The Friday Update - Popular and Promising

Happy Friday,

King Nebuchadnezzar boasted an empire that encompassed modern-day Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and parts of Turkey and Saudi Arabia. In this sentence, we see multiple streams of pride leaking out from his heart. First, boasting: “Is not this great Babylon which I have built”? Next, credit-taking: “by my mighty power,” and lastly, glory-seeking “for the glory of my majesty.” Boasting, credit-taking, and glory-seeking are classic symptoms of the spiritual sickness called pride. Have you taken your temperature recently? 

Popular and Promising

Mike is out in Turkey leading a Lakelight trip, so Glenn Wishnew is stepping in this week. Last Friday, Mike called Glenn (me) “one of Lakelight’s more popular and promising Associate Directors,” which would be the nicest compliment he has given me in 4 years but unfortunately — I am Lakelight’s only Associate Director. 

Division, Identity and Worship

We live in a world divided by politics, media habits, address, religion, generation, income, etc. Which divide runs deepest? Put another way, which of these shapes a person’s identity the most? The Bible says that what you worship is the core of who you are. It is the defining center of your identity, your functional religion. I fear that there is a gap for many of us between our stated religion and our functional one. 

From The Archives

One year ago, Mike highlighted two quotes from Jaroslav Pelikan, a former Church History professor at Yale. They are worth restating: 1) “If Christ is risen, nothing else matters. And if Christ is not risen, nothing else matters.” 2) “Tradition is the living faith of dead people…Traditionalism is the dead faith of living people.”

Overheard

1) Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.

2) Work is love made visible.

3) The Instagram generation experiences the present moment as an anticipated memory.

4) The real problem with humanity today is that we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology.

5) If there were 1,000 ways to God, we would want 1,001.

6) One sign you’ve encountered God is you walk with a limp, not a strut.

7) The dumbest person you know is being told “I love how you’re thinking about this!” by ChatGPT right now.

Dark Retreats

Chris Colin went on a 3-day retreat into complete darkness, hoping to counteract the constant noise that had turned his brain into “a bulwark of random crud.” You can read more about his experience here. All I’ll add is that 1) America has always had an impulse toward extreme religious experiences, i.e. cults, drugs, ayahuasca, etc…and 2) that desire will intensify if America continues to secularize. When we stop believing in God, we start believing in crazy.

Without Comment

1) The average cost of a family health insurance plan is 27K.

2) A study of homicides in Chicago in 2020 and 2021 found that young men who lived in the most violent zip codes faced a greater risk of gun death than U.S. soldiers deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq.

3) There are more AI-generated articles on the internet than human-generated ones. 

4) A Johns Hopkins Hospital employed a new method to shore up operations, which ended up preventing 1500 deaths and saving nearly $200 million. The method: using a checklist.

5) 72 percent of teens have used AI companions—and nearly a third find them as satisfying or more satisfying than human interaction.

6) For five straight years, young Gen Z’ers have told pollsters that the thing they most want to be when they grow up is an “influencer.”

7) A new poll revealed that 11% of parents believe their kid could become a professional athlete. Only 0.02% of high school athletes will. (That means parental optimism overshoots the reality by a factor of ~550×.)

WOTW

Honorable mentions: Involution (excessive competition that doesn’t translate into better outcomes — firms over-producing, lowering prices, cutting wages, yet still getting squeezed), Algospeak (indirect language used to evade social platforms algorithms). Also, I’m including these two words which are fun to say: Petrichor (the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil) and Susurrus (a soft whispering sound like the one of rustling leaves). Full honors go to Mouse Jiggler (a physical device or metaphor used to simulate activity in remote work — jiggling the mouse so the computer thinks your active). Lucky for me, when both of your bosses are in Turkey, you don’t need a Mouse Jiggler.

A Quote from C.S. Lewis because…C.S. Lewis

“The promise of glory is the promise that we shall please God. To please God…to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness…To be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son — it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.”

Resources

1) Check out this 90 second video that tells the Biblical story in breath-taking visuals. 

2) The song Christ The True and Better has wonderful lyrics, great musical accompaniment and is based off this sermon clip from Tim Keller.

3) If you’ve benefited from Mike’s sermons and devotionals on Revelation, consider taking Lakelight’s Revelation class. You can get more information here.

Closing Prayer

“Write your blessed name, O Lord, upon my heart, there to remain so indelibly engraved. Let no prosperity, no adversity ever move me from your love. Be to me a strong tower of defense, a comforter in tribulation, a deliverer in distress, a very present help in trouble, and a guide to heaven through the many temptations and dangers of this life. Amen. ” (Thomas à Kempis, 1380-1471)