Robin Williams dies...and it's the biggest news!

​Where are your priorities?  It has sickened me to watch all the things happening in our world, abroad and locally.  We have had so much death and destruction, all the while we plow along, believing we are invincible, protected from anything horrible just because we’re Americans and we tag the word Christian behind our name. 
 
The death of Robyn Gandee rocked Jackson County, and it was a great illustration of how one life can touch so many.  I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a wake with so many in attendance.  The shock of someone who was very alive, with a laugh constantly on their lips, to be gone in an instant is and was gutwrenching in its punch.  I still pray every day for her family.  Talia’s first boyfriend was Robyn’s nephew, and their family just welcomed her as if she was one of their own, and they didn’t break up with her when the relationship ended, still embracing her all the same.  Connie brought Reese and her friends to Las Vegas to watch the Miss America pageant, knowing Tal probably wouldn’t even be able to speak to them there.  Robyn was larger than life, always with a smile on her face, always a kind word and an offer of help to the weary.  I’m sure she was not perfect, but she was a true example of how we should all live our lives, pouring ourselves out until we are totally empty.
 
The same time around when Robyn died is when Robin Williams died and the first journalist was beheaded.  Did you notice that the journalist got a little press time, but Robin Williams dominated the news all week long?  Yes, I loved Robin Williams – he was one of the funniest people I have ever known, and I appreciated it that he was “clean funny,” not cursing every other word (at least what I saw.)  But we have an American who was taken hostage, whose head was cut off in front of us, a video sent to shock and horrify, and we just took it as a piece of news and carried on about how awful it was Robin Williams was depressed enough to take his own life.
 
Now this week, we’ve had another journalist beheaded, along with a stern warning to America to take this as a threat, and we spent more press time discussing the nude photos of the Hollywood set that were hacked somehow.  Are you kidding me?  Have we totally lost our minds?  Is our country so shallow and pathetic that these are the things we care about?  Do we not realize that our world as we know it is about to end?  I have a strong sense of foreboding – I won’t call it a vision or a prophecy – it’s just a feeling that life is about to get hard, something is afoot that is going to rock our world. 
 
Remember the scripture about the end days?  “But when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION standing where it should not be (let the reader understand), then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. 15"The one who is on the housetop must not go down, or go in to get anything out of his house; 16and the one who is in the field must not turn back to get his coat. 17"But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!…
 
Did you watch the news of the people hiding from ISIS on the mountain?  Did you see those women with babies and children hanging on them, nursing mothers with no food, dying up on that mountain?  Awful, awful, and now forgotten in the matter of just a few weeks.
 
I am at the beach, spending each morning walking and talking with my Lord, and it is reviving my soul and my body.  I spent a little time with a lifeguard this week from the Czech Republic, and she was texting to her mother working out her flight arrangements home, and she apologizes to me for being on her phone with her mother, explained what she was trying to do, and said she thought it was so rude how Americans stay on their phones all the time and she didn’t want to do that to me.  I thought it was very mature of her to apologize but told her I understood.  It highlighted to me how much we are tied to and dependent on these devices – could they be our downfall?  As I walked the beach, I’ve been sort of watching and counting those who are sitting side by side, husband and wife, both on their phones, not talking to each other.  I know of marriages breaking up as we speak due to relationships that have been built through Facebook, hear of friends who aren’t friends anymore due to things said and done on Facebook, people who spend their days stalking on Facebook, becoming more and more depressed as they compare themselves to each other.
 
I believe we need to be vigilant as to how we are spending our time, our energy, and what we are doing for the Lord.  Do you need to lay that phone down?  Or quit playing games and reach out to your neighbor who can’t walk or whose children live too far away to visit?  I am convicted that my time is valuable, my days are numbered, and I must live them wisely and with purpose.  Join me – pray for America in these days ahead, that we get our heads on straight and begin living the lives God intended us to live, not these selfish “entertain me” lives!  God help us to get over ourselves…..