Podcast | Table Talk With Mike and Nancy

I’ve noticed that no matter what your age, we all like to think we have a lot of years ahead of us, years to plan for retirement, complete that bucket list, or spend with the kids & grandkids. 

Then something happens that reminds us of our mortality—an accident or health scare, or maybe someone we know who is waaaay younger than us is suddenly gone, or gets that diagnosis we would all dread. 

As Christians, we all know, at least intellectually, that “this world is not our home”, and that our real life for all eternity is in heaven… but sometimes we can’t help but ask, “Leaving so soon?!”

I think we can all agree that our culture and the world is changing at an ever increasing rate—just think of all the technology we have now that we didn’t have growing up: remember those hand-held calculators from Texas Instruments, VHS players which became DVD and then BluRay, cassette tapes and 8-tracks which became CDs and then you just needed to download music on your iPod, and now you don’t even need cable or satellite dishes to get your favorite programs, as internet streaming services abound.

Lastly, we now we have mini computers in the palms of our hands in our smartphones, which are more powerful than the mega computers of a decade ago. With all these changes in technology, is it any wonder the goals we have in life have sometimes changed?

If you’re looking for a marker on just how much they’ve changed, all we need to do is look at children, who are the proverbial “canary in the coal mine” for this. So what are your Aspirations?

I think we can all agree that our culture and the world is changing at an ever increasing rate—just think of all the technology we have now that we didn’t have growing up: remember those hand-held calculators from Texas Instruments, VHS players which became DVD and then BluRay, cassette tapes and 8-tracks which became CDs and then you just needed to download music on your iPod, and now you don’t even need cable or satellite dishes to get your favorite programs, as internet streaming services abound.

Lastly, we now we have mini computers in the palms of our hands in our smartphones, which are more powerful than the mega computers of a decade ago. With all these changes in technology, is it any wonder the goals we have in life have sometimes changed?

If you’re looking for a marker on just how much they’ve changed, all we need to do is look at children, who are the proverbial “canary in the coal mine” for this. So what are your Aspirations?

We truly live in a marvelous age.  We have all the world’s information available to us on our phones, which are now more powerful than the computers of even a decade ago.  Targeted ads flash at us from every corner of facebook or the articles we read, intuitively giving us endless opportunities to buy and have delivered in a few days (or same day for Amazon Prime members), exactly what I was thinking about.  Don’t feel like cooking tonight? We don’t even need to run thru a drive-thru or settle for pizza, as GrubHub will deliver whatever we want from dozens of restaurants in the area. 

The transition from cash to credit & debit cards makes getting what we want in an instant easy, as we lose track of what things cost, versus their value. And we pass this “want – get” mentality down to our kids, who overwhelmingly support socialism, without ever having been taught in school about its dangers. 

Today, we’re talking about the monumental importance of learning delayed gratification.

We truly live in a marvelous age.  We have all the world’s information available to us on our phones, which are now more powerful than the computers of even a decade ago.  Targeted ads flash at us from every corner of facebook or the articles we read, intuitively giving us endless opportunities to buy and have delivered in a few days (or same day for Amazon Prime members), exactly what I was thinking about.  Don’t feel like cooking tonight? We don’t even need to run thru a drive-thru or settle for pizza, as GrubHub will deliver whatever we want from dozens of restaurants in the area. 

The transition from cash to credit & debit cards makes getting what we want in an instant easy, as we lose track of what things cost, versus their value. And we pass this “want – get” mentality down to our kids, who overwhelmingly support socialism, without ever having been taught in school about its dangers. 

Today, we’re talking about the monumental importance of learning delayed gratification.

I was having lunch with someone the other day, and she noted how easy it is to slip little by little into the world—maybe from busyness, too tired at the end of the day or in too much of a rush to get to work in the morning—to take the time to read the bible, pray, spend even a little time with the Lord. 

Indeed.

