It was November 27, 2008....fourteen and a half years ago. Our dog....Special....had died suddenly. Knowing absolutely nothing about social media at all....I picked a blog website....gave the blog a name.....Special Dog....thought about something to write....to take my mind off of the loss of our dog....and the paragraph below was my first post....
If only it were just a 'vast wasteland!' Unfortunately, television sculpts and molds the American mind. We have become a society that learns from visual sources rather than the written word....and we are at the mercy of the cable package. There is a bill in the Senate on giving us the right to choose our stations but its purpose was to lessen our cable bill....but some say it will not do that. I don't care. I want to support only stations that have prefigured the effect on a society into its programming. Boycotts cannot do the job. Give us a year of 'a la carte' and some networks will respond. In my mind, this is not a minor thing. I can see a major improvement in how our society forms a consensus on many issues simply by weaning itself from what television throws at us. If you agree with this please talk the issue up and contact your representatives and senators.
Our television cable provider recently took The Weather Channel off of our basic package....and put it on a higher package....filled with channels that we do not want. We pay $59 right now. I asked how much it would be to get The Weather Channel back? $123....and I would have to take all the channels! No Thanks.
We have never had anything but basic cable in our home. So we have never had Fox cable or CNN or or ESPN. Consequently my mind has never been indoctrinated by Tucker Carlson....or Jesse Watters....or any of the others. I haven't watched a whole baseball game on TV in probably thirty-five years....or a whole football game or basketball game or golf tournament. I did watch a few hockey playoff games back in 2009. Why mention this? It might be just one reason why I know that Jesus is near....and it might be why I know that Donald Trump is a false prophet....and it might be why I know that the church right now is being judged by God....with blindness?
The prophet Joel speaks to us today....as do all the prophets....in many ways! "Blow the trumpet in Zion"....(Joel 2:15).....that is all that I have tried to do in these posts. Verse 25 is important in ways that go beyond the obvious...."So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten"....and the "crawling locust"....and the "consuming locust"....and the "chewing locust."
So you....if the Holy SPirit is convicting you....having you look back on wasted years....and living for your own enjoyments....literally wasting precious times that you now know should have been lived for God's glory....you may be asking yourself....'What's the use in starting now?'
My father's birthday is coming up. He would have been 102 years old.....but died in 1979 at 58. I was 29 at the time....and have regrets of those years where I did not sit at my father's feet asking him about his life....his childhood....his dreams....and his WWII wounds from a kamikaze attack that affected the rest of his life. I was into....me. I was absolutely no help to him at all with his eternal soul in his last days....for I myself was lost. I have regrets in many areas of my life that if not for the grace of God would burden me down possibly even unto incapacitation....but this is primarily what Joel was writing about!
Forget the money or the goals or the fame or whatever you wanted at one time. God will restore what is more important....peace to your soul....that is if the Holy Spirit is moving upon your heart. Have you fallen for the false prophet? Have you placed your hope and your trust in broken cisterns? I can regret my many failures....things not done....things that never should have been done....but He hath restored my soul....given me new hopes....and allowed me to rejoice with multitudes gone before....and those now on this pilgrimage with me....none of this which I even remotely deserve! He will do this for you also!
