Monday, January 4, 2016

Some Things Change; Others Stay the Same - by Ron Bekkering

Hold on to the truth! That’s Biblical.  Well, we’ve broken the seal on another year…2016 is in full effect. Bowl Games are in process and whether you are Go Green or Go Blue at least 2015/2016 has given us some games to play in.

Winter is coming, Right? It certainly has been a strange one, but it was like this once before in some of your life times. In the 1960’s (64), there was a green Christmas and temperatures were in the 60’s.  So 50 some years ago…things were different but still the same today. That made me think; as I saw a newsletter from the Manistee United Methodist Church, their Pastor John Scott caught me with something he wrote.  Check this out.

“40 years ago an apple was a piece of fruit found on a tree and a blackberry was something you picked out in the woods before the bears ate them.  Today Apple and Blackberry are entities that represent amazing technological changes that have connected us in ways we could not imagine 40 years ago.

40 years ago Amazon was the name of a river in South America.  Who could have imagined the dramatic impact that name has had on the retail sector of our global economy today? 

40 years ago if you wanted an automatic transmission, air-conditioning, power windows and door locks, you had to ask for a “fully-loaded” model.  Today our vehicles are incredible works of technology and a fully-loaded model is more comfortable, technologically advanced, and extravagant than our living rooms.

40 years ago every new home was wired for telephone service and most had TV antennas installed.  Today new homes are wired for high-speed or fiber-optic services that provide television, internet, and security services.  The phone is all but completely wireless and the TV antenna has been replaced with a satellite dish.

40 years ago there was this really cool thing called an 8-track tape player.  Thankfully is was soon replaced by the cassette tape player, which quickly gave way to the CD, which is currently on the way out giving way to new technology in the form of mp3 and mp4 formats stored on this nebulous thing called “The Cloud”.

40 years ago “digital”, “high-definition”, “internet”, “texting”, and a myriad of other terms had very different meanings (if they even existed) than they do today.”

Things change, words change…a cookie is not just the thing in the cupboard that I look for; for those that know computers; cookies need to be deleted. 

Time changes and with the rapid growth in technology who knows what 2016 will bring? 

One thing we know that will not mean something different is the Word of God. Pastor Rod is getting ready to take Redeemer Church through a great series of examining where we are, what we’re dealing with and making an “About Face”.  Hopefully this series will start a turnaround in all of us here in DeWitt!

Friends, as we go headlong into this New Year…my challenge for each of us is to get into the Word of God. The Bible is one thing that hasn’t changed over the last 50 years and smart money says it never will change! Open it, read it, feel it, share it. Make it a resolution that you keep!  I pray that you all have a safe 2016 and that the Lord blesses each of here at Redeemer and Christians around the world with a joy that passes all understanding. 

God Rocks and We Roll,

Ron 

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