Finder's Keeper

Wednesday I joined the praise team singing amazing grace songs at a memorial service for a team member’s late mom-in-law. Thursday evening my Maria and I would join others at another team member’s home for a girls’ night out.

Thursday morning would be solo blog reflection time on this Jesus quote I read before breakfast:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Matthew 11: 28-29 esv

Instead, I slipped lonely into the deep Moria mines of social media networks on my laptop. Click after click, on link after link, I lost my way through raw factoids, opinions, and voyeuristic snippets of personal lives with whom my life may never intersect.

Yesterday at the laptop, my eyes settled onto this Daily Mail headline on social networking research by Dr. Rawan, a University of Edinburgh Honorary Fellow. It’s query took a day to get under my skin:

Is Twitter making you STUPID? Social networking sites are making it hard for people to think for themselves. 

Of course I immediately tweeted it out to 500 plus strangers who follow my incognito twitter line. However, to share the whole story with folks I know face to face, I had to depend on the online history to refresh my memory.

In the study two groups of volunteers were to determine the answer on each problem, first, as separated individuals, then, they were gathered into their groups. Dr. Rawan, reported that after the volunteers grouped, individuals tended to copy the answers of others they felt were the right responses. After the first given problem, they received a second and third problem to solve. Their responses were no better than the first responses to the initial question.

From this study’s commentary, I reckoned myself a guilty sluggard, too lazy to pick up and digest the food put before me.

In our techno-sped up culture, I agree with one of my church pals. We have so much information coming at us from all corners of the world, in real time. I let it overwhelm and distract me from time set apart for thoughtful rest.

So this afternoon I started blogging in earnest, and paused to get to ladies' night dinner and movie. Now in the midnight stillness Jesus quotes echo in me forgiveness and great grace.

 Ever since God redeemed me, great grace finds and overwhelms my stupid frailty. At the memorial service in soaring lyrics of eternal victory, God’s grace finds me. In godly fun fellowship with ladies, God’s grace finds me. Even as I lose myself in dark media mines, His grace still finds me, reminds me who took away sins' burdens to render meaningful purpose and rest for my soul.

Know God; know peace.