The Cracked Acorn: Urgent (Daniel 3:22)

The letter arrived among lots of other pieces of mail. It was marked “URGENT”. This should have caught my attention and would have been ripped open but the URGENT had appeared on other envelopes in the past. URGENT should command immediate and grave action on my part.

Over the years I have been de-sensitized to all these bold stamped messages such as: THIS IS YOUR LAST CATALOG, IMPORTANT, YOU MAY BE A WINNER, YOU ARE A MILLIONAIRE CALL THIS TOLL FREE NUMBER and the list grows. Most of these appeals go into the trash. Some I open to see if I really have missed out on a golden opportunity. This URGENT one let me know that I would shortly be getting a new VISA card. There was a probability that a hacker had broken into the card files and now had all the account numbers. This is not the first time and was not an occasion for me to run into the hills screaming, “This can’t be real!” Eventually someone will be caught and sent away for awhile and then probably hired by VISA to try and keep out other hackers.

I have learned to roll with the punches. Instead of counting to ten before “blowing up” society now demands at least a count to 100.

Quietly, we are facing many problems in our society. Crime among adults is down but rising for our younger population. The search for personal fulfillment is at an all time high. Bahaism, Buddhism, Catholicism, Evolution, Freemasonry, Hinduism, Humanism, Islam, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, New Age, Scientology,Unitarianism, Universalism are studies in how much our society has shifted and accepted whatever comes down the road. The modern world accepts all thought about any and all subjects. We seem to have strayed away from these questions: are we alone in the universe, where is the first created star, why is there gravity, is time another dimension, what causes our earth’s magnetic field,what causes ice ages, is an ice age due soon, are we causing earthquakes, will cancer ever be cured,why do we sleep, what causes schizophrenia and autism and Alzheimer’s, how do we get addicted,why were some dinosaurs so large, and last- is morality wired into our brains. (www.sciencemag.org/sciext/125th)

Many of us have seen the fall of the Communist Empire and the opening of the Berlin Wall. We have the best devices ever to predict the weather and its patterns. Technology advancements have appeared by leaps and bounds. Our affluence has taken a toll on our ethical and moral values. The church has never had a greater need then today to spread the gospel with the sources in our hands. Even with our problems we live in a kind society that is ready to help others when the need arises.

Encouraging News! The Arkansas ivory-billed woodpecker isn’t extinct after all, just hard to spot. So, wives if your husbands are lounging in the back yard hammocks. They’re not goofing off, just joined an elite group of bird watchers listening for that distinct POP-pop sound of the ivory billed woodpecker.