Waiting in an Age of Instant Gratification
Written by Aaron L. Garriott |
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
As Christians living in an age of instant gratification, we will no doubt succumb to the pleasures of Egypt from time to time. But more importantly, the Christian knows that nothing in this age can bring ultimate gratification. For that, we seek the city that is to come (Hebrews 13:14).
Time seemed to move at half-speed while I was sitting in the hospital waiting room. My wife’s surgery to remove her cancer was scheduled to be one hour. Three, four, five hours went by. The surgeon came to assure me that although the cancer was worse than the biopsy had shown, he was still actively working on removing all that he could. So I waited.
Friends and family sent text messages from hours away that were delivered instantly. In between my prayers, I ordered a burger on my phone for prompt delivery. I searched on Google for “complications with cancer surgery” and immediately had thousands of answers at my fingertips. On the one hand, I was in control of a lot. I could have a burger prepared and delivered to me within the hour. I could have an Amazon package on my doorstep the next day. I could speak to friends hundreds of miles away in live time. I could FaceTime my children. Yet I was in control of so little. I was at the mercy of the surgeon’s skilled hand. I was waiting to see my beloved wife and waiting for the doctor to report whether the cancer would take her. I was waiting on the Lord and, perhaps more importantly, with the Lord. Finally, eight hours in, the surgeon came to tell me that she was successfully out of surgery.
That lengthy day demonstrated my aversion to waiting and the plethora of gadgets and apps I had that could help curb that aversion. We’ve been conditioned to assume that waiting is something to be avoided at all costs. We are the generation of Disney FastPasses, direct flights, eBay bidding, television streaming, quick bites, and free two-day shipping. Certain occasions in life, however, remind us that we have no choice but to wait. We might be able to gratify certain desires here and now, such as ordering dinner, but the ultimate things in life require waiting, and often for lengthy periods. Because we’ve been accustomed to having answers to our inquiries with the simple click of a button or tap on a screen, we can fall victim to the illusion of control. In short, modern technology has habituated us to expect to get what we want, how and when we want it. And we want it now.
One may wonder whether our aversion to waiting is any greater than that of previous generations. It’s a fair question, for God’s people have always faced difficulties in waiting on the Lord and in not growing impatient as they expect Him to intervene for their good and His glory. The iPhone didn’t create impatience, but it has profoundly reshaped and conditioned our expectations. In particular, the modern era of digital technology has strengthened our expectations for instant gratification of our desires and, conversely, instant relief of our pain and suffering. If I’m hungry, I can order a cheeseburger. If my back hurts, I can order relief meds. Sinful patterns are often born out of inordinate desires and quick fixes, such as that of the young man who, rather than actively waiting for a godly spouse, finds a cheap imitation on a screen. But not all time-saving conveniences are inherently bad. Modern technology can enhance efficiency, save lives, enrich fellowship, and more. Yet if we’re not careful, digital technologies can infect the soil of our minds in such a way that stunts the growth of godly patience. We can become like Esau, who considered his birthright worthless compared to the immediate need to satiate his hunger (Gen. 25:32: “What use is a birthright to me?”). Whether the “technology” is a bowl of stew or an iPad, the “Buy It Now” option in all of life may give us the illusion of control and rob us of the opportunity to wait in fellowship with God and with His people.
For me, as a waiting-averse person dwelling in an age of instant gratification, is there any hope? Cultivating a spirit of waiting (Rom. 8:23) in an age of immediacy is an upstream voyage. Nonetheless, the Spirit of sanctification who indwells us (v. 9) is not inhibited by our tech-induced hyperactivity. Let’s consider three ways to better pursue faith-waiting in an age that considers waiting an impediment.
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A Tale of Two Mountains (Hebrews 12:18-29)
God has revealed himself in Jesus, who is the pinnacle of God’s revelation. If the stakes were high back in Moses’ day, they’re even higher now. One day God will shake not only a place in the Egyptian wilderness but all earth and heaven in judgment, so it’s even more important that we pay attention to Jesus. When God shakes heaven and earth, there’s only one place that will not be shaken according to verse 27. That place is Mount Zion.
Why should God accept you? That is a question that should concern all of us.
When you get to the end of your life and stand before God, why should he look at you and say that you are acceptable? How can we pass the ultimate final exam, the only exam that truly matters, as our lives come under the scrutiny of God? How can we face that day with confidence, knowing that he will give us a passing grade?
There are only two possible answers, and they’re really answers represented by two different mountains. We’re all headed to one of these two mountains, but only one will give us what we’re looking for, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
We’re near the end of a series through the book of Hebrews. The writer is encouraging us to keep following Jesus because he is so much better than anyone or anything else. This chapter is meant to change our lives. The writer of Hebrews wants us to run the race with endurance: to strip off everything that hinders us, to avoid losing what matters most for temporary pleasure, and to keep running the race despite suffering and hardship in our lives. His big goal is to help us cling to Christ and to keep following him to the end.
In this section, he gives us two options for how we can get to the end and know that we’re okay with God. He gives us two mountains. We’re either going to one or the other, so choose carefully. Everything is at stake depending on which mountain you choose.
