The basic tools of a cowboy consist of a saddle, a rope and a cell phone. It’s kind of interesting that a group of individuals who are so insistent upon the ideals of a way of life that harkens so much to the 1880’s seems so totally attached to cell phones, idroids, and such. It’s like seeing Con Conagher with a jetpack. It’s the whole “Wild Wild West” theme come to life, and I will guarantee you that you’ll have a tough time finding a cowboy who doesn’t have one. However, having them and knowing how to use them are two vastly different things. Whereas you used to see cowboys riding around the arena with a phone up to their ears, now you see them texting. The only thing is, they generally have to stop their horses to do that, or at least drop their reins. Never fear, though. Someone has invented a thing where you can talk at your idroid and it types out the words you are saying. Then it sends it to whomever you want in the form of a text message or an email. I learned about this yesterday. I had driven all night from Casper to Prineveille, so I had been unable to stop and write and post a daily reading. Curtis Pederson and I were visiting, and he remarked that he enjoyed reading our posts. I was glad to hear that he had been reading and enjoying them, and I apologized for not doing one the night before. He told me he had a solution. He pulled out his idroid and started talking into it. We had just gotten done with the cutting at the OHSRA State Finals, and he was telling the device that he was standing with Marty Campbell who had just gotten done announcing the “cow cutting.” When he was done, he sent it to my phone as a text message. This is what it says: “One with Marty Campbell we just finished the state finals calculating time you again and he did a splendid job announcement and keeping track of all that going on jamming out to stand I’m not the one with Marty Campbell we just finished the state finals so you really have to admit yeah you have to and then when it will.” That, ladies and gentlemen, is technology at its finest. I have no idea what that even says! What’s worse is that Curtis had used the technology during a rodeo to send a text to a couple of ladies. He couldn’t proofread, because the sun was shining on his idroid, and the arena was a dust cloud. He sent the text to the two ladies, and both of them called him within minutes. “Do you realize what you sent me?” both of them asked. He thought he did, but in actuality, the text was mentioning their body parts in ways from which gentlemen should shy away. Needless to say, he was embarrassed. Technology often promises us easier ways and shortcuts, and it fails to deliver. Or it delivers something that ends up being a wreck. Find someone under 80 without a cell phone. They’re few and far between. People often ask, “Gosh, what did we ever do without cell phones?” I’ll tell you. We made plans and stuck to them. Worse yet, technology can cause confusion and wasted time. Most of our readers are reading this on Facebook. Honestly, how many hours do we waste catching up on people who left our lives twenty years ago? It’s not that I don’t think it’s nice to catch up, but now I know when a girl I didn’t really even like in high school changes from pink socks to yellow. And I’ll confess that I’ve killed hours on it. Technology can be good, but it can also be a distraction. A distraction that pulls us away from the real lives and missions God has given us. If we get up and check our email before we read our Bible, something is wrong. Yet I do that from time to time. That’s a sad thing. Technology can be a tool, but when it draws us down a road that leads us away from God, our families, or our jobs, it’s a trap. It’s not just technology. It’s not just voice texting. It’s not just Facebook. Look at Saul in the Bible. For him, the trap was power and fame. He started off as a good and godly king, but he slipped into reading his own press. That pulled him away from God. The Israelites got distracted by hunger and fear. Peter denied Jesus three times because he was distracted by the same thing. Samson was distracted by lust. Distractions are traps, and the Bible tells us our enemy is prowling around like a lion waiting for someone to pounce upon. That’s a wreck. We need to keep our eyes on God and use those technological advances as tools to growing closer to him not distractions to lead us astray from him.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 05:11:41 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015