The Intensity Dynamic
Today (August 29, 2011) I read an article that provides an interesting follow-up to last week’s post, “Feeling the Impact.” The article, “Infographic Of The Day: How The Virginia Earthquake Spread On Twitter,” demonstrates graphically the spread of tweets across the East Coast in relation to the actual shockwave of last week’s quake. Interestingly, the intensity of the tweets was not the same as the shockwave expanded. This paragraph from the article sums up their conclusions:
“It seems that somehow people further and further from the epicenter are finding the earthquake less and less interesting. The most obvious reason is this: For one, the feeling of the earthquake isn’t quite as dramatic, and the damage it’s causing isn’t as severe (if it even caused any damage at all; New York, for example, was totally unharmed). So people are tweeting less about earthquake when it feels less threatening. Let me repeat that: They’re tweeting less when the earth quake feels less threatening. That sounds rather innocuous, but that single insight allows you to see the chart in a totally different way. For one, the map above actually doesn’t just show the spread of earthquake-related tweeting, but actually the emotional impact and physical damage. Human beings, processing the information about the earthquake, are basically acting as sensors, as SocialFlow elegantly puts it.”
Once again, the situation provides some interesting parallels to our Christian walk and witness. Naturally, when we are talking about God, we aren’t talking about factors like emotional impact (only) and certainly not physical damage. The parallel I want to make is with regards to the intensity of tweets in relation to the impact felt. Let me repeat the conclusion:
They’re tweeting less when the earth quake feels less threatening.
I suggest that the intensity of people’s witness for Christ could be directly related to the spiritual impact and the degree of life change experienced as a result of coming into contact with God’s revelation (whether directly through His Word, or by hearing the witness of others about His Word). Or, to put it another way, our passion for communicating God to others (intensity) is directly related to the degree of life change produced by God’s Word in our lives (impact). The deeper the impact, the greater the intensity.
Passages like Matthew 13:3-9 teach us that the Word of God will have different results in different people’s lives. The difference isn’t the seed or the sower, but the quality of the soil in which the seed lands. We need to beg God to break up and soften the soil of hearts to fully receive His Word and be changed by it. We need to plead that His impact be felt deeper than just an emotional reaction, that we can be drawn near to the epicenter of earth-shaking, life-altering change revealed in His Word.
We need to be truly shaken to our core, and set firmly on our Solid Rock. Then, and only then, we will intensely proclaim to others the impact of God in our lives.
Feeling the Impact
(Leia este post em português.)
Bad news travels fast.
Practically the moment the east coast felt the impact of yesterday’s earthquake (08/23/2011), others were reading about it, and not necessarily from the news sources. Amidst the normal things people do in these situations—find cover, look for family members, panic—many found the time to update their Facebook and Twitter accounts to give the rest of the world an up-to-the-second account of what was going on.
These days, any news travels fast. From the important to the very, very mundane, millions of people have added to their routine the concept of announcing from the virtual rooftops anything and everything that is going on. It reminds me of this strip from one of my favorite comics, Calvin and Hobbes, in which Calvin