This Article Doesn’t Matter

Some call it the Information Age, but it’s more like the Age of Noise. Articles, books, podcasts, sermons, and advertisements bombard us every day – millions of voices telling you what you need, what you’re missing, and what magic elixir will heal what ails you. To survive the tsunami of imperatives, we grow deaf to the noise. But inso doing, we develop the fatal habit of giving mental assent to ideas that do not change our lives. 

I know how I should live, but that doesn’t mean I live that way. So you can tell me again, and I can agree again, and nothing changes. When I read an article, it is does little more than stuff a few ideas into my already bulging brain-attic, along with perhaps a sprinkling of guilt that I won’t be doing anything about it. But it doesn’t change me. The tragedy is not that the preachers keep preaching or the writers keep writing, but that it all falls on deaf ears and hardened hearts.

The great dilemma of the writer or teacher is how to actually make a difference in anyone’s life. What chance does one more voice have, to be heard and acted upon? Even if I manage to implant some new idea or even change someone’s mind, it doesn’t do any good in a time when the mind and life are so disconnected. That’s when I realize in this whole dilemma, I’ve already missed the boat. Because my job is not to change you or make sure you do your job. My job is to do my job – to be less like who I am now and more like who I was created to be. 

We don’t need more ideas. We don’t need more sermons, books, or articles. We need to live it and see it lived in the lives of others. The life of George Muller is a more powerful sermon on the trustworthiness of God than any preached from a pulpit.

The terrible truth all of us artists, teachers, and builders must face is God doesn’t need us to create, teach, or build anything. I want to change the world for Him, but He’s already changing the world and doesn’t need my help. He is more interested in changing me.

So whatever comes, whether you read what I write or not, whether you listen to sermons, read books, or whatever you do, it doesn’t matter if you know more or teach more. All that matters is that you are being changed, and that every moment finds you more of the person you were created to be. That goes for me, too.

The irony of all this being written in an article is not lost on me. I will continue to write and create, but I am under no delusion that it is necessary. Perhaps it’s not even helpful. All I know is I can’t change you. There is only One who can, and the only hope I have is that He can change me too.

J.

July 1, 2019