from the days of Lenin and Stalin.  But I’m begging the question…will we fall into chaos in the middle-east and nearby Ukraine as the civil wars in that area bloom as they appear to be doing?   I don’t think it’s inevitable.

So what is God’s will in all of this.  So many Christians look at God’s will in such strange ways.  They almost seems to sit and wonder “should I eat breakfast or go for a walk?” “which one is God’s will for me.”  Or more commonly we see “which job should I take, I wonder what God wants” and this kind of silliness abounds in Christian thinking more than most would like to admit.  God gave us free will and desires and dreams.  He wanted to see us follow those desires, but to do it in keeping with his “Will” meaning living a life of commitment to the principles of living outlined by Christ.   You are called to do that in whatever life role you find yourself or that you choose for yourself.  People keep trying to make faith more complicated than it is…from the Pharisees on down to the everyday person of our time.

So why ramble on about God’s will?  Because what we are to do in this rapidly changing world is exercise those principles outlined by Christ in our interactions in the world as a whole.  Who is carrying out the Christian Biblical principles in the world today?   Certainly not the radical Muslims or the government in China.  They revel in killing Christians.  So it would seem that God’s will would be that we seek to somehow change their influence in the world.  Does that mean through warfare?  I suppose it could come to that, but I’d prefer to use prayer and actions that win over believers from among them.  With more Muslims and Chinese becoming Christians today than ever before in world history, we may succeed without war.  Did you know that Red China actually has more Christians than any other country in the world already?  Did you know that more Muslims are converting to Christianity than ever before in the history of the world?  Of course with a billion residents in China and probably an equal number in Muslim countries, it is still a drop in the bucket for them.  Still, it engenders hope in me that loving your neighbor and loving God will become a reality in the world as a whole someday.

The same thinking applies to my initial comments about allowing robots to take over the world.  We need to exercise moral and ethical principles in the development of such technology that it doesn’t somehow engender a moral relativism that erodes our values as Christians or destroy the economics of our civilization.

Futurist Joel Barker once said “vision without action is merely a dream.  Action without vision just passes the time.  Vision with action can change the world.” 

What are you doing to change the world for better today?