03.31.14 

Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’” For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. – Matthew 6:30-34.

In a world with exponential technological advances occurring daily, we are finding new solutions to old problems. Consider the parental problem of pulling a child’s tooth. When I was a child there was the Slamming Door Method. To extract a tooth using this method tie one end of a string around the tooth, and the other end to the doorknob of an open door…Then, slam the door. My sister, as I remember it was the one who performed my tooth extraction in this way. What great memories…ha! Another method some used in the past was to have the child bite into an apple or a piece of hard candy.

There is now a new home method of tooth extraction developed by a father in Dublin. It is the Remote Control Helicopter Method. It may become popular as some 80,000 people have watched the video of Adam Swan’s tooth being jerked out by the remote control helicopter. (Orange News 03.27.14) As I was reading about this today, I found that the majority believe the best method is to wait for the tooth to fall out on its own or to take the child to the dentist. The problem occurs as I remember when the tooth is not yet ready to come out and the door is slammed it can be quite painful. I did read about one child who after a home extraction procedure had to go to the emergency room for treatment.

As we can see there are new solutions to old problems, but that does not necessarily mean that they are the best. Even with all of our technology there never seems to be enough time to do what we need to do. In fact, it appears that the technology has reduced the amount of time that we have. Why? Because we have to check our facebook, tweet, check email, and respond to messages that we consider important. Then there is Instagram, Pinterest, and a bunch of other social media that is now available. 

There is an old solution to this new problem of technological time draining that we are experiencing. The ages old solution to technological time draining is putting first things first. I recently read this quote by E. M. Bounds (1835-1913) who was a Methodist Episcopal pastor, chaplain during Civil War, Attorney, and author of nine books on prayer: “I feel it is far better to begin with God, to see His face first, to get my soul near Him before it is near another. In general, it is best to have at least one hour alone with God before engaging in anything else.” Perhaps this is why Bounds was able to write the material that is now available in 11 books (Many of these are available online free of cost – search for E. M. Bounds).

The old solution of putting God first before everything else is still the best solution for whatever this 21^st century world may throw at you. Try it! It still works!