September 9

Day 179: Dumb Stuff

Some time ago, my wife asked me, "How do you come up with stuff to write about?" What I dole out is usually a result of what I've taken in. That very morning!

Each morning, I read my Bible (currently in the four Gospels.) I follow a reading plan each year (this year, a chronological plan.) I am also reading a short daily devotional. And I incorporate a chapter from another book into my morning times with the Lord.

I don't record this to impress you. I do so to convey how needy and desperate I am each day.

I do read other stuff, for sure. Stuff that would bore a normal person. At present, I am reading ancient Roman history, a book on ethics, a few commentaries on Acts, another book on difficult passages in the Bible. (These count as work stuff.)

Then, I'm also reading a book about cholesterol, a book about "personal boundaries," even a book on soccer tactics.

It usually takes me weeks if not months to complete a book, because I have 5+ others going on at the same time. Not the most efficient, I know. And because I read on my Kindle app, I usually don't know how long a book will actually turn out to be.

But rarely does anything from this third collection of books make it on to these blog pages. Because, if you're taking the time to read, I want you to read something that moves you closer to Jesus. Covid motivated me to start writing each day, because Covid has caused us all to need to be closer to Jesus.

And I was searching for a way to continue shepherding our people, in spite of restrictions we continue to endure.

But, it's not what goes in, Jesus said. It's what comes out. His was a response to the behavior of religious leaders who continued their ceremonial acts, but refused to be godly. On the inside. The human heart is inherently evil. It produces inherently evil stuff, by nature. John Calvin once said, "The human heart is a factory of idols."

Mark chapter 7 says, "Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled? (Thus he declared all food clean.) And he said, What comes out of a person is what defiles him."

To the point, what we do take in does have impact. If we read junk, we'll only have junk to give out. If, on the other hand, we take in good stuff, we'll have good stuff to give.

We live in an age of Biblical illiteracy. At no time in history (since the Bible was first translated into common languages) has the Church been so content to not seek God's heart in God's Word.

We've all become so satisfied with junk reading. Now, reading dumb stuff is not bad in itself. I do it (see the above.) But if junk is the sole diet, then all that can come out is junk.

Same can be said for the people we talk with. Do interactions with that person lead you closer to Jesus? Farther away from Jesus? Or does that person influence you at all? We all know at least one church attender who never seems to talk about Jesus, right?

In Mark 7, Jesus went on to say, "All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person." In a word, Jesus is saying our hearts need reconstruction. If left to our own devices, we'll continue to live on a diet of dumb stuff. And then the only things that can come out are dumb.

So ask the question, "What am I taking on?" What will be the byproduct of what I'm reading, or who I'm listening to?"

I cannot speak for you, but I know myself well enough to know that I must feed my heart with good, godly stuff. Otherwise, my heart will manufacture dumb stuff on its own.

And I don't need to write, and you don't need to read dumb stuff.

-Mike Rydman, Lead Pastor, Radiant Church | Juneau