Day 12 Conspiracies

 “Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, Him you shall honor as holy. Let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread. And He will become a sanctuary.”

Isaiah 8:12-14If there was ever an era in history where that word ' conspiracy' is relevant it is now.  With the advent of the internet we suddenly find ourselves absolutely drowning in information and opinions and theories and speculation about anything and everything.  Its becoming harder and harder to know what is actually true.  And this is only going to get worse as AI takes hold and spins its web. 

Theres some really interesting research about the decline in mental health of young people over the past couple of decades. 
Proportion of young people aged 14-24 in England with a presentation to primary care for a mental health problem from 2000 to 2023 (Youth Futures FOundation)

It's simplistic to blame this all on the internet. But you can't deny that the rapid increase in incidences of mental illness and suicide among young people has sky rocketed since everyone got their hands on a smartphone.  Alot of the problem is to do with disconnection.  People just not relating to each other face to face in real life any more.  And alot is to do with what we are bombarded with day and night, from adverts, to fake news, to mindless nonsense which we know perfectly well is wasting our time but to which we have become helplessly addicted.  The enemy of our souls loves all this.  His main aim is to disconnect us.  From ourselves, from church, from relationships and from God.  Like a wolf he looks for the ones who are isolated from the flock and then he pounces.  We are all so much more isolated now than we were ten years ago.

Once we are all sitting on our own, swiping our devices ,it is so easy for the enemy to speak his lies into us.  We are instantly in touch with every war and disaster and crime and danger in the world. All the conspiracy theories are a click away.  Every political argument, all the religious strife, each scandal in the church ...... its so easy to be overwhelmed and deeply depressed by it all.  But God says ' stop it!'  He says, don't do what ' they' do.  Dont listen to the stuff that makes the world panic. Switch off the distress about the state of the world and switch on discernment and the fear of the Lord.  Because once we focus on Him we remember who holds the universe in the span of His hand.  We remember who actually puts the world rulers in place and who knows the end from the beginning.  We see once more that there is a plan and its a good one which Jesus has already completed.  He is seated at the right hand of the Father.  And IT IS FINISHED! 



I note that in the verse from Isaiah above the Lord doesn't say that He is a sanctuary.  He says He will become one.  Just as we need to repeatedly confess and repent of our sin, as we repeatedly choose to close the door on the fear which is knocking, we will increasingly find refuge in the one who is Truth. Peace. Righteousness.

Lord Jesus,  help me not to listen to the clamour and lies and nonsense of the world but to root and ground myself in Your love and Your word. Focus my eyes on You.  Where I have allowed fear to infect me through things I have heard and read and seen and believed please forgive me. Erase all anxiety from my mind and fill me with Your Spirit of light and life and truth.  Amen

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