Wednesday, October 28, 2009

We gave God the remote.

We discussed Ephesians 4:17-32 last night at my connect group (God's Girls!) but I want to talk about the following verse today. 

21 Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, 22 throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. 23 Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. 24 Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.

Verse 21-24 talks about “throwing off your old sinful nature and your former way of life…” I know, for me, that I have some old that I still carry, but I believe that there is more about my life now and my thinking that is new and I know that the Holy Spirit is working to "renew my thoughts and my attitudes" every day.  There are things today that never used to bother me, things I have always said and done, they were very common for me and acceptable to my family and my friends because they weren't bad things, until God started renewing my thoughts and my attitudes. 


One of the things that we stopped or “threw off” about two years ago was television. We have a television and there were some shows that I really enjoyed watching, however, my WH (wonderful husband) and I were becoming concerned, not only with some of the programs that were being shown in primetime, but also with the impact that television was having on our DD (darling daughter). It was stuff that, on the surface looked fine, but once you started listening to the content and "seeing it with a new attitude"  it really made us reexamine what was acceptable in our home, not just for DD but for me and WH as well. So we took a drastic step and cancelled our cable. We have a television but we use it to play games and watch movies that we pick out. We became very intentional about what we watched. We disabled the external remote control and gave God the remote to what we wanted in our lives. 

I am not saying that television is horrible or if you watch you are a bad person. I will not run from the room screaming if you have a t.v. and are watching it when I'm around, I might grab some popcorn and a Coke and sit down with you, (we aren't talking about my snacking habits today).  The television is a tool, just like the computer, just like pen and paper, just like a cell phone, and on and on,  but I found that it was so easy to lose valuable time, with my family, with my friends, with the things that I want for my life, by escaping into someone else’s life (reality t.v.), someone else’s drama (cop shows) someone else’s laughter (comedies), or someone elses exercise (sports) when instead I needed to be living my own life, solving my own mysteries, and seeing the blessings and the humor that God places in my life every day, we won't talk about exercise, I'm still working on that one.

Put off the old, well, I got rid of some of the old by unplugging the t.v. but it is easy to fall into the same old trap with email, Facebook, and Twitter, and the other social networks out there. All great things if used in the right way, not so good if they start taking us away from in-person relationships, face-to-face communication, and heart-to- heart talks where I can give you an actual hug instead of a virtual one, I can laugh with you instead of LOL you, and I can give you a real shoulder to cry on instead of a :-(. 
Our television watching was something my family and I felt God was instructing us to put off as part of our old way of life. It might be something completely different for you but ask yourself,

“What do I need to put off? In what way does the
Holy Spirit need to be renewing my heart and my mind.”


If I can pray for you, if I can help you in any way, leave a comment or send me an email to leigh at leighfrance dot com.  

God bless,

Leigh

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Go baby, I'm going to burst with pride before long. Such good information especially for parents with young children. The Tv gets used as a babysitter sometimes. I know, I used to do that. Shame on me.

Love You,
MC