photo credit wikimedia commons
This '2020' number has an immediate trigger in my mind for the way we use it to describe good functioning vision as '20/20 vision'. (maybe that's because I wear spectacles and used to work for an optometrist?!) So I ask myself whether there is to be any particular 'focus' (no pun intended) or new year resolution for this '2020' year, not just 'vision' of my physical eyeballs, but my perspective on life, the future, etc etc….and most importantly my spiritual vision?
Media reports can easily grab our attention and give us a God-less view on events and pull our focus away from how we should view them. There are plenty of avenues of information flooding our screens and filling our minds, but where are they leading us and what are they giving us?
So as I, and as you, go into this new year and new decade, I am thinking about what that means for us if we want to honour God with how we view life, not least in relation to recent media reports.
I look with such sadness at the immense damage a massive bushfire season is having in my homeland of Australia, and then I hear reports about Africa's Victoria Falls drying up. Media reports about both were supposedly telling me that the end of the world is immanent due to altered climates created by human's carbon emissions, unless humans stop using coal and eating meat which is supposedly filling the air with carbon, heating our atmosphere, raising sea levels, etc etc etc.
However, these issues might be some good reality 'object lessons' for my 20/20 vision challenge.
How am I viewing these news reports and events?
Now I don't really want to get into a political debate, (and I would highly recommend taking a look at these other articles here), but I know I need some 20/20 spiritual vision on this.
We all need a God-perspective.
If God wants to give us life, but Satan is out to destroy, then we need to be sure we are getting our focus and vision-correction from The Life-giving Source and not from those whose reliance and perspective is from the one who is about deception, death and destruction.
The first test of reality is one of truth since God is the God of Truth. And sometimes it takes some extra work to find out more than just the 'surface' media information.
In relation to the fires, Yes the weather has included a high number of hot windy days on the back of a drought (something that has been part of Aussie life for centuries), which has exacerbated the situation and created a 'tinderbox'. But the claims of being totally unprecedented severity are claims do not have the statistical evidence to support them.
But, I have learnt that some fires were started by arson or suspected arson which have nothing to do with 'climate change'. Over 180 people have been charged in NSW alone on bushfire-related offenses and 24 of them for deliberately lighting fires and often the culprits are teenagers! Further individuals have been charged in Queensland including 10 juveniles.
Existing fires are sometimes so huge that airborne embers are blown hundreds of meters to start fires even a kilometre away or fires get so huge that they create their own weather systems and subsequent electrical storms and lightning strikes which start more fires. Removing fire-access trails through forests has had distastrous impact.
Lack of good land management with proper fire-breaks and preventative hazard reduction burning to adequately reduce 'fuel load', is a huge contributor to to the terrible fire situation currently engulfing areas of Australia.
One of the 'golden rules' in academia is to not just quote those who quote others, but go to original sources and check things out for yourself. Proverbs (18:17) also tells us to not just listen to the first version of events we hear but to investigate further.
I found the website/blog for the Volunteer Fire Fighters Association site very helpful and informative and would recommend you also take a look and hear what these experienced fire-fighters themselves are saying. They also have data on their site relating to what bushfire scientists and forestry experts have been warning for years about the Australian bushfire situation.
On the Africa side of things, Victoria Falls are not drying up Even in the photo of the article promoting such an idea, it has only one section of the falls 'dry', and you can see to the side the section of the falls which still has loads of water still tumbling over. The 'dry' part of the falls is actually normal and required for various tourist activities that have been going on for many years and require or take advantage of the 'less water' times for rock-pool swimming and rafting. The dry time this year is dryer than normal but it was also even more dry in 1995/96.
It might seem alarming for an Aussie to read in an Australian news bulletin about Victoria Falls, but the reality from our side of things, living in Africa, and having visited Victoria Falls on several occasions, and an African 'son' who lives so near the Falls he can see the water spray from his land... the Falls are not drying up.
Similarly, the Okavango Delta which has also been rumoured to be drying up, had indeed been experiencing a dryer year, but another of our African 'sons' home village is right by the Delta and he was recently told by an old man there, that this is normal - there are very dry years about every decade and they usually usher in a good wet-season…which is what we are experiencing.
If drought is supposed to be a sign of climate change then here at the Edge of the Kalahari Desert, we are defying the change by this year having one of the best rainy seasons we have had in a very long time and enjoying regular solid soaking rain. Our tanks have already filled and overflowed.
Stories and reports that do not accurately represent reality is not only spreading lies and is a moral problem, it is also a love problem. It is not loving to have people believe and act according to lies. Whether ignorantly or deliberately spread about, information that is not truthful is not ultimately helpful or loving and will lead people onto paths where their joy is stolen, their hope is killed and their lives and relationships and communities are destroyed.
As I ponder these events and the calls of 'climate change', I am caused to think about various issues in life where we are challenged to be discerning, to not live by popular opinion, or by short-sighted vision, but by a true vision of reality.
I wanted to give myself some words in this '2020' year as a 'checklist' by which to help refocus my vision and help it not be diverted, diminished or destroyed by reports that are less than the truth. After all its Satan who blinds people's eyes, wants to keep people in the darkness, and is the father of lies and deception. It's Jesus who brings light, as the Word of truth and the light to our path, and its his light we are supposed to exhibit to our world.
If we are children of light, then we need to live that way - we need to shine the light of loving truth onto what we hear, see and experience.
So this is where, I 'preach' a sermon to myself for the new year and let you listen in….
Join me for Part 2…for the five words of warning and seven words of hope which I want to keep part of my vision-correction in this year of 2020!
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