Anyone who knows me well knows how much I love to read.
Mum taught me to read from an early age & from 2 years old I was reading the King James Version of the Bible. At age 11 I was reading the daily paper & anything else I could get my hands on. My friends began hiding books when I was due for a visit as I would spend all my time reading instead of interacting with them. At age 12 I read the unabridged version of "Les Miserables" in several hours.
I have learnt to control my passion for reading yet every day I make time to read Christian writings and the news. Today I listened to some of the wittings of Virginia Brandt which were written in the 1900's, but could have been written today as there is more information available than ever before, I was convicted.
Usually I mean to just read the news headlines, but one story leads to another and so often I end up spending way too long reading trivial articles that mean little in the overall scheme of life. This is a good reminder that as a disciple of Jesus, this world is not my home, I'm just a passin' through.
Some time ago I found myself one night paying a real price and sacrifice to sit up and hear through a late program. It was regarding one of our national crises, I think at that time it was in
I wanted to be well-informed, and more and more I found myself trying to keep up with as many phases of that situation in
I was getting so entangled with the affairs of this world that it was taking the keen edge off my spiritual life! Though I wasn't doing anything worldly, except just trying to keep up with the news, to be well-informed so I could converse intelligently with other people.
But I found myself trying to keep up with so many phases of the mess this old world is in, and I couldn't do it without worrying and feeling almost in bitterness sometimes, and in some frustration because of the world condition! So it was on this particular night, of this late program, I just had it out with my soul.
I'm not saying anything against being well-informed! But with information that is needful and can be used for God's Glory, that's different! I want to be a good citizen and do all I can to help my country, but first of all, let's remember this passage, that our citizenship is in Heaven!
As the song says, "we're here on business for the King," and our real citizenship isn't here! You cannot be true to that Heavenly Citizenship and have so much time absorbed with the affairs of this world, even with the present world crises!
If we really believe our citizenship is in Heaven we'll not become so attached to this world, nor absorbed in every little news about each tragic condition! Because its fears drive us to tension, its troubles cause us loss of time and sleep, and time that we could spend in prayer.
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Men are not facing up to eternal facts with moral issue like they did, they have no sense of values, their comparisons of values are forgotten today! I don't know just how to express it the way I long to, but eternal things call so earnestly today because the Lord is needing every soldier, and that soldier cannot entangle himself in the things of this world.
