1. Whatever you think about furnishes the “room” of your mind. So, if you watch a lot of the news, that will be what you think about. It will not only be the furniture in your head but will become what you find comfortable to think about. It’s where your mind will go when at rest. This is critical knowledge for those who want to follow Jesus.
2. “I want to develop discernments that say an unapologetic “no” to ways that violate the gospel of Jesus Christ.” – Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way
3. The Apostle Paul seems to have seen every move by the state against him as an opportunity to display the glory of Christ.
4. You were not created to bear the emotional weight of daily tragedies throughout the whole of space and time. Social media and the news will try to convince you otherwise. But what if just as we are to focus on the present day’s troubles, we are also meant to focus on the troubles surrounding us? Sufficient are the griefs in our own sphere.
5. We live in a world dominated by entertainment. It was not always like this. Entertainment as we know it and experience it is new on the historical scene. This is why no one stops to think about its effects on us as individuals, families, and a culture. It is neither a right nor should we assume it is good. Even how we evaluate it needs to be thought through. To evaluate entertainment by assessing its entertainment value, assumes it ought to be done for that reason, to entertain. But that ignores God, wholly. Think about it, we are so accustomed to watching TV as a culture, the decision to watch something is made based on its quality. And that quality usually has no reference to God whatsoever.
6. Anxiety is addictive.
7. Silence is not violence. But the statement that says otherwise, by definition is.
8. Nothing in our culture is an aid to contentment. Everything leans into “more” and “better.” Outside of the Scriptures, I would have nothing to convince me of that need.
9. I love that Paul says in Romans 8 that setting our minds on the things of the Spirit is “life and peace.” It would be easy to rush past those words. But that’s important teaching.
10. What if God created us and the world in a such way that not worrying about tomorrow is the healthiest way to live: spiritually, biologically, physiologically, physically, emotionally, and financially?
Echoes and Stars 