Eight Billion

Happy Friday,

Psalm 73:24b

In the first half of Psalm 73, the Psalmist vents. He is mad about “the prosperity of the wicked,” and declares himself a fool for trying to follow God. “They” have amassed wealth and now live carefree, while he has suffered affliction and hardship, etc., etc. It’s quite a rant. And then – in verse 17 – he pivots. He enters the sanctuary and realizes that he must extend his gaze. As Paul notes in I Corinthians 15, if we do not live after we die, pursuing God makes little sense. But if we do live on, then we are wise “to fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” And eternity changes everything.

Happiness and Age: In his Harvard Business School classes – where the average age of an MBA student is 27 – Arthur Brooks asks, “On a scale of 1-10, how happy are you today?” He then asks, “How happy do you think you will be in five years? And five years after that? And five years after that?” He then informs his class – all of whom gained admission by seldom failing a test –  that they have gotten virtually every answer wrong. You can read From Strength to Strength for more details, or you can glance at this Life Satisfaction and Age graph and be surprised.

Work is a Get To, Not a Have To: In this Atlantic article – A World Without Work – Derek Thompson notes something most pastors are well aware of: Work adds meaning to life, and most people (especially men) with no work responsibility do not hang out with friends, take up new hobbies, or learn to speak a foreign language. They sleep in, watch a lot of TV, and occasionally drink too much. Work – for pay or as a volunteer – is a blessing. Yes, since Genesis 3 it is cursed and often frustratingly hard, but work is a good thing.

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Without Comment: 1) This Brookings Institute report notes that 67% of cohabiting parents are likely to split up before their child reaches 12, compared with 25% of married parents; 2) The average interest rate on U.S.credit cards is now over 19%, a 30-year high; 3) According to Lifeway Research, U.S. churches have rebounded to around 85% of their pre-pandemic attendance, with about a third drawing close to the same crowds or even more than before; 4) It appears as though Gen Z (currently between 18 and 25 years old) is more likely than previous generations to vote and/or get involved in civic events; and 5) According to this study, the two most regretted college majors are journalism and sociology, and the two least regretted are computers and criminology; 6) Samaritan’s Purse recently gave away its 200,000,000th Operation Christmas Shoe Box. It went to a Ukrainian refugee; and 7) If Nondenominational was a denomination, it would now be the largest U.S. denomination, attracting 1 in 13 church-goers. There are now 5x more nondenominational churches than Presbyterian (USA) ones, 6x more than Episcopal and 3.4 million more people in nondenom churches than Southern Baptist ones.

Eight Billion: The UN believes the global population hit 8 billion this week, which is three times the population of 1950 and eight times that of the early 1800s. If you have read about this you may have heard that the climb has been fueled by a massive decline in child mortality and a dramatic increase in life expectancy. I have little to add other than to note that of the 120 billion people who have walked on this planet, no one has had a bigger impact than Jesus.

Signature Sins: In this podcast, I talk with Bob Merritt – the recently retired pastor of Eaglebrook Church, which grew from 300 to 25,000 during his thirty-year tenure. Our discussion is about “signature sins” – i.e., those issues we can’t seem to move past. Bob is very transparent in both his book – Done with That – and this interview.

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Underestimating Millennials: You may need to adjust your view of Millennials. Not only are they the largest cohort in the U.S. workforce, but the oldest among them is approaching forty. BTW, by 35, Jefferson had drafted the Declaration of Independence; by 32, Alexander the Great had conquered the known world; and by 26, Einstein had developed the Theory of Relativity. Oh, and more than a dozen of those who signed the Declaration of Independence were less than 25. Alexander Hamilton was 21, Aaron Burr was 20, and James Monroe was 18.

Already: In last week’s update I suggested that companies would soon shut down their servers on weekends to shield employees from the deleterious effects of 24×7 tech. Well… apparently French companies have been doing so for four years, and this WSJ article reports on boarding schools that are doing similar things.

We Can Get Better: Better is possible. In fact, spiritual growth is expected. In the NT, those who stall get reprimanded. (On a couple of occasions, they are derided as “babies.” On other occasions questions are raised about whether or not they are actually a child of God.) I am not suggesting we can become perfect. But we should be maturing. And if we are not, something is wrong.

Closing Prayer: Lord, because you have made me, I owe you the whole of my love; because you have redeemed me, I owe you the whole of myself; because you have promised so much, I owe you my whole being. I pray you, Lord, make me taste by love what I taste by knowledge; let me know by love what I know by understanding. I owe you more than my whole self, but I have no more, and by myself I cannot render the whole of it to you. Draw me to you, Lord, in the fullness of your love. I am wholly yours by creation; make me all yours, too, in love. Amen. (Anselm – 1033-1109)