Thursday, October 25, 2007

Who Moved the Maze?

Familiar with Spenser Johnson' s book, Who Moved My Cheese? It is a condescending parable about, among others, Hem and Haw, two humans who find their cheese (happiness and success) has disappeared from the usual spot in the maze. They have to learn to move on to new cheese to survive in life.

A few days ago I remarked to some friends that the "center" of acceptable values concepts has moved from the past. What used to be "center thinking" has become stuff to the right.

I think what has happened is that someone moved the maze. The path in the maze leads today to something called cheese, but it is actually pasturized, processed, vegetable based cheese food. No nutritional value, but it sits there in the maze and people gobble it up because it is in the maze.

In a post-Christian society, the maze (path) has moved. That brings to mind the narrow path of the Bible, and Christian's (in Pilgrim's Progress) encounter with those who wanted to take a different path to the celestial city.

I think that as Christians, we all know the true path, but we are in danger of following the crowd down the moved maze to the cheese food. It is time to return to the deli, smell the real cheese, and skip the path in the maze.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Gossip-The Devil's Powerful Tool

Every Christian knows that God is truth. We claim that as a basis for why we believe the Bible. God cannot lie. Most of us recognize that Jesus, in John 8, says that the Devil is the father of lies.

With that background, comes this story which says that people tend to believe gossip even when they are confronted with the facts that contradict it. If you find that hard to believe--look around. Too often the Christian church operates on this same principle. Christian gossip is disgusting, and yet it is probably the number one problem (read, sin) in our churches today. Spreading gossip is condemned in the Bible. The Greek word for gossip is psithurismos, so named because it sounds the same as the sound of a snake.

So, the next time someone passes on hearsay, or rumor to you, make the sound of a snake and walk away. Start speaking in your Father's native tongue.