Highly Distracting Television.

That’s what I’ll call it.

I must admit…when when I bought an HDTV home theater setup a few months ago, I knew I’d be watching a few more movies.  I knew that I might temporarily be transformed into a bonafide movie junkie.

Prince Caspian?  Awesome.  Field of Dreams?  Loved it all over again.   Stargate?  Compelling.

But, I’ve had to chill.  Because I don’t want to live in front of a TV.  Correction… I know that you can’t in fact “live” in front of a TV.  I know that true life is not found in being consumed by material things, but found in following Christ. And based on the Biblical revelation that we have, Jesus didn’t spend an inordinate amount of time eating popcorn and watching people perform theater.  Neither did he spend an inordinate amount of time watching athletic events.  But, Jesus surely LIVED.  He spent a great amount of time talking to the Father.  He read and studied the Torah diligently.  He  served people in all kinds of incredible ways.  Jesus lived…not as a person only seeking pleasure in earthly things,  but as a person full of delight in God.  His delight in God/Himself was so great, that He was not in search of any external source of pleasure.  Neither were His followers.  Those who followed Jesus experienced delight and fulfillment through close association with Him.  Sure, they struggled at times to overcome fear, but at the end of the day, faith in Christ was more rewarding than fear, most specifically fearing the consequences of following Christ.

And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35)

But, you have to choose to come to Him.  And, you have to choose to believe in Him. And, according to the Greek tenses of these verbs, you have to keep coming and keep believing.

According to AC Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than 4 hrs of TV each day.  This means that by the age of 65, a person will have spent 9 years of their life glued to the television.  To put this in perspective, remember Y2K?  Remember when we leaped over into the year 2000?  That was  nine years ago.  Imagine watching TV non-stop since we began this new millenium! Talk about a zombie!

Now, I realize that you, like myself, may have a hard time believing that the average American spends 4 hrs. a day in front of a TV.  And I realize that you, like myself, may not watch 4 hrs. of TV per day.  But, my objective is not to argue for the validity of this statistic or to suggest that you likely fall into this category.   You may not own a television.  My objective is simply to challenge us to pause…to pause our lives…to pause whatever it is that we’re giving our precious time to…and consider whether or not we are adequately delighting ourselves in God.

Nowhere in the Bible does it say that we must spend a certain amount of time reading our Bible each day.  But, the Bible does tell us to delight ourselves in the Lord (Psalm 37:4).  There is no standard of time, but there is a standard of delight.  And, what a wonderful picture of delight that God paints for us.  The word “delight” in Psalm 37:4 literally means “be delicate”.  In other words, we are to be delicate in God’s hand.  We are to be moldable.  Instead of following the dictates of our own hearts, we are to live as though God is the potter, and we are His clay.

Live the life.