Do You Think?

 

On a recent walk with my husband, as we approached a usually busy intersection with a traffic light there was another couple in front of us.  The traffic light was against us but we could see that there were no cars approaching from either direction for quite a distance.  Since the point of taking a walk is the exercise, we walked across the street. The other couple remained, staring at the crossing sign to await the little man to light up indicating that it was “all clear to cross.”

We talked about it when we got home and it was suggested that this is typical today because people have been taught to wait for instruction; there’s no need to make decisions on their own.

From needing signs or crossing guards to get us across the street to making decisions about who to vote for whether or not to wear a mask, all around us we see the lack of ability to consider all the angles and make wise decisions. It appears that Americans are slowly losing their ability to think critically.

This may be small, like not considering how difficult the next day is going to be if we stay on the computer playing games all night. Other times we may buy something expensive, not considering how we will pay for it, the braces the kids need, and any unforeseen emergency expenditures. People have gotten into some great debt by failing to consider the future.

Then there are the even bigger decisions – we make a major move without thinking about the effect on others or we take a job not considering how it will be affected by a failing economy. Or, rather than do the hard work to fix a marriage or another broken relationship, we decide to run, failing to consider that it might be harder than the work to fix it.

These failures to “think” may even be fatal.  Many sins are very tempting but very dangerous. Are we teaching young people how to consider the consequences of decisions?

We even do this as a nation. Christians sit quietly and have failed to consider the consequences (from God) of officially allowing the murder of so many innocent children through abortion. We vote people into elected offices based on their appearances in public and not their hearts.  As a nation it seems that we just fail to consider that God is still God of the universe and is not unaware of what we are allowing and how we are living.

We have failed to consider the consequences of taking God out of so much of our culture that He would have to remind us who He is.

As Isaiah was pronouncing woes on the wicked of Israel who were facing similar problems in their culture as we are in ours, he said, “But they do not regard the work of the LORD, Nor consider the operation of His hands” (Isaiah 5:12).  These people had not considered that God would send them into exile for failing to consider what He had done for them in the past or that His commands extended into their own day. Will we consider the consequences for us if we fail to speak the truth to our nation?

Proverbs 14:15 says, “The simple believes every word, But the prudent considers well his steps.”  This says to me that we need to consider the consequences of every decision we make. We also need to think about the consequences of believing what we hear  – from school teachers, political leaders, our Pastors, University Professors, and even our own “Christian” friends and family.

Does what they say honor God and line up with His Word?  Do we know in our hearts that what they are saying will lead to destruction but we follow them anyway?

Are we more likely to consider what man thinks than we are to consider what God thinks and has done for us?  When man calls out, “All clear,” does God agree?