{"id":1911,"date":"2022-08-24T09:39:27","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T13:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1911"},"modified":"2022-08-24T09:39:27","modified_gmt":"2022-08-24T13:39:27","slug":"missing-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/24\/missing-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing Out"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Throughout the month of August,\u00a0we\u2019re taking a close look at 23 verses of the New Testament.\u00a0 They comprise Ephesians chapter one, which paints one of the Bible\u2019s most comprehensive pictures of what it means for ordinary people to be \u201cin Christ.\u201d \u00a0<\/em>
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Does the Bible address every question and issue humanity is facing today?
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The answer to that question is No.\u00a0 And Yes.
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No, because there are myriad 21st<\/sup> century problems and concerns that almost certainly never crossed the minds of the Bible\u2019s human authors.\u00a0 Such issues would include public vs. private education, how to dispose of nuclear waste, healthcare reform, reconciling quantum mechanics with Einsteinian relativity, the rights of private citizens vs. government surveillance, and whether corporations should be allowed to patent sections of the human genome.\u00a0 The apostle Paul might have asked, \u201cWhat\u2019s a genome?\u201d
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But the answer is also Yes.\u00a0 The Bible\u2019s basic storyline of creation, fall, and redemption \u2013 along with the ethical teaching of both Old and New Testaments \u2013 provides a remarkably flexible template for addressing the concerns of succeeding generations.\u00a0
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While Scripture, for instance, makes no mention of the digital revolution that would one day turn the world upside-down, there are enduring biblical principles that allow us to speak meaningfully about the challenges that revolution has brought about.\u00a0
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Thus we can say that even though the earliest Christians knew nothing about FOMO, letters like Ephesians can help us grapple with its associated fears and sadness.
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Paul no doubt would have asked, \u201cWhat\u2019s a FOMO?\u201d
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FOMO stands for Fear of Missing Out.\u00a0 Actress and comedian Mindy Kaling chose the perfect title for her bestselling 2011 memoir about this condition:\u00a0 Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?\u00a0 <\/em>FOMO, which wasn\u2019t even identified as a \u201creal thing\u201d until 2004, is the sense of dread that one’s friends are all having conversations, attending parties, and discovering new restaurants \u2013 and I\u2019ve been left on the sidelines.\u00a0 Or it could signify a sense of regret that because I declined a particular invitation, I missed the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy a rising stock or meet the partner of my dreams.\u00a0 \u00a0
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FOMO is the haunting suspicion that things are good for everyone else, but somehow I got stuck with the wrong job, the wrong family, or the wrong life.
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What does Paul have to say?\u00a0 He writes in Ephesians 1:17: \u201cI keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>
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In other words, the thrust of Paul\u2019s prayers for his readers is that they would experience more wisdom.\u00a0 More understanding.\u00a0 More of the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 More God<\/em>.\u00a0
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Here we encounter one of the dark sides of social media.\u00a0 It\u2019s easy to be overwhelmed by our friends\u2019 latest vacation pics and party postings on Facebook (recently renamed Meta).\u00a0 There is considerable evidence, in fact, that preoccupation with such sites leaves many readers feeling depressed.\u00a0 Since people tend to use social media to dress up their lives, and to \u201cfun-up\u201d their personal profiles, what we see and read should not be confused with somebody else\u2019s Actual Life.
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But it\u2019s hard to resist the feeling that other Christians we know appear to be having deeper, richer lives with God.\u00a0 They\u2019re going on awesome mission trips.\u00a0 And volunteering at booming churches.\u00a0 They go to all the cool conferences.\u00a0 And have marriages that actually seem to be happy.\u00a0 You\u2019re stuck, meanwhile, with a boring job and a mundane existence, laying down your life for an aging parent or a raging toddler who never offer words of thanks.
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If God blesses another person, does that mean there\u2019s less of God for me?\u00a0 Is there only so much God to go around?
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It doesn\u2019t work like that.
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We don\u2019t need to be afraid that we\u2019re missing something.\u00a0 When Paul prays that we would experience more wisdom, more understanding, and more of the Spirit, it means there\u2019s always enough of God to go around.\u00a0 And God\u2019s desire to bless us with such blessings is renewed every morning.\u00a0
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Besides, we can never know the real story behind the headlines of someone else\u2019s life, no matter how exciting those news flashes look.\u00a0 The only thing you really need to know is that you yourself<\/em> are God\u2019s deeply treasured child \u2013 and he will never walk away from you.
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FOMO may be a new social media expression, but it was part and parcel of the world\u2019s first sin.\u00a0 Satan, in serpent disguise, asked Eve: \u201cDid God really say, \u2018You must not eat from any tree\u2019?\u00a0 God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God\u201d (Genesis 3:1,5).\u00a0 Adam and Eve were afraid they might miss out.\u00a0 So they surrendered a healthy relationship with God to pursue unknown adventures \u2013 a choice that brought them unending sorrow.
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We don\u2019t need to follow them down that well-worn, fear-based path.\u00a0
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As pastor and author Ortberg reminds us, we are called to seek God\u2019s face.\u00a0 Not God\u2019s Facebook.\u00a0
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God is all we need, and there\u2019s always enough God to go around.\u00a0
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Which just so happens to be the only known formula for No Mo FOMO<\/em>.\u00a0

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Throughout the month of August,\u00a0we\u2019re taking a close look at 23 verses of the New Testament.\u00a0 They comprise Ephesians chapter one, which paints one of the Bible\u2019s most comprehensive pictures of what it means for ordinary people to be \u201cin Christ.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0Does the Bible address every question and issue humanity is facing today?\u00a0The answer to that question is No.\u00a0 And… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1912,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[480,106],"class_list":["post-1911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ephesians","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1911"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1913,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1911\/revisions\/1913"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}