“Smart Phone Theology”

In keeping with my ministerial colleges and in order to do ministry in today’s environment, I bought a smart phone. I feel in my own mind that I am a pretty tech savvy guy. Just ask my mother as she thinks I am a techno genius because I can change the blinking time on her VCR. However, no matter how savvy I believe I am it never fails that I will run into to some teenager who has the same phone as I and I begin to feel savvy and hip. Then they will do something incredible with their phone and I quickly feel dumb. I will respond with “Wow! I didn’t know it could do that, cool.” I leave with ego bruised but excited with the new discovery of the new function. My point is for those of us who have smart phones, it is one thing to own it, it’s one thing to have it, it’s one thing to poses it but it is a whole issue entirely to actually take full advantage of what you have in your possession.

In different areas of our life, do we take full advantage of the things we possess? While the analogy can be found with materialistic things it can happen in other areas of our life as well. In our relationships that we inhabit do we take full advantage of them? In our careers, it is one thing to have a job but it is something different to take full advantage of what we have. In our families, do we take the fullest advantage of the love between spouses, parent and child, grandparent and grandchild, sibling to sibling? In our faith do we take our relationship with God to the fullest? I strongly believe that God has a destiny for each us. It’s a destiny that is life beyond our own imagination. God wants us to not just own it but utilize it to its fullest advantage. As we continue to look at the life of Joshua, there was a time when under Joshua leadership the people of Israel conquered all the land God had promised them. In the middle of the book of Joshua, God goes into great minuet detail of how the land was to be divided up among the people. God didn’t intend for the people to just possess the land but to inhabit it. God didn’t intend for his children to just own the land but to use it to the fullest. God wants the same for our life. God’s desire for us is not to have a relationship with someone one but a healthy relationship to the fullest. Not just being married but a marriage that fulfills both individuals to the fullest. God does not desire for us just to have a faith but a solid faith filled with hope that will sustain through the ups and downs of life. God’s desire for us transcends just having something in our procession and knowing how to use it to the greatest potential. Simply put; there may be more to our life than we realize and that we can take advantage of.
How do we get smart? I believe there are three essential principles that are paralleled in the life of Joshua that carries over to our life as well. We can live life to the fullest if we adapt ourselves to live our life with praise, share what we have with others, and live with honor. Start each day in praise to God. Turn on your ipod, car radio, whatever and begin each day listening or singing along with praise music. You will be amazed at how better your day will be just because you started out with a bit of praise. Second, understand that we don;t live on a island. God has placed others in our life. Some God has placed there so we can help them. Others God has placed there to help us. Last we must live with honor. Honor is something we as a nation has failed miserable teaching to younger generations. I believe our nation is the best on this planet and we still h ave our problems but we have failed to teach our children honor. Honor is lacking n our society because we have failed to demonstrate or teach our children honor. I strongly feel is not our governments job to teach honor, it is not our educational system to teach honor because each are deprived of honor themselves. I believe it is the church of Jesus Christ responsibility to teach, illustrate, and demonstrate honor into the fabric of families and eventually into our society. With these three, maybe we can be smart after all..
Peace, Love and Happiness:
Tommy