When you are drawn to time-wasting and distracting online content, you will do well to model your prayer on Moses’ words (Psalm 90:12): Lord, please teach me to number my days, hours, minutes, and seconds, that I may get a heart of wisdom. Or we could pray the words of the ageless hymn: “Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee.”

The average person’s thumb travels the equivalent of two marathons a year, scrolling through social media. The average person; not just teens or twenty-somethings! What would the ancient writer of Ecclesiastes have said of the amount of time we spend on TikTok, X, YouTube, and Instagram? He had everything he desired—pleasure, possessions, passion, and palaces—and denied himself nothing. Any millennial influencer would drool in envy. Yet, as he considered all he had acquired and achieved under the sun, he lamented that it failed to provide meaning (Ecclesiastes 1:2-3). Pointless. Unfulfilling. A chasing of the wind. How much more so the endless scrolling we do on our phones?
So what is it that keeps us coming back? Why are we so drawn to online content? To “social” media? How can we be more wise and discerning? 
Social media isn’t so much designed to engage us as it is to retain us. The deeper we go and more time we spend the greater their revenue. Their algorithms are fine-tuned to identify what we like while also taking into consideration what or who we follow—information we freely share—to hold our attention. Social media platforms typically want a single thing: to make us scroll through one more image, meme, or video. Then another. And the next one.
What Are You Filling Your Eyes and Heart With?
The Internet and social media are, of course, neither good or evil. They’re neutral. They can be beneficial and enabling when used wisely. We can maintain contact with distant friends and family. And we can keep up to date with happenings in the industry we work in. Furthermore, with feeds, we can follow favourite blogs, hobbies, and sports teams. You may have come upon this article via Facebook or Instagram. 
But the subtle temptation is to enter the social media maze and get sucked into a time-wasting vortex of distractions.
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Written by Richard D. Kocur |
Monday, October 17, 2022
Disney faced pressure from gender equity activists and employees for not doing enough to oppose the bill. Then, after coming out in opposition, Disney faced blowback from parents who believed the company should simply focus on providing family entertainment. On that issue, Disney management spun around more than a rider on the theme park’s iconic Teacup ride. And why? Because of ill-conceived social activism on an issue that was irrelevant to the primary role of the business. Now Blackrock finds itself in a comparable position as a result of a similar activist pursuit.

With the stock market down nearly 20% year-to-date in 2022, investors are paying close attention to the financial performance of their portfolios: seeking to protect 401Ks, looking for safe havens, and trusting that their fiduciary asset managers are making the right decisions with ever-shrinking nest eggs. The last thing any investor would want now is for asset managers to be investing in companies for any reason other than to maximize financial return.
Unfortunately, that is exactly what the world’s largest asset manager, Blackrock Inc., is doing through an emphasis on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing. This mode of corporate social activism has placed Blackrock in a difficult position, however, as pressure from both sides of the ESG issue close in on the company. Blackrock has become the latest example of a company experiencing the consequences of corporate social activism.
The movement to emphasize ESG within corporate structures and as corporate objectives first emerged in the early 2000s. ESG-focused investing directs capital to companies with stated goals on issues like climate change and social justice. Financial returns are a secondary concern to those who want to support or pressure companies to commit to ESG standards and enact policies to reach those standards.
With approximately $10 trillion in assets under management, Blackrock wields substantial power over where their assets, and by extension the assets of anyone invested in Blackrock, are placed. An August 16 editorial in the Wall Street Journal noted how Blackrock pressured companies to “avoid investing in fossil-fuel assets … and reduce emissions to achieve net zero by 2050.” In essence, putting pressure on the companies in which Blackrock invests to adopt ESG standards. If Blackrock’s blackmail is resisted, proxy shares are voted against management. This approach puts activism above shareholders’ returns. But Blackrock is beginning to see a backlash.
In late summer 2022, attorneys general from 19 Republican states sent a letter to Blackrock CEO Larry Fink seeking answers about potential conflicts between the firm’s ESG investing practices and his company’s fiduciary duty. In addition, states such as Texas and Louisiana have begun to bar state investment in any Blackrock fund that pushes ESG standards. With billions in state pension dollars and the investments of individual citizens at stake, the AGs and state comptrollers are calling Blackrock on the carpet.
In addition to this political reaction, market forces have also stepped into the ESG fight. A new investment alternative to ESG funds was recently launched by Strive Asset Management. Strive created a fund that mirrors Blackrock’s U.S. Energy Index Fund (IYE) but with a commitment to pursue non-ESG policies.
If pressure from those in opposition to ESG was not enough, Blackrock is also facing pushback from ESG advocates. In late September 2022, officials responsible for the public pension funds in New York City sent a letter to Fink pressing Blackrock to recommit to achieving net-zero emissions across its investment portfolio and to vote more in line with climate-related shareholder initiatives. Blackrock manages approximately $43 billion in investments for three New York City pension funds, according to a September 2022 article in the Wall Street Journal.
Blackrock could take a lesson from the investment adage, “past performance is no guarantee of future results.” In the case of corporate social activism, past performance is a guarantee of future results. One only needs to look back to the mess in which the Walt Disney Corporation found itself because of its stance on Florida’s Parental Rights bill.
First, Disney faced pressure from gender equity activists and employees for not doing enough to oppose the bill. Then, after coming out in opposition, Disney faced blowback from parents who believed the company should simply focus on providing family entertainment. On that issue, Disney management spun around more than a rider on the theme park’s iconic Teacup ride. And why? Because of ill-conceived social activism on an issue that was irrelevant to the primary role of the business. Now Blackrock finds itself in a comparable position as a result of a similar activist pursuit.
Pressured from both sides of the ESG issue, they have now put themselves between a Blackrock and a hard place.
The author thanks Alex Heisey for his help in gathering research for this article.
Dr. Richard D. Kocur is an assistant professor of business at Grove City College. This article is used with permission.
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The simplest statement made in Scripture about the life that Jesus brings His people is perhaps also the most profound: “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). The giving life is not about obligation or guilt or drudgery or merely surviving. It’s about life in abundance.

