It’s the “new” TV season. Since for me, Fall no longer means an excitement about returning to school–new pencils, new notebooks and book bags, I find myself anticipating and being excited by the promise of new Television shows! I watch the promos and try to figure if House is going to conflict with anything else I want to view. I plan what will be taped for later and what I will watch now. Then I begin to wonder:
What will happen with Meredith and McDreamy?
What will fill the void left by Gilmore Girls?
Will Kitty and the Senator get together?
How will I be able to enjoy Survivor China and attend Choir Practice and ESL too?
What’s up with this Gossip Girls?
Into the scheduling excitement of the new season and of planning my living around what is airing on the tube — I read this Piper devotion. Well, for sure it made me turn ET right off last night!
“If all other variables are equal, your capacity to know God deeply will probably diminish in direct proportion to how much television you watch. There are several reasons for this. One is that television reflects American culture at its most trivial. And a steady diet of triviality shrinks the soul.Â
You get used to it. It starts to seem normal…If you watch fifty TV ads each night, you may forget there is such a thing as wisdom. TV seldom inspires great thoughts or great feelings with glimpses of great Truth. God is the great, absolute, all shaping Reality. If He gets any air time, He is treated as an opinion.Â
There is no reverence. No trembling.God and all He thinks about the world is missing. Cut loose from God, everything goes down. It isn’t just what TV does to us with its rivers of emptiness; it is what TV keeps us from doing. Do you ever ask, “What could I accomplish that is truly worthwhile if I did not watch TV?” ((John Piper, Pierced By the Word, Multnomah Publishers 2003, 77-78.))
Do I really want to spend this one precious life passive in front of a screen rather than actively before the face of God?Â
 “Your eye is a lamp, lighting up your whole body. If you live wide-eyed in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. Keep your eyes open, your lamp burning, so you don’t get musty and murky. Keep your life as well-lighted as your best-lighted room.” (Luke 11:33-36, The Message)
Lord, may this be a new season of love and devotion toward you!