What's New?
Most of us have heard the phrase, What's new? or What's happening? or What's up, but I can't ever remember hearing the phrase, What's old? I have here on my desk two books. One is, The Valley of Vision (a collection of Puritan prayers) and the other is, Be Still and Know That I Am God (Psalm 46:10, a daily planner for 2020).
These two books sound oxymoronic. There is no Valley of Vision that could predict or in any way plan the year of 2020, and the last three and a half months are still up in the air. I definitely do like the scripture, 'Be Still and Know...'.
We have been put in a place where we should sit in prayer and contemplation of what our lives have become. Too often I see as a people who should know better turn into people who hear platitudes and accept them as facts. I have done the same thing at times and hearing a lie often enough it is easy to begin to believe it.
"All children are going to rebel." I heard that so often I believed it, until—I realized it wasn't true. I already knew that the generation gap was a recent discovery/invention. I knew it years ago. It was explained in an article from back in the late 1970s and it went like this: You can take highly educated parents with degrees and whatnots all over. Their little kids go to school and their teachers have a simple teaching certificate. I'm not belittling the teacher's ability to teach or their learning. I'm saying in comparison to the parent/s.
What the school teacher says takes precedence over what the parent says and this is where the generation gap begins. Being taught one thing at school and something else at home.
Another lie: We can't live on just one paycheck. The reason we can't live on one paycheck isn't because it isn't possible. Our wants and what we consider needs are different than those of what our preceding generations have been. We also don't have the stigma against two parents both working outside the home.
I will say that rent, taxes, cost of living, all of these items have gone up exponentially to match the income of a two paycheck family. Old Fuzzy and I have straddled the line by living in the country and producing as much as possible ourselves. Why is this no longer feasible? Or is it? Check in for the next installment.
Psalms 46:
7) The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. 8) Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth. 9) He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. 10) Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. 11) The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
