Questioning Authority—How the sixties have come home to roost or Things I think about when I cannot sleep

Sleepless nights set the mind a thinkin’.  How have we gotten to where we are today?  Where are we?

We live in a country which has ½ of the world’s psychologists.  Over the last 30 years, we have seen the number of psychologists rise 350%.  Clinical Social Workers have risen 320%.  Today we have two psychotherapists for every dentist.  Family counselors have risen 680% in the last 30 years.  We ourselves have become the center of our lives.  We are obsessed with ourselves and we are hurting.  What do you think about when you have nothing to think about?   Whatever it is, it probably is the center of your life.  Do you like what you see there?

There are situations where genuine therapeutic help is needed but we have replaced the greatness and authority of God with the desire to find the right techniques or some therapeutic formula to fix ourselves, by ourselves.  We cannot fix ourselves.  We need outside help.  We need God.

We love the new and trendy.  We want and love to talk about the love of God but we won’t consider contemplating His wrath.  This is trendy—love has become unbridled permissiveness.  Love is no longer sacrificial service to others.  We have turned self-love in on ourselves and we are starving to death emotionally and spiritually in the midst of an overabundance of secular and spiritual mush.

We have questioned God’s authority; we have thrown Him aside in the ditch.  In the same ditch is respect for parents, teachers, police and judges.  We live in an age where the President of the land chastises the Supreme Court showing no respect for the Constitution.  Do we even consider much less cringe when we consider we are all accountable to God?

The authority of God’s Word is forgotten because we don’t bother to read it, much less study it, or heed what it says.  We say it’s outdated and time has moved on.  Time has moved on but man’s condition hasn’t changed, and yes, the horses are faster and the women are better looking but we still need a Savior.

We shutter at advertisements that make fun of dad’s.  According to Hilary Rosen and her ilk, motherhood is not real work.  Yes, finally we have become liberated from the morals and shackles of the past.  We do not want to be accountable to others much less God.  We want to have sex with whomever we want, however we want.  We reserve the right to force our favorite selfish sin down everybody’s throat whether they like it or not.

Liberal thought and religion is about so called rights; ever changing feelings and the fickle moving of our hearts rule the day.  Conservative thought and religion is about the authority of a changeless God and respect and accountability to that unchanging God.

I know most people consider this “old fashioned” and out of date.  It is out of date to our modern society but modern society is coming apart.  We have high connectivity but we have never been so lonely.  We have full bellies but empty hearts.

Let’s do some late night soul searching…and start me, Lord.  Amen