Things As They Really Aren't

A couple weeks ago the news story broke of a young football player, Manti Te’o from Notre Dame University, being scammed in an internet dating hoax.  I have known for the last six or seven years that such things are going on on the internet, and  I have since learned that such things are now so pervasive that there was a 2010 documentary film (Catfish) and now a television show (Catfish:The TV Show) that depicts such things.  These things can be terribly dangerous and damaging. 

I have a mother who has Alzheimer’s disease.  She is completely vulnerable and helpless and can no longer act on her own volition, which is now essentially extinct. Her condition is the result of an organic cause beyond her control. The people who get caught up in these cyberspace scams, which are initially within their power to control, tend to be likewise vulnerable and naively convinced and consequently helpless and eventually addicted to a non-reality and it is a tragedy.

What can be done?  Let me suggest some things that should not be done.  

All people, but especially the emotionally vulnerable, should not become involved with anything that could harm their body or inhibit or impair their capacity to discern things as they really are.  “If any man defile the temple of God (man’s body), him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are” ( 1 Corinthians 3:16-17). 

We must not put at risk the very instrument God has given us to receive the learning experiences of mortality.  There are grave spiritual hazards in our technologically-oriented and rapidly changing world that can harm our bodies, our minds, and our spirits.  Unfortunately, that which is initially perceived by many as harmless or merely entertaining--the video games, the inane Facebook postings and Tweets and texts, the chat-rooms, the online friends, the romance novels, the pornography, etc.,--can completely take over our time, our health and put a stop to our eternal progression.  As the Lord declared, “Wherefore, I give unto them a commandment…, Thou shalt not idle away thy time, neither shalt thou bury thy talent that it may not be known.”  God wants us to work and serve and live productively.

Do not let the digital dominate ‘things as they really are.’ “The Spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not.  Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us plainly, for the salvation of our souls.” Compare your digitally involved time with your Spiritually involved time and see where your emphasis is. 

  

The bottom line is that too many sad and lonely, confused,  and vulnerable people find the ‘virtual reality’ so real, so compelling, that they live an artificial life devoid of real, deep, soul-expanding relationships, talent-developing work and thus personal growth, and consequent lasting happiness and confidence.  They come into life as children of God, endowed with a great potential, and go out with very little to show for their years. Alas, many go out greatly depressed and with a smoking gun found near their body. 

The tragedy is that their lives are built upon a faulty foundation that will cause an inevitable personal ‘fall’ just as nations and civilizations have fallen.  And nations and civilizations have fallen because an entire culture has fallen just as otherwise good, but beguiled, people like Manti Te’o have fallen for the artificial. 

And Satan laughs.