I read recently that over 100 billion emails are sent each day. (That’s more than ten times the population of the whole world.) Each day 5000 new books are published. This year the number of text messages will exceed 6 trillion.
If we take the year Christ was born as our starting point, it took 1500 years for all the knowledge in the world to double. The next doubling took only 250 years. It doubled again in 150 years. By the end of World War II, knowledge doubled every 25 years. Today knowledge is doubling every 12 months.
We are being swamped by a tidal wave of information that pours in 24/7/365. The whole world is now “live” and in “real-time.” Stories change every few minutes, and the news screen you’re watching may have an anchor reading a story with an image to the right, a sidebar to the left, with a screen crawling at the top and another at the bottom so that you’re following five different information sources at the same time on the same screen.
No wonder we are easily distracted. We look without seeing, we listen without hearing, and we speak without understanding. We are a wired up, tuned in, hyper-caffeinated generation living in a sea of information.
So, are we benefitting or drowning in information overload? Keep Believing Ministries offered this written by :Bob Moorehouse, it’s an essay called The Paradox of Our Time. Here’s a brief excerpt:
“We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life.
We’ve added years to life not life to years.
We’ve been all the way to the moon and back but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor.
We conquered outer space but not inner space.
We’ve done larger things, but not better things.”
Every part of that seems very true, but I was especially drawn to this sentence: “We’ve conquered outer space but not inner space.” Everything we build is bigger, stronger, faster, and larger. We’ve come a long way in a short time. The engine of human progress hums right along. We send men to the moon, satellites into orbit, and radio waves to the stars. But inner space is another matter. We’re not even close to conquering that. The human heart seems as unruly as ever.”
With all of the information and knowledge available at the tips of our fingers, we seem to have lost the most important information available to mankind, the knowledge of love. Check out the Bible verse definitions beginning in 1 Corinthians 13:4 – Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing; but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
I John 3:16 – This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
1 John 3:8 – Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
The Pope spoke before Congress one time, and he told our Senators and Representatives to remember the Golden Rule. It can be found in Luke 6:31 – Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This verse is the very foundation of love.
Just imagine what would happen if they and people worldwide would learn what the love of God really means, and actually implement that knowledge in every aspect of our everyday lives. If those of us who follow Jesus (the church) would learn and put into action this one basic tenant why we could change the world in short order. Witness to someone today won’t you? That is the most important information you can communicate.
1 Cor. 13:13
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.