Mountain One: Sinai (12:18-21)
The writer takes us all the way to the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt to the events that took place in Exodus 19 to 20. Israel stayed at Sinai for a total of 11 months, and one of the most important events in the entire Old Testament took place. Moses went up the mountain to be with God. Sinai was covered with a thick cloud, and God himself came to meet with Moses. Think about it: God had rescued them from Egypt, and now he came to meet with them and make them his people.
But meeting with God is no small thing. Because God is so holy, they had to take precautions. God himself was hidden in clouds because his glory would be too great for them to see with their naked eyes. They had to wash their clothes and consecrate themselves in three days of preparation and examination. And even then, they couldn’t get anywhere near Mount Sinai because God is so holy and glorious. We read in Exodus:
And you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ‘Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death. No hand shall touch him, but he shall be stoned or shot; whether beast or man, he shall not live.’ (Exodus 19:12-13)
It was terrifying. We read what happened after the three days of preparation:
On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the LORD had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. The LORD came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. And the LORD called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. (Exodus 19:16-20)
Even then, after Moses went up, God told Moses to go down and warn the people again not to come anywhere near the mountain because it was so dangerous to come close to a holy God.
Friends, this is what it’s like to come into God’s presence. It’s dangerous. Astronomers have discovered a sun that they describe as the brightest star ever found in the universe. Not even a welder’s helmet would help you face the light from this giant. The brightness of this star is some 10 million times greater than the light coming from our sun!
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When Mental Illness Goes Viral: Social Contagions Are Destroying Our Girls
Millions of girls with instant access to our culture’s most viral (and dangerous) behaviors and beliefs are currently manifesting the results. Their sicknesses are a clear sign that our society is sick. In order to treat them and us, we’ll have to admit how the disease spreads, admit the connection between mental illness and gender confusion, and keep them away from clinics and smartphone apps where the disease is celebrated.
One of the strangest stories of the last couple of years is how teenage girls have been stricken with facial tics after browsing the video-sharing app TikTok. Earlier this month, Azeen Ghorayshi published a deep dive on the strange phenomenon in The New York Times. Looking back at the puzzling explosion of TikTok tics during the pandemic, she reported that contagious outbreaks of strange behavior are not new and have a technical name: “mass psychogenic illness.”
For example, long before TikTok, back in 2011, 18 girls at a high school in Le Roy, New York, broke into twitches and head snapping after one of their peers suffered a sudden spasm. The incident became a legend in medical literature. History is full of stories of patients, “mostly women,” who seemed to catch “tremors, seizures, paralysis, and even blindness” from each other like contagious diseases. Such mass psychogenic events used to be limited to real-life social circles, but social media has “dissolved the boundaries” that once kept outbreaks “geographically contained.” Now anyone with a smartphone can “catch” such behaviors.
Most interesting about Ghorayshi’s piece is the correlation between social media-induced mental illnesses and LGBT identities. In fact, she wrote, doctors at a recent conference in Switzerland admitted that “a surprising percentage of their patients with the TikTok tics identified as transgender or nonbinary.” Neurologists also told her that a “disproportionate number of gender-diverse adolescents” have developed “sudden tics.”
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The Plague of Morally Toxic Public Schools
What happens in public schools really matters, to each student, to each family and to our nation. Because, as Abraham Lincoln said: “The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation is the philosophy of the government in the next.”
What would happen if a child were to spend most of his waking hours, during most of his formative years, in an institution bent on persuading him to adopt certain fundamental beliefs?
There is no mystery here. Children are easy to manipulate. They are eager to please, especially in a school setting where their grades and future careers depend on it. The child would eventually yield to the days and years of pressure and embrace the beliefs thrust upon him.
But what if those fundamental beliefs were at war with his family’s?
We should be speaking in the present tense, for this is what happens today—every day—to Christian children in America. While their parents sleep.
Many of America’s public school systems have become morally toxic, especially for the hearts and minds of children from religious families. So say authors Mary Hasson and Theresa Farnan in their bracing and deeply researched new book, “Get Out Now: Why You Should Pull Your Child from Public School Before It’s Too Late.” The threat does not come from the dedicated teachers who are just trying to do their jobs but from progressive ideologues who have become our nation’s education elites.
If you wonder why your fourth grader comes home sounding like a “social justice warrior,” you can thank the National Network of State Teachers of the Year for pushing a book list for elementary students with the themes of classism, racism, xenophobia, sexism and transgenderism.
Even while schools are becoming successful instruments for leftist social reform, they are failing at their core mission to educate children in basic academic subjects. The latest national assessment is “devastating,” says Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Two-thirds of American students can’t read at grade level, and reading scores have worsened in 31 states. “This country is in a student achievement crisis, and over the past decade it has continued to worsen, especially for our most vulnerable students,” DeVos says.
Sex education is the most obvious area for indoctrination. Well-funded international pressure groups have been extraordinarily successful at pushing “Comprehensive Sexuality Education” into American public schools, both in politically liberal and conservative regions. CSE promotes risky sexual behavior to vulnerable teens disguised as sexual “rights” and focuses on LGBTQ sexuality (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning) as a victim class.
Lessons are carefully designed to encourage children to approve homosexual behavior and to reject the beliefs and the authority of their parents.
Examples are almost too graphic to print. Elementary children are taught that some people are born in the wrong body. Young teens are encouraged to experiment with anal and oral sex. High schoolers learn how to get secret abortions.
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