Hi-tech!

Whilst seeking to "pray at all times, in the Spirit" (Eph.6:18) as the House of Lords debate the Marriage (same-sex couples) Bill, I have been attending to that rare chore - tidying up my study!  As usual in doing so, I have come across items about which I had forgotten.

Among them are a number of OHTs (that's OverHead Transparencies, for those of more tender years!).  It doesn't seem so very long ago that they were considered to be quite "hi-tech".  Whether in classroom, or in church building, they were the overwhelming evidence that one was 'moving with the times'!  The problem, of course, is that the times move increasingly quickly!  As I looked at those old transparencies - most of them hand-written; some with drawings (often line drawings from the Good News version of the Bible!); a few of them in colour - I realised how primitive they would look beside a modern PowerPoint presentation, in full technicolour; with words appearing in any of a multitude of ways; with moving graphics.

It made me think about computer memory!  Our first, brand-new, desktop machine had a whopping 1 Gb of storage on the Hard Drive.  I was the envy of most of my colleagues, who were still working with 650 Mb (1 Gb = 1012 Mb!).  Nowadays, I have memory sticks that are less than 2" (5cm) long, but that hold 32Gb of data - and I could have twice that capacity on a memory stick of the same physical dimensions!

Change, change, and more change.  It seems, almost, to be the watchword of our contemporary world - at least in the so-called 'developed' world.  Mobile 'phones; cameras; audio and video equipment (I still have some reel tapes that were such an advance on vinyl records, not so very long ago!).  Sometimes, I wonder if technology doesn't move just a little too quickly.

In such a fast-changing world, it is good to have something (or Someone) to be a fixed point of reference - a rock in a fast-moving stream.  Well, it won't surprise any regular visitor to this blog that I am happy to point everyone to such a Constant.  The inspired writer of the Letter to Hebrew disciples of Jesus wrote that, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and for ever." (13:8).  He is the unchanging Refuge for all who call upon Him in faith, repenting of sin, and seeking, with His help, to follow Him faithfully throughout their lives.

It was Helen Shapiro (of course I've met her!), best-known to many for her 1963 hit song Walking back to Happiness who, as a Messianic Jew (a Jew who has accepted Yeshua/Jesus as Messiah), recorded a great song entitled I go to the Rock.  Have you gone to that same Rock - Jesus, the Christ?  In an ever-changing, and increasingly turbulent, world, He's the only One worth going to!