Be Afraid Like The Wise & The Brave

From today’s reading…

I think the internet has made people bold but weak.

They sit around playing video games so long they think they really can fire a weapon, drive a race car, and beat LeBron James.

When they’re not playing games or streaming movies they hop onto social media to say whatever springs to mind because they know they are protected by their lack of proximity to their political adversaries and even their anonymity.

When they’re not playing games, streaming movies (some even legally), or screaming at people who don’t vote like them, they’re watching porn, then playing fantasy football, baseball, basketball, etc.

This digital bravado and virtual reality is removing fear—needed fear—from the lives of too many people.

They’re like people with congenital analgesia, a rare disorder that removes all sensation of pain.

The ability to feel pain lets you know when you’re standing too close to the fire or that you cut your finger in the kitchen or that you’ve sprained your ankle and need to prop it up and wrap it in ice before you do permanent damage.

Fear of being fired is what motivates sales people to get busy and hit their numbers.

Fear of getting a ticket is what motivates people to wear their seatbelts and drive a reasonable speed.

Fear of getting a spanking or being grounded is what motivates kids to do their chores, not mouth off to their parents, and stay out of trouble in school.

Fear of burning in Hell for all eternity is what motivates some people to live right, as the shoot that sprouted from the stump of Jesse did in today’s reading from Isaiah.

He set the example so we’d know how and why to…

Stay the course. Keep the faith. Endure.

Now go sell something