August 16, 2024
Dear friends,
Have you checked your emails lately? Most of you who read my weekly blog post read it on a computer. To get to it, you likely saw many other emails, including some from retailers promoting sales and others from places hosting events such as the hot air balloons this weekend. In Matt Perman’s book “What’s Best Next” he notes: “The proliferation of technology has not only increased our daily load of information; it has astronomically increased the rate of change in society and in the world of work altogether.” He cites the following statistics: “In 2008, the web contained one trillion pages. That has risen at an exponential rate, such that in 2013 the quantity of information on the internet began doubling every seventy-two hours. Every seventy-two hours – every three days – the amount of information online doubles.
In 2010, 95 trillion emails were sent (about 260 billion per day). That averages to about 153 emails per user per day (there were about 1.86 billion internet users at the beginning of 2010).” Perman’s book was published in 2014. According to one website – https://www.yaguara.co/how-many-emails-are-sent-per-day/ – the numbers have increased greatly in the past decade:
347.3 billion emails are sent and received daily in 2024. These numbers denote a 4.3% increase compared to 2023.
More than 149,513 emails are sent and received each minute globally.
Just as we need to get past some emails to get to what is important for us, we also need to prioritize spending time reading God’s Word and praying. We will also be blessed by spending time with family and Christian friends. In the past week, Karen and I had the joy of celebrating the birthdays of two of our grandchildren (both born on August 11 – six years apart).
In “The Disciplines of Life” by the late V. Raymond Edman, the following is cited: “Theodore Roosevelt’s favorite chapter in the Bible was the first chapter of Joshua; and not without cause. The Rough Rider was always a man of action, in the ranch lands of the Dakotas, in the politics of the Empire State, on the slopes of San Juan Hill, in the diplomacy of the White House that talked gently but carried a big stick. He knew that life required character and courage.” By God’s grace, we can live courageously, saturating our thoughts with the Word of God and asking the Lord to mold us in His image.
Scripture for the weekend: “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.” Joshua 1:8 (NASB)
Thought for the weekend: “At some point in Joshua’s adulthood, Moses changed Joshua’s name from Hoshea (“Salvation”) to Joshua, “Yahweh Saves” (Num. 13:16). It was a prophetic change, for Joshua had not only come to know the power of Yahweh – the promise-keeping God of his fathers – but he had learned that the children of Israel could not save themselves; only God Himself could save them.” – Dr. David Jeremiah (from his Study Bible)