Eternal Optimists
“No eye has seen, no
ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love
Him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9
No doubt it has taken
its place among the top ten most infamous quotes in modern history. In 1899, Charles H. Duell went out on a
proverbial limb and boldly proclaimed, “Everything
that can be invented has been invented.”
Thank goodness nobody listened.
Little did he know, as the classic 70’s song refrained that the age of
ingenuity had “only just begun.” For over
a solid century now, Charles has become a legend in the C.E.A.S. (Crow-Eaters
Anonymous Society) while his words remain forever bronzed as a lasting
reminder.
As the twentieth
century dawned, creativity flourished.
If necessity is the mother of invention, then imagination is its
father. And imagine what people have
done. With every turn of a decade’s
page, something more elaborate came on the scene.
In the 1900’s,
the clothes washers, air conditioners and Wright Brother’s “flying machine”
arrive, while the disposable razor came from King Camp Gillette.
In the decade
following 1910, electric traffic lights emerged, along with disposable
scalpels and airline food (Much to our dismay).
In the Roaring 20’s,
television debuted, though not in commercial form. Vladimir Zworykin’s ideas of the cathode ray
tube and iconoscope TV (which would later lead to the modern television sets),
and in 1924, Clarence Birdseye invented the frozen foods.
In 1933, FM radio
came about when New York
native Edwin Howard Armstrong invented wide-band, or two-path, frequency
modulation and, in 1939, Ivoanovich Silovky flew the first successful
helicopter.
The 1940’s brough
microwave ovens and the Tupperware that shouldn’t go in them. And Edwin H. Land developed the one groundbreaking
Polaroid camera.
In the 1950’s,
medical advances such as the polio vaccine and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
appeared.
By the 1960’s,
our homes were starting to become filled with audiocassettes, videotape
recorders, touch-tone phones and hand-held calculators.
The 70’s, along
with bell-bottom jeans and disco music, brought microprocessors, personal
computers and ATM’s.
In the decade of the 1980’s Dr. Barney Clark became the
first recipient of an artificial heart and IBM invented the CD-ROM drive.
Then in 1990, the
World Wide Web came along with other technological and medical breakthroughs.
Finally, the 2,000’s introduced
the wave in social networks including Facebook, Twitters
and many means to rapidly communicate news and updates in a millisecond along
with MP3’s, Ipods, and phones that can do everything but cook your dinner. .
A hundred years of
progress has only shown that the best is yet to come. Contact lenses are coming that read blood
levels for diabetes patients and unmanned cars that make deliveries to your
homes are but a few of them.
In 1
Corinthians 2:9, Paul reminded a
nearsighted church, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love Him.” Paul was an eternal optimist not forecasting
a belief in mankind’s spirit of achievement but a determined confidence in
God’s plan for those He loves. While his
words suggest an enduring hope that can be held by those who are held in God’s
hand, the ultimate expectation of heaven’s blessings and rewards need to be
grasped unyieldingly.
Simply put, He’s got
good things in store for you. And if
anyone says anything differently…thank goodness you don’t have to listen.
Terry Risser
Reflections
1) What invention above
occurred during your decade of birth?
2) How does a healthy view of
heaven change our current circumstances?
Consider reading the Word today:
Copyright 2014- Terry Risser
No comments:
Post a Comment