A MILE WIDE...
Many years ago a man of high office in my church organization made this statement about our movement.
"The Assemblies of God is a mile wide and an inch deep".
His comments came out of a sermon he had prepared to challenge us to merge the head and the heart together. The Assemblies of God has long been known for the openess to experiencing God with the whole heart, emotions. feelings. The challenge of the speaker was that we not allow our feelings to be the primary directive for our spiritual lives.
What was said that night to the leadership of the Assemblies of God organization is true of American culture as well. We are a culture of feelings and emotions. Moved to tears by a 20 second story on the news that may well later prove to be untrue or a mis-representation of facts altogether. Too late though we have already shed tears and sent money and repeated the story multiple times to as many people as we could get to listen.
A mile wide and an inch deep when we hate the congress but continuously re-elect our congressmen. A mile wide and and inch deep when we send our sons to war but demand that they fight it politically correct. A mile wide and an inch deep when we buy carbon credits so we can ease our conscience. A mile wide and an inch deep when we allow another tax to be levied by a government that keeps finding new ways to pick our pockets because we rationalize that this tax will not effect us only people who smoke or eat too much or buy gas for automobiles etc...
As long as we feel first and think second we are easy targets for predators. That was the point of the sermon I heard so many years ago. The enemy of our soul would love for us to live our lives by how we feel. He would encourage good feelings when we were doing things that could destroy us and others and make us feel angry or cheated when we do things that in the long run will be in our best interest and the interest of others.
And so we find ourselves A Mile Wide and An Inch Deep. The average American spends 8 hours a day at work and 8 hours a day in front of the TV. The cruel reality is that leaves no time for deep thoughts so we dare not tread into deep waters.
