Day Twenty-seven

“Your word, O Lord, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens.” (Ps. 119:89)

Scripture Reading: Psalm 119:89–96

We live in the age of information. The resources available at our fingertips are staggering. “Professional” advice pours from our radios and televisions. The Internet offers a wealth of data. We can access health tips, financial tips, relationship tips, fashion tips—tips on parenting to plumbing. If you have the time, they have the tips. There’s only one hitch—by the time you opt to change, they’re apt to change.

Yesterday’s software demands today’s upgrade. When the time comes to purchase a new printer cartridge, one look from the indignant salesperson tells you they don’t make your model anymore. Yesterday’s health tips are today’s horrors.

We are bombarded by information fluctuation. Are we truly making advances? How should we rear our families? Our parents’ and grandparents’ sound parenting ideas are assaulted by today’s experts. We scramble to readjust our methods only to learn that the rules have changed. Before we know it, we’ll be the bad guys, and look who is giving us advice! Single talk-show hosts offer marriage counseling, and people obviously under the influence of hallucinogens provide fashion advice. Scary, isn’t it?

As the information whirlwind swirls around us, we have an anchor in the Word of God. All the peace seekers in the world can’t write a better thesis on community living than the Ten Commandments. All the psychiatrists in the yellow pages can’t write a better emotional health plan than biblical forgiveness and divine healing. All the financial advisers on Wall Street can’t suggest wiser money management than the book of Proverbs. Marital advice? Sexual fulfillment? Guidelines on business partnerships? How to be single and happy? It’s all there. Better yet, it never needs an upgrade.

God’s Word stands the test of time and was written purposely to pertain to every generation. Why? Because His counsel applies regardless of changes in our lives.

My grandmother grew up in the late 1800s. She was reared on the principles in God’s Word. She survived the loss of both parents, the poverty of the Great Depression, and the death of her husband and three young children by clinging to what she called her “Testament.” She witnessed the change of a century, yet when she died in 1973, she never could have imagined the world of the new millennium.

Though a society foreign to hers complicates our lives, the Word of God remains adequate for her grandchildren and their children. We have no idea what awaits future generations. Nuclear disaster? Cure for cancer? Economic collapse? Colonization of the moon? We do not know. Times will change—but God’s Word remains solid. Look to the legacy of timeless advice, to those tips that will last when today’s technology is a laugh from the past—“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matt. 24:35).