To give lavishly is to be rich toward God; to hoard or spend on ourselves without regard for others is to be impoverished toward God. He accepts our gifts to the needy as if they were given directly to Him: “Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed” (Proverbs 19:17).
Any lifestyle that doesn’t align with God’s priorities and won’t hold up after death is not a good one—no matter how glamorous or appealing or sensible it seems at the time.
What Makes Someone a Fool?
In Christ’s story of the rich fool a man decides to hoard his fortune then “take life easy; eat, drink and be merry” (see Luke 12:13-21). The word translated “fool” literally means “unthinking one.” Mindless. Senseless. The rich fool was out of touch with eternal realities. Despite death’s inevitability, he failed to prepare for it—and failed to remember that he would give an account to God (Romans 14:12).
The rich fool stored up treasures for himself on Earth as if he were the center of the universe and as if this world was where he’d live forever. The man was a fool to imagine his silver, gold, crops, land, and barns were actually his. He was a fool to ignore God’s claims on him and his possessions:
The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. (Psalm 24:1, NIV)
“The silver is mine and the gold is mine,” declares the Lord Almighty. (Haggai 2:8, NIV)
A wise person will regularly ask, “Lord, what do you want me to do with all you have put in my hands?” God’s Word tells us exactly how to prepare now for the afterlife. Though our culture and even some of our Christian friends may encourage us to do so, we don’t have to live like fools!
In the world’s eyes, the rich fool was a great success. Today he would be admired, and he might even be placed on a church or ministry board. But in the end, all his success counted for nothing.
Had the rich fool acknowledged God as his Creator and Redeemer, and as the ultimate owner of everything he possessed, he would have been rich toward God and stored up treasures in Heaven. Instead, he stored up for himself treasures on Earth and  was suddenly and eternally parted from them at death.
The most troubling aspect of this parable is that if we met this man, most of us would commend him for his foresight.
Notice he isn’t called the rich sinner, but the rich fool.
Materialists are Self-Destructive Keepers
Christian Smith and Hilary Davidson observed this about those who fail to live generous lives:
By holding onto what we possess, we diminish its long-term value to us. In protecting only ourselves against future uncertainties and misfortunes, we become more anxious about uncertainties and vulnerable to future misfortunes. In short, by failing to care well for others, we actually do not properly take care of ourselves.
Christ-followers are self-enriching givers. Why? Because giving inevitably enlarges our hearts, lives, and capacity for joy.
Don’t misunderstand. The true good life doesn’t say no to wealth or pleasures. Rather, it says yes to greater and lasting wealth and pleasures that are found when we cheerfully part with God’s money and possessions for others’ good and God’s glory.
God graciously gives us money and possessions to meet real needs, both our own needs and the needs of others.
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