Can You Hear Me Now?

The Shelter of His Wings, Devotion #12

by Jane Josephs

“Does he who fashioned the ear not hear? Does he who formed the eye not see?”  –Psalm 94:9

I took the plunge last week. I upgraded my “device.” You know, that thing that’s never far from our reach, giving us access 24/7 to news, sports, weather, traffic, finances, friends, and enemies? Yep. I got a new cell phone.

When I was a kid, phones were only used for social chats, to make appointments, or for emergencies. To get news we had to turn on the radio or the TV at a specific time, read the newspaper with our morning coffee, or talk to the neighbor next door. Now that we have the internet in the palm of our hands, we have a plethora of choices about what and when to see, hear, and allow into our lives. We sometimes shake our heads and wring our hands about the negative influence “the media” is having on us and our children day in and day out—as we swipe the screen in our hand for an update.

As one of the seven pillars in our society, “the media” is a force for good and for evil. Just about anyone can write and talk about anything with little fear of censure. And I’m extremely grateful for that freedom, aren’t you? But it has its downside. Lies are sometimes purported as truth. Opinions are cast as facts. Evil can suddenly walk in whether invited or not, and people are often devalued and maligned. As Proverbs 18:21 says, “The tongue has the power of life and death.”

In Psalm 94 the psalmist asks the question we often ask, “How long, Lord, will the wicked be jubilant? They pour out arrogant words…They say, ‘The Lord does not see…” (Psalm 94:3b, 4a, 7a). But almost as quickly, he remembers what he knows to be true: the Lord who fashioned the ear and the eye is NOT deaf and blind. Far from it. He is omniscient. He knows and sees all. And understanding His great power gives me hope that He has an amazing plan for the future, one that probably involves the media in more and different ways than we can imagine.

The folks from the website “Crosswalk” seem to agree. They write, “In New Testament times, the Roman Road system was strategic in God’s plan. It enabled the spread of the Gospel throughout the then-known world. In the same way, the Internet today is a worldwide network, which can facilitate effective Gospel communication” (crosswalk.com).

Mass media, social media, and the internet are here to stay. But instead of grumbling and complaining, why don’t we determine in our hearts to pray, asking God to move in ways only He can—to clean up the filth, to expose the lies, and to close the mouths of evildoers. But most of all, let’s petition Him to use the media to release the Gospel to every tongue, tribe, and nation, until all have heard the message of salvation. God knows what He’s doing, and until Jesus comes again, we know we will have trouble on every side. But we also still have choices. And where the media is concerned, we can choose, as Paul reminds us in the book of Philippians, to think on “whatsoever is true, lovely, excellent and praiseworthy.”