Went to the doc yesterday for the bruise that keeps getting larger and larger and more colorful.  Sat down with the nurse that went over my medications, took my blood pressure, etc. and entered it into the computer.

Doc came in and we conversed, she had me do range of motions, etc. and then went out to confer with a colleague, came back in and suggested I get an MIR – I may have damage to a ligament in my arm or rotator cup.  We will get it next week which was the earliest time available.

While I am sitting there I got to thinking that my entire medical history is in that mainframe computer at OHSU, or at least those over the past 50 years I have seeing doctors in this community, along with tens of thousands of other patients.

Information that is available to all medical staff that have access to that mainframe.  My insurance companies also have that access by asking for it.  The advantage is if I have to have a new doctor everything is in front of them to help me maintain my health, or as a reminder to my current doctor who has several other patients and can’t keep up with us individually; it is available to the hospitals in case I go in for an emergency – but, it is also vulnerable to hacker OR unethical employees.

Then, later, I am watching a commercial on television that shows a father reading to his daughter and she asks ‘what sound does a whale make?’

He calls this little device that sitting on the end table next to him by name and asks it what a whale sounds like and the little device tells him.

I go shopping for something on line – or I want to check and see what is available, and every ad that pops up for the next few days calls my attention to that item I checked on.

Rather than adding something to my ‘favorites’ I ‘google’ it a few times over a period of a few days and ‘google’ notes that I have done that several times and asks if it can help me.

Who is in control of all these things?

Where is the information stored?  Who has access to it?

Some sites say they don’t sell or share information while others pride themselves on doing just that for our benefit.  Uh-huh

How do we know it is accurate when we ask that little device a question?

Who put the information into the mainframe AND are they ethical?

We know that Wikipedia allows people to go in and change information and many have putting lies and false information on the site.

Information is always changing.  Some because new discoveries are made, some in an effort to control what we read, do, say, feel, want – they have us pegged in this hole and feed us the information they think we can use or THEY want us to have – thus influencing our opinions and thoughts.

We know the big hub-bub every time government wants to invade our privacy, but they don’t have to anymore – it is out there on social media to discover.  Many people have that little device in their house that listens to everything said, how much of what is said is sent to the company that sold it to you?

We post intimate details on social media for all to read.  It is recorded, what we like and don’t like, what we think about issues, and it sends it to that mainframe that will direct the post it thinks we want or need, or just wants to control our access to information and gives us what IT wants to give us.

Unethical people are already amassing this information and will use it to attack bank accounts, credit as well as sending computer attacks on the individuals to the tunes of thousands of people every day, costing citizens billions of dollars every year.

Technology has grown and in and of itself it can be very helpful, but ill-used and it becomes a cancer on our minds and souls, our very base.

Knowledge is expanding at a rapid rate.  Computers have eliminated the need for encyclopedias – which were outdated even before they were sold – especially over the last few years.

Text books, especially science and history, are obsolete when they too are sent to the printer, because there is more information available that can’t be continually updated in a bound book.

Pretty soon we won’t even have to have teachers – Google and other sites like it can already take the place of a lot of what is taught.

Something to think about – just where are we really heading and who is really in control?

Like a lot of what is happening in our world today, God’s Word has warned us about what will come about:

Daniel 12:4” But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”  KJV

Sure looks to me that this prophecy is becoming true.

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Psalm 86:10-12 “For thou art great, and doest wondrous things: thou art God alone.

¹¹ Teach me thy way, O Lord; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name.

¹² I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart: and I will glorify thy name for evermore.” 

Who are we using as our teacher, who is teaching our children?

Where does the information come from?  Who condenses it down so they can expose us to that information?

How do we know that the information we are receiving is correct?

That the teacher is honest and isn’t trying to draw us away from what is true and making their opinions facts instead of opinions?

How do we keep up with the shifting society that one day calls something wrong and the next makes it legal?

How do we know what is right and what is wrong?

Who are we listening to and how are their opinions or ‘facts’ influencing OUR opinions and those of our children?

Proverbs 25:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

Who is training up our children?

What is influencing them – video games, television, movies, news, magazines, public education, music, peers?  WHO? What?

What are WE teaching them, or are we letting all these different mediums take the place of OUR responsibility to our children to train them up to believe in God and obey His Word?

It is interesting that among the first things dictators do is indoctrinate the children.  They know that if they can get the mind of a child, they can train them into thinking the way they want them to think.

There are those in our country that are advocating their point of view to vulnerable children and turning them against even their parents – because they know better than the parents.

There are those in our country that advocate that a child is the responsibility of the state NOT their parents and that the state and the state alone should dictate how they should be raised.

AND that movement continues to grow almost unabated.

But that is not how God intended children to be raised, the sixth commandment doesn’t say, ‘honor the state.’

Exodus 20:12  ^“Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”

So what are we teaching and training our children so they can respond to an ever changing society that is pulling farther and farther away from individual responsibility and the value of hard?

Being a good parent gets harder and more difficult each day; fortunately they are not alone.  Christians need to support and pray for these young parents and help them to:  “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

Later, Art (-: