Friday, June 30, 2006

Money Can't Buy Me....Happiness?

Looks like LiveScience.com pulled this one from their deep and plentiful "duh bag." The title of the article? "Study: Money Does Not Buy Much Happiness," by none other than Captain Obvious.

Apparently the crack scientists publishing their study in the journal Science can find very little correlation between the amount of money people make and their frequency of good moods.

Whew! I gotta tell you. This is lifting a serious burden off of me, because here I was doing everything I could to make more money so that I could finally get out of my perpetual deep blue funk.

Just kidding.

Actually, this article reminded me of a book I heard about recently titled, "Generation Me : Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before," by a lady named Jean M. Twenge. I haven't read the book, but I did see her in an interview on the Glenn Beck show and listened to what her book was about. Basically she's saying that the self-esteem movement, coupled with the fact that parents give their kids everything they want yet neither ask for them to be responsible nor discipline them for their poor decisions, has created a generation of narcissistic, self-loathing young people. Booklist says, "These young people were raised with the idea of self-esteem being more important than achievement, which has caused them to place the self above all else. Such beliefs also have created a generation of young people who believe every dream is attainable but who aren't prepared to deal with discovering it isn't so."

Granted, the two works are talking about two different things. I just wanted to point out the fact that this world is searching for something, whether it is happiness in riches or purpose in oneself. Sadly, neither of those things are found in either of those places. The challenge then is for the Church to show the world where these things can be found: In Jesus Christ. But has the Church bought into this same kind of mentality? I don't know. What do you think?

posted by Sean Scribner @ 1:46 PM 4 comments links to this post
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Tuesday, June 20, 2006

He Calms the Storms

One of the most common issues that I find myself dealing with in assisting other Christians in their walk with God is how do we deal with the times of difficulty in life. All of us go through these valley-like experiences where it seems as though nothing is going our way. Even those who are living lives of true holiness and intimacy with God find themselves in circumstances that seem unfair and undeserved.

There is a whole lot that can be said in response to the question of why bad things happen to good people. I am not interested in going down that road, although I feel prepared to offer some very good answers to that specific question. Instead, for the sake of this post, I just want to share wisdom I read in my Prayer Guide this morning as a word of encouragement.

From The Soul's Desire by Glenn Clark:
For trouble, if it merely turns us to God and hence renews our strength, ceases to be evil, and becomes good; it becomes the best thing that could possibly come to us, next to God himself. For our growth in power and happiness depends upon the number of seconds out of each twenty-four hours that we are resting in God.
These words have special significance for my wife and me in our own time of "trouble" that we are currently going through. It's easy to become overwhelmed with the cards you are dealt and the burdens and stresses life can bring. Even in the times when life doesn't seem fair, we can be confident and find true rest in the loving and Fatherly nature of God. Even though we do not have all the answers, we can trust that in the end He is present, at work, and directing us in right paths.

So to those of you who, like me, are going through difficult times, be reassured. The God who calms the storms can bring peace and order to your life, and even the most evil of circumstances can become opportunities for blessing.

posted by Sean Scribner @ 10:38 AM 7 comments links to this post
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Thursday, June 08, 2006

Gibberish

The other morning my wife missed her alarm and overslept. She usually gets up much earlier than I do, therefore she simply leaves me to sleep an extra 30 minutes or so. But on this particular morning, as she flew out of the bed, she managed to mumble something in a panicked tone that I struggled to interpret in my near comatose state.

"Oh my gosh, I overslept!" to me amounted to little more than gibberish. Between her groggy mumbling and my partial consciousness, we were virtually unable to communicate. I think I managed some kind of, "What?" to which she replied with something else I could not really understand. It was quite confusing.

As I thought back about the incident later that day, it began to dawn on me just how fragile communication is. In fact, I would say that 99% of the time all forms of human communication fall far short of perfection. Without trying to get philosophical, I just want to point out that communication in this fallen world is a very, very difficult thing to get right.

There is something profoundly symbolic in this thought in relation to our understanding of God. It with with speech that God brought the creation into existence. It is with words that God revealed himself to all mankind through the holy scriptures. The very Word incarnate communicates to us with precision exactly who God is in His very nature. To speak, therefore, is to be something like God -- to image Him.

It is only natural for a fallen creation, therefore, to have fallen communication. I want to understand you, but I struggle. This is particularly true here in Jackson where I have trouble understanding the vast majority of what people say to me. But the problem is universal to mankind, and not just across the typical language barriers, but even among those who speak the same language with the same accent!

What am I trying to say out of all this? Not much, really. I'm just thinking out loud about things. I guess the direct application for me is to make an extra effort to understand what you are trying to say to me, and go the extra mile in making myself clear to you. Perhaps the church would more closely resemble a body if we all made the extra efforts to speak and to listen more clearly.

What are your thoughts on the matter?

posted by Sean Scribner @ 10:53 PM 1 comments links to this post
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