Aliens in a Strange Land

I'm attending a convention where there's a lot of talk about high tech business solutions.

The rental car has OnStar, but no GPS. The GPS I brought with me doesn't cooperate, and the highways here are confusing. If you have a wireless, electronic pass, you can zoom right thorugh the toll booths, but without that, you need correct change or you'd better get in the line where there's a live person.

The TV in the hotel room shuts itself off after 30 minutes. I'm sure there's a way to deprogram it, but I can't figure it out. At least the bedside alarm clock/radio is easy to use.

I could use voice dialing for my new cell phone headset, but I have to read the manual to find out how to set it up.

The digital photo holder I got for Christmas is sitting next to the computer at home. It has the pictures I loaded initially, but I haven't had time to load the latest photos of the grandkids.

My MP3 player plays the same 20 songs because there's no time to load new ones. I'm tired of listening to Bob Dylan and the Kingston Trio when I'm walking.

High Tech is great, yet not so great. I'm writing this on a laptop in the convention center. There's a free public WiFi here, but the signal strength is so low, I can't get on the Internet. Meanwhile, my battery power is going down rapidly. Without power, all my high tech gadgets are just heavy paperweights.

I plugged in my cell phone at the last hotel, which we checked out of yesterday morning. After spending a day at SeaWorld before the conference started, I suddenly remembered the phone. Of course, the housekeeping manager at the hotel was gone by the time I called. I was facing a sleepless night as I thought of all the long distance calls being placed on my cell phone. But, lo and behold, there it was in the suitcase! I still don't remember putting it in there, but praise the Lord!

But those hours fretting over it made me realize how vulnerable I am to technology. Someone today said that those of our generation are aliens in a strange land. We can't keep up with the natives, who have been born and raised with texting, IM, MP3s, social networking, blogs. They don't know what the world was like before the Internet. If it weren't for Harry Potter, they probably wouldn't know what it's like to curl up with a good (low tech) book.

Aren't we all aliens in a strange land? According to 1 Chronicles 29, we are "aliens and strangers in [God's} sight" and everything we have belongs to Him (14-16, NIV). If we want to learn how to live in this world, whether high tech or low tech, we need His guidance

Technology is great, but there are times when I will choose the low-tech option for simplicity's sake. And, sometimes, I think I'll just go "no tech" and listen to what God is trying to tell me without all the "buzz" from the atmosphere around me.