As a teen I had a pastor share with me a simple formula for discerning the will of God: Step one, ask what is not the will of God in this situation? (You already know many things that are not what God desires, ever.) Step two, ask what is the right and loving thing to do? Step three, do the right and loving thing.

I grew up when a popular question to ask yourself was what would Jesus do?  This question assumes people already know the stories of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. The reality of today’s world is that children and teenagers are not exposed to the Bible at home or most anywhere else.  The Bible is more available now to anyone than in any other generation. It is available in any form of media, in any language, yet the biblical question asked by Paul is still just as true as in ancient days, …‘Everyone who calls on the Lord will be saved.’ How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? (See Romans 10) Paul reminds us here that saving faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Moral training comes through conversations reflecting the teachings of the Bible. Intentional discipleship is the imperative of the Great Commission. So, who are the influencers of right and wrong today? Are you?

The early chapters of the book of Proverbs are lessons on righteous living addressed to young people. Chapter 6 contains a brief list of detestable things that today’s leaders and influencers display openly as glorified examples for all to admire. The Bible says, There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil,a false witness who pours out lies, and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.  What are the right and loving things that Christian influencers model?

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Do the next right thing. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

A trillion of anything is more than we can really imagine. After Elon Musk surpassed the one trillion-dollar mark in estimated wealth, many compared it to the Gross National Product (GNP) of the nations of the world. Or how high a stack of money that would make. Or spending a million dollars a day would take 2,740 years to spend a trillion dollars. But the article I read that helped me the most was comparing it to seconds. One thousand seconds was 16 minutes and 40 seconds ago. One million seconds was 11 and a half days ago. A million to a billion is a mighty big jump. One billion seconds was 31 years and 8 months ago. Some of us can remember 1994. One trillion seconds was 31,710 years ago, also known as prehistoric times. Inconceivable.

And yet the inconceivable is all around us. Every day we wake up in the morning, eat, work, or play, not even aware of how many times we breathe in an hour, or blink, or react to something automatically. Unless something breaks down somewhere, or a pain cries out, we sleep or laugh or digest our food oblivious to the work of the 35 trillion cells in an adult body. Look at a thunderstorm, a peach tree, a sunbeam through the window. What do you see? How does your eyeball show you what you see? 

The Psalmist sang, When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful him, or the son of man that you care for him? …O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8) We worship the Creator of the unfathomable, the Conceiver of the inconceivable, the Lover of our soul.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. See the incredible. And let’s experience the love and power of God together. 

How does an airliner land at the wrong airport? An unfortunate incident came to mind this week while watching some of the reserve military fighter jets undergoing their training exercises at Tulsa International Airport. You may remember the incident from January 2014 of a Southwest Airline flight headed for Branson, Missouri. They landed eight miles away from the appointed runway. The pilots apparently noticed their mistake, hit the brakes very hard and stopped their plane at the very edge of a disaster. Everyone was shocked. The pilots were not only shocked; they were deeply embarrassed.  They soon learned that the runway they had chosen was too short for their large commercial airplane to lift off to get to the right airport. Eventually the plane had to be towed to its true destination.

The pilots landed in the wrong place because they insisted on their own way. When preparing to land, the Branson control tower told them they were 18 miles away from the right runway. Recognizing the runway light configuration, the pilots insisted they could see the runway in front of them and requested to override the control tower and their instruments. The passengers were not happy about taking a bus with all of their possessions to the correct airport. 

There is an old saying, Seeing is believing. But not everything we think we see is real. Some people reverse the saying, Believing is seeing. But not everything we may want to believe is true. The pilots needed to trust the control tower and their own instruments. The pilots decided to trust what they were seeing instead. They made an embarrassing mistake that could have quickly turned tragic.  Did you know there is a verse in the Bible that speaks to these kind of situations? It is found in Proverbs 14:12, There is a way that seems right to a person, but in the end it leads to destruction. It comes down to trusting what is real and true. Trust God. Trust God’s Son. Trust God’s Spirit. Trust God’s Word.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Land in the right place. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

This week Pope Leo XIV issued his treatise on Artificial Intelligence (AI). Magnifica Humanitas is a theological and philosophical teaching concerning the hopes and fears of this technology as it impacts our individual lives and its ethical demands for all humanity. I did not know I would spend part of Memorial Day reading the 82-page document. Each paragraph is numbered for easy reference. The Pope begins with the imagery of The Tower of Babel from Genesis. Will this become an ultimate Tower of human pride and god-like power that leads to global chaos, or can it be harnessed with a moral framework for the common good?  The Pope compares this generation to those of the Industrial Age of the 19^th century, and the Technological Age of the last century.  What happens within a person when society begins treating intelligence as something that can be manufactured, built to scale, outsourced and manipulated by the economically powerful? 

Here are some key quotes from this document that have been highlighted by others in my readings this week:  Technology takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it. (#9)  The world once again will come to recognize the human heart as the place where God desires to dwell. (#16)  It is not possible to provide a single, comprehensive definition of AI. What can be stated, however, is that we must avoid the misconception of equating this type of “intelligence” with that of human beings. (#99)  Our relationship with life seems to be in crisis today. Everything that appears as a “limit”– incapacity, illness, old age, suffering, vulnerability—tends to be seen primarily as a defect to be corrected, rather than as a reality through which our humanity matures and opens itself to relationship. (#118)

In His conclusion, the Pope summarizes with these clear points: Let us remain faithful to the truth!  Let us invest in education, beginning with ourselves!  Let us cultivate relationships!  Let us love justice and peace!

As your pastor, let me encourage you to use all technology with caution and discernment. At the beginning of the common use of the computer, programmers echoed the truism—”Garbage in, Garbage out.”  It still applies to all of us. Use your God-given actual intelligence.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Honor Truth. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.