The Cracked Acorn: Battle Raging

When I was growing up and attending church the preacher would remind us that a battle was raging. It was the battle for our souls. The pulpit was pounded and supporting scriptures were quoted.

The battle still goes on and will never stop. The enemy is very clever and does not rest as we do. While we sleep computers around the world are gathering information. Companies are interested in what we eat, wear, and buy. How we use what we buy is their main concern. They are establishing a predictable profile of our society’s needs. The expanded markets hope to reach all our material and spiritual desires.

You may think that you are a private person. This would be true if you lived up a muddy road on the side of a 12,000-foot mountain and made and grew all you needed. Of course, you could not have a telephone or a cell phone or have any neighbors. Electricity would be a no! no! You would have to limit your connections to the outside world. The postman would put your mail in a post office box if you knew anyone that had the P.O. address. This sounds good, no junk mail.

I have left one item out that has invaded our homes, the personal computer (PC). This is the wonderful machine that does not “compute” but lives for e-mail and surfing the internet (the world-wide-web). You turn it on and into the internet system and the world is your oyster; if you like oysters.

The PC is like a child. It requires attention. It needs “medical” care. It needs protection. It will require you to seek out professional people to solve their quirks. It is a daily or weekly task to run scans using expensive software that you had to buy after you bought your “cheap” computer. This is necessary to keep hackers from slipping your PC a “Mickey” and putting it on the landfill heap.

You have to make sure that the adware, the spamware, the spyware, and the firewall-ware are doing their jobs or every stroke of the keyboard and every file on the hard drive becomes public knowledge. Information can influence the individual about what to place before the “window of our soul.” I saw this in a religious book store this past Christmas season. The gospel now appears in many books, and CDs and videos. I was looking for a replacement Bible. I decided that recovering was more expensive than purchasing a new one. On this very busy mid-morning shopping day in a large store in Manassas, I was amazed by the many translations and versions.

GIVE ME THE BIBLE, WHEN MY HEART IS BROKEN, WHEN SIN AND GRIEF HAVE FILLED MY SOUL WITH FEAR; GIVE ME THE PRECIOUS WORDS BY JESUS SPOKEN, HOLD UP FAITH’S LAMP TO SHOW MY SAVIOR NEAR. (Hymn lyrics)