Blog 26: Psychic Wannabes

The push to actually write this blog (on a topic that has been churning in my mind for years) actually inadvertently came from a funny comment made by someone else. I can come up with things myself, of course. But I've always been good at saying things other people don't want to put out there. It's mostly because, though I sometimes have tact, I tend to push the envelope a little much. I've made a lot of people mad over the years. That said...well, I'm just gonna say what I want to say anyway. I'm not sure if it's a good or bad quality. Maybe a bit of both.

One thing that I'm sick and tired of is people's predilection for talking about end times. Maybe they are around the corner (I seriously doubt that is the case), but "frankly, Scarlet, I don't give a damn." I don't mean to sound reckless or like a shallow-thinker. I consider the importance of things just as much as any fire-and-brimstone fanatic. And yet, I tend to believe that whether apocalypse is tomorrow or a million years from now, we should be living our lives in the correct way so that we don't have anything to worry about. I don't need to dwell on tomorrow, because like Matthew 6:34 says, "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." But I find that people aren't content with that--they always want to believe themselves to be seers of the future. So they spend (in my opinion) way too much of their quiet times finding biblical proof that they are "in the know" about the end of the world. We were discussing this next verse in college group the other night, using it to discuss looking at the state of our hearts (rather than to predict end times), but it provoked some thought. Here it is:

2 Timothy 3

Perilous Times and Perilous Men

 ¹ But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: ² For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, ³ unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, ⁴ traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵ having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! ⁶ For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, ⁷ always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Some people would use this to say that we are living in end times. Whitteny read it, then said "In the end times, human beings will act...like human beings. You gotta watch out for that shit!" Maybe crass (what's a bit of bluntness between friends?), but definitely hilarious...and true. Humankind has always been that way. If you take a little look through history, you'll notice that we haven't really gotten more sinful or less regretful of our actions. Fact is, we mortals have generally just sort of always sucked. People have been screaming about signs of the last days since Jesus was on earth. But guess what? No one knows the day. No one knows the hour. I just think it's more productive to put our energies into something else--like, I don't know, learning about other things that we need to know as opposed to splitting hairs and bickering about things we can't know. Did you know there are actually people who argue about whether Adam had a bellybutton? Is that truly an integral part of your theology?

If knowing that end times are tomorrow would completely change the way you live--maybe you aren't living right in the first place. I tend to pick apart everything and everyone. I'm very critical (more so of myself), and I don't always get good vibes from every sermon/devotional/lesson I hear, but I thought that Pedro (our college group leader, for those of you just tuning in) made an excellent move in using this verse to say that we should examine our hearts rather than using it like a crystal ball indicating the state of affairs. We should, very well, be honest with ourselves--but not because the world might end. We should do it because the stakes are much, much higher than that. We should do it because we passionately desire to do what is righteous, period.