No, that title does not contain a misprint! Let me explain. When our third daughter Stacey was a little girl, her mom, my sweet wife, was teasing her mercilessly about something. Finally, the exasperated little gal said, "Mom, stop it. You are driving me lazy!" Yep, "crazy" would have been the appropriate adverb there. Of course, she earned peals of laughter from all present. So that silly, ungrammatical expression has become an evergreen statement in the Horne repertoire of speech ever since.  It knows no season.

 

Now let's return to the topic at hand. Technology, IT, electronic gadgets, computers, calculators, ipods, cellular phones--are they driving you lazy? When you have to add 8+3+22, do you use your head or reach for the electronic calculator? If the calculator is unavailable, do you add the figures "manually" or are you out of commission until said device becomes available again? Are you desperate when your nickel cadmium batteries fail? Are you lost during a power outage? Can you find your way home without your GPS device? Would you walk to the store if your car were in the shop? Can you mentally calculate 15% of a particular quantity or do you reach for the appropriate device?  Boy, it's a good thing slide rules are obsolete because someone would want to install batteries in them so they would light up, whistle "Dixie" and cough up a solution!! Of course, going back to the abacus could be a mite retrogressive!

 

You know what? Most of us are just "plain ole lazy."  "Convenience" is the name of the game. Devices and gadgets rule the day. They are the great "enablers" for us lazy folk. They are designed to give us more free time, right? More free time to do what? To vegetate? To cogitate? To meditate? Solomon said, "Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth," Proverbs 10:4. Paul states, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth," 2 Timothy 2:15. Of course, if electronics freed up time to spend more moments reading God's word, it would be a blessing indeed. If it gives me more time to visit the sick, comfort the broken-hearted, convert the lost and draw closer to God, then it would be a real boon to society.

 

Ahab was once confronted by a wounded prophet who claimed he had lost a prisoner entrusted to his care, 1 Kings 20:39. His excuse was that he "was busy here and busy there and the prisoner escaped," 1 Kings 20:40.  What are we busy doing?  Our time, brethren, is limited. What we have to do, we have to do quickly. When we vegetate in front of a computer screen, we are wasting the most precious commodity that God has give us--time. Why not enjoy the blessing of gadgetry by being a more useful servant in the kingdom of God? God gives us both gadgets and time but balance and moderation in all things is essential. Don't allow technology to make a lazy monkey out of you. Let us be up and doing for our Lord.

 

Love you all,

 

Al--"The Horne of Africa"

 

[Contact Us]