Summer is here, and the shops that sell cold drinks will be running at full steam. The hotter the day is, the better their sales will be. You may notice a new trend in popular tea house, customers must go through several steps to customize their order to suite their unique taste. This could be a daunting task for an occasional customer like me. I always nervously navigate through the multiple-choice questions. When I finally hold the cup in my hand and sip it in, the final product is always falling short of my expectation. Do you know what your favorite drink is? Affluent and comfort life tend to make us picky, yet the pickiness is more of an attitude than a real thing, as pointed out by Chinese philosopher Laozi, “The five colors confuse the eye, the five sounds dull the ear, the five tastes spoil the palate.” In a desert tavern, weary travelers would skip all the fancy drinks and only go for water. It would be better with ice, but no other flavoring and coloring would be necessary.
When people choose spiritual drinks, they face the same temptations. In this age of internet, many people depend their lives on social media apps such as Wechat. There are all sorts of news, inside reports, and sharing, with topics ranging from stars to cell, from heaven to hell, with information from birth to death, from politics to entertainment, with opinions from left to right, from bizarre to funny, you name it and they have it. As soon as you log onto Wechat, you become a billionaire in information, you can get what you want and when you want it. Whether you want to be entertained, be comforted, or be inspired, you can customize the feed. If you not only enjoy browsing, but also posting your own stuff and commenting on others’ post, then these social media apps truly become your spiritual tea house, you are both the customer, and the owner, and the waiter of this shop. What a busy life! It would be unthinkable to live without them. The question is, of all the things you take in from the shop, which one is the necessary water for life?
The first Psalm opens with these words, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. (Ps. 1:1-2 ESV) This is a sharp contrast between black and white, but we often live in the grey zone of life. Besides God’s water station and sinner’s tavern, can we hang out somewhere else? Even on the social media there are tons of spiritual resources and opportunities to share the gospel, why not embrace it? Virtual reality is much more crowded than real life. By exposing yourself to overwhelming information, the warning from Psalm 1 about information filtering becomes even more relevant. Logging onto the social media is like walking into a fancy tea house, with all the colorful fancy drinks for sale, along with pure water. How many times would you settle for a cup of water and go? If you borrow a corner at this tea house and set up your own stand selling pure water, don’t expect any crowd. Rather, you should haul your water outside and sell them to weary travelers, your iced cold water would go at a much faster pace. Sinners by nature have no taste for God’s word. Social media apps like Wechat can take the whole world and present it to you on your palm. If we do not purposely distance ourselves from them, we will become friends with them, but Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? (Jas. 4:4 ESV) On the market for spiritual nourishment, except for the pure Word of God, all the rest remedies are worse than the evil. It is indeed a sharp contrast between black and white.
When God let Moses lead Israelites out of Egypt, He did not lead them to the promise land right away but took them wandering in the wilderness for forty years. In that forty years, God fed them with manna from heaven and they had food out of this world. God purposely blocked their access to Egypt Daily and Canaan Forum, but gave them the Law of the Lord from Mount Sinai, so that they can meditate on it day and night and prepare themselves to enter the promise land. As Christians, the life we live this side of heaven is a life through the same spiritual wilderness. If you delight in this world through Wechat, how can you delight in the Word of God? These two are always at odds with each other, and every day we must feed on the Word of God. When one’s delight in the Bible itself, exceeds that of other spiritual books or other people’s testimonies and devotional writings (this author included), then Blessed is the man, He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. (Ps. 1:1, 3 ESV)
Prayer: O Lord! Make us hunger and thirst after righteousness. Let us shun the voices from this word but tune in to Your Word. Let Your Word be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path!
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