Tower of Babel

“Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you.” - Acts 8:22 ESV

In my devotion time this morning, I read this passage and it spoke to me.  As we are the human race, we are always striving to “improve” our lives - make it more comfortable with more amenities and pleasures, more luxuries, the attributes go on and on. Maybe, we ache to become more God-like. I’ll confess that when I consider all the things I focus on, I question why I put so much effort into them.

For example, we have some of those lights where you can talk to a smart assistant and say something like “turn on the living room lights” and poof they turn on (most of the time). It’s nice because you don’t have to get up and flick a switch on one or several light switches to get that effect. The other day my son, who’s as big or a bigger geek than I am, was telling me how he is moving away from the ecosystem of such products we both have to a different set (in short, moving from smart bulbs to smart switches) for this advantage or that advantage. All I could think of was the amount of effort that will be required to make that kind of change. Is this effort a distraction to other things more important in life?

In fact, I can remember times in my life when a trend objective had caught my attention and focus so much that I got distracted from everything else for a period. Usually, this obsession ended with the successful acquisition of the objective only to be forgotten or are perceived as out-of-date at some future point. Even my professional education cumulated with one test that I looked forward to passing for over 10 years (yes, I really was fairly regularly taking multi hour exams for over 10 years). 

I remember being beyond elated when I found out that I had passed that final exam.  But, I also remember the shine wearing off and realizing that my life wasn’t much different now that I had finished the exam series.

“Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.” - Genesis 11:1-9 ESV

Maybe I should pray to God to help me avoid getting distracted by trifles and focus on my eternity worshipping him.