Podcasts are an awesome thing. We don’t even need books on tape anymore! Just click on your itunes and every week (for me every weekday) a new piece of non-musical audio goodness can be presented into your library. How cool is that? My choice of orated leisure listening is typically sermons and theological discussions. Nearly every time I put my ears to them, I can take something away for safe keeping. Most recently, I pressed play on a Ravi Zacharias talk and his closing thought was as follows:

“In reality, nothing is so beautiful as the good. In reality, nothing is so ugly as evil. But in our imagination we have reversed it. We have made good to become ugly and boring. We have made evil to become intriguing, attractive, and full of charm. Good and evil are like the positive and negative poles of an electric current. You transpose them and darkness falls and that’s why man is a stranger to himself today.”

I just love how simply put the problem of man is there, particularly relative to our culture but in existence since Adam and Eve. We ignore reality. We look past the soul and straight to the flesh. Once what is beautiful is put into perspective, it’s understood that it’s good. And once what is ugly is put into perspective, it’s understood that it’s bad. But when we look past the needs of the spiritual and straight to the needs of the body, we miss the big picture and fail to discern between the two.

What are we here for? You’d have no idea by looking at our society. It’s so ugly but gets portrayed to us as just the opposite. Bible believers in America are mocked, but Eastern philosophers are looked at as serious spiritual gurus. Sure it’s okay to believe in God, or a God, but nourishing a relationship with Him…you’re nuts! A scientist, a professor, a monk and a pastor sit on a public panel…who does the audience think is the least qualified for an intellectual discussion? The same people assuming the pastor’s ‘religious’ bias are guilty of their own ‘religious’ bias, but you know that would be the case.

The respect for followers of Christ is unapparent because the acknowledgment and appreciation for the necessity of the church is jaded. The allure of what is real and good has been defiled by human desire and excess. It is conveyed as pointless. “We don’t need God to tell us how to live good lives.” That’s the mentality. But as soon as you take God out of the equation and ignore His voice in your conscience, evil becomes standard and what once made you squirm does nothing to cause a batted eye.

As 40 approaches, I want to search deep into my own heart and make sure I’m seeking what is good and beautiful. Let’s not be blinded by darkness but instead led in the light…Lighthouse is our name after all. So many more thoughts and analogies come to mind, but it all boils down to this: what will we do with what God has given us? We can use it as it’s intended so that God’s glory is revealed or we can squander it by getting lost in things that don’t matter, serving our own flesh, and spoiling our collective heart. I don’t want to be a stranger to who I’m meant to be.