As any happily married person will tell you, the best relationships don’t just happen—they take time, and work…a lot of work. And on top of that, there are a lot of things going on in the World today trying to convince us that time is wrongly spent. The enemy will try any way he can to get us to turn from Christ. 

Pressure will come from our family, our workplace, even from within our church. They will call us hateful because of our adherence to the Word of God, divisive or unsubmissive because we won’t blindly follow our leadership as they implement the latest awesome new way to be “Christian”.

They will lie about us, paint a horrible picture of us that we won’t be allowed to challenge.  As the heat is turned up, the love of many will grow cold as they make spouse, child, workplace or church, more important than Christ himself, feeling they’re tired of arguing, it’s too embarrassing, or it “just isn’t worth it.”

I was having lunch with someone the other day, and she noted how easy it is to slip little by little into the world—maybe from busyness, too tired at the end of the day or in too much of a rush to get to work in the morning—to take the time to read the bible, pray, spend even a little time with the Lord. 

Indeed.

As any happily married person will tell you, the best relationships don’t just happen—they take time, and work…a lot of work. And on top of that, there are a lot of things going on in the World today trying to convince us that time is wrongly spent. The enemy will try any way he can to get us to turn from Christ. 

Pressure will come from our family, our workplace, even from within our church. They will call us hateful because of our adherence to the Word of God, divisive or unsubmissive because we won’t blindly follow our leadership as they implement the latest awesome new way to be “Christian”.

They will lie about us, paint a horrible picture of us that we won’t be allowed to challenge.  As the heat is turned up, the love of many will grow cold as they make spouse, child, workplace or church, more important than Christ himself, feeling they’re tired of arguing, it’s too embarrassing, or it “just isn’t worth it.”

With the recent World Cup success of the US Women’s Soccer team, perhaps many of you, like me, were stunned and shocked at the behavior of more than one team member… the disrespect of our country, our President, and of their fellow Americans who elected him. 

The word “spoiled” kept coming to mind, but was it really that much worse than what we’ve seen from others these days, especially of that generation? Antifa, which belies its supposed namesake and acts with the most Fascist tactics that ever were…

NFL players who kneeled for the National Anthem, claiming this country which made them instant multi-millionaires to play a game, has continuously enslaved them…

Social and Mainstream Media mass bullying of kids who dare to go against their “norm” by showing Christian values and common courtesy. 

It all leads to topic: the epidemic of ingratitude.

With the recent World Cup success of the US Women’s Soccer team, perhaps many of you, like me, were stunned and shocked at the behavior of more than one team member… the disrespect of our country, our President, and of their fellow Americans who elected him. 

The word “spoiled” kept coming to mind, but was it really that much worse than what we’ve seen from others these days, especially of that generation? Antifa, which belies its supposed namesake and acts with the most Fascist tactics that ever were…

NFL players who kneeled for the National Anthem, claiming this country which made them instant multi-millionaires to play a game, has continuously enslaved them…

Social and Mainstream Media mass bullying of kids who dare to go against their “norm” by showing Christian values and common courtesy. 

It all leads to topic: the epidemic of ingratitude.

We’ve done lots of shows that talk about the younger generation—Mike and I are both Baby Boomers so just about everybody is in that category to us.  Whether it’s their vulnerability, their fragility, their socialist tendencies and feelings of entitlement, their confusion, etc. etc. etc… the one thing we haven’t talked about is their mental condition, which seems to be rapidly deteriorating. 

Anxiety and depression are skyrocketing, thoughts of suicide are at an all-time high, especially between the ages of 18 to 25.

Alarmed at the statistics, most authorities, researchers and parents are grasping at straws, jumping to conclusions like “they need more self-esteem” or “they need greater affirmations in their gender choices” to stem the tide, prompting “everybody wins-Participation Trophies” and laws silencing all efforts to question the “choices” of children as young as 4. 

How is that working out? The statistics just keep going up, yet everyone just keeps looking at the symptoms, and not the causes…