Page One
The Bible is a thick book. In fact, it's an ancient collection of 66 different books written over a period of 1,500 years in two different languages. There is a lot going on in there.
And yet, it just sits there. Profound, heavy, and thick.
Meanwhile, our smart phones are very thin. They are an ultramodern combination of touch screen viewing technology and wireless connectivity powered by a tiny computer of almost incomprehensible processing power.
And they are loud.
I have no memory of the day I received my first Bible, but I vividly remember the day that I got my first smartphone. It felt very nearly like a holy moment. I opened the magnificent packaging and gently cradled a device in my hands that promised to be the answer to my problems. I had every expectation that this little wonder of modern technology was going to be the key to streamlining my life.
No longer would I be missing meetings and forgetting to take out the trash. Over were the days of being disconnected from the world. No longer would I miss vital information because it was sent to me via social media rather than email, text message, voicemail, or whatever new way the world was communicating that week. With this flat-screened wonder, I would walk boldly into a new era of life--always on time, always in the know, always in touch.
I could not have been more excited.
We live in a world where about a thousand different things are all clamoring for our attention all at the same time. Door bells ring, traffic lights turn, horns honk, people talk, kids scream, the television blares, phones ding, smart watches buzz, all of it demanding the exact same thing:
us.
And so we give it. A piece of us here, a piece of us there, until there is nothing more to give. And yet the ringing and turning and honking and talking and screaming and blaring and dinging and buzzing continues.
It's no wonder that we're frazzled. We weren't built for this.
In fact, we actually had to invent that word--frazzled--to explain this feeling. It's a combination of two older words and means that we are wearing out and coming apart, both at the same time. And for many of us, there could not be a more accurate word to describe our lives.
But for me, in that first moment when I powered-on my first smartphone, I honestly believed that I had found the solution to all my frazzle.
I was wrong.
At some point a software engineer decided that it would be a good idea to place a small red circle with a number in it next to every application icon on my phone when it wanted to tell me something. The more "notifications" that particular app wants to give me, the higher the number. I discovered quickly that it was important to disable notifications on every non-essential app.
Regardless, as I write these words, I have no less than 765 notifications on my phone. That’s 765 emails, text messages, voice messages, reminders, social media updates, weather alerts, software updates, calendar appointments, and a few other things.
Make that 766.
I call them red dots of failure. My phone looks as if all of the people whom I am currently failing in 766 (now 767) different ways became a pitchfork-wielding mob and attacked the one device guaranteed to always be in my possession.
This miracle device that was supposed to un-frazzle my life has become a constantly beeping, buzzing, and dinging reminder that my life is unlivable, doomed to seep red, unceasing failure. And each time I pick up my phone to write a note or make a reminder or send a message, I am confronted by a host of notifications needing my immediate attention. I take care of one, don't have time for the second, and then I can’t remember why I picked up my phone in the first place!
But sitting quietly somewhere in the midst of all the frazzle there is this old book. The Bible.
In our clickbait world, the Bible feels like a dinosaur. In the Bible, you will not find chapters or books entitled, "5 Easy Steps to a Whole New You," or "3 Choices that Every Successful Person Must Make." Instead, you find books with names like Deuteronomy and Third John, and chapter headings like "A Lament and Call to Repentance" and "Paul's Vision of a Man from Macedonia."
And it never dings.
The fact is that in a world where so many things are calling constantly for our attention, an ancient collection of books seems starkly out of place.
But let's just say that in this world of immediate everything, you’ve discovered a problem. Let's just say that you’ve discovered that you are out of place. You wake up every morning, you go to sleep at night (or vice versa), and your moments in between always seem to be full. And yet you are not full.
To the contrary, you are empty.
You are one of the billions of people in the world today whose full days have left you hollow. So you try to fill the void. You eat too much, and then you diet. You drink too much, and then you abstain. You work too much, and then you quit. You buy too much, and then you sell it. You love too much, and then you lose it.
And wherever you find yourself in the binge-and-purge cycle of life, it's not working. Your life changes a little, the blogs you read and shows you watch change a lot, but you are still empty. So you grab hold of the next ticket to the good life that comes dinging or buzzing or flashing your way.
But somewhere deep inside of you there is this inescapable whisper reminding you that last month's ticket to the good life didn't pan out, and this month's ticket to the good life isn't panning out, and the next ticket that comes along isn't going to pan out either. But you click on it anyway, because that is what we do.
Or maybe you don't.
Maybe in the midst of all of the fleeting noise and bustle of life, you find yourself looking for something that is less flashy and more enduring. Something that a life can be built on rather than filled with. Maybe you find yourself looking for the kind of thing that, with great effort, a person might discover somewhere deep within the confines of a thick, dusty, ancient book.
Good news for you. When you crack open that Bible, not only are you are going to find the life that you have been looking for, you are going to find it on the first page.
And I'm going to help you do it.
But be forewarned. If you want to keep thinking of yourself in the way you do now, keep thinking of your life in the way you do now, and keep feeling how you feel now, stop now. Go click on something.
In fact, go click on lots of things. All that noise is your only hope if you want to keep living a life that is full on the outside and empty on the inside. If you want that life, you need all of that noise. Desperately.
But if you are ready for a life whose fullness flows from the inside out, then you are ready for Page One.
So here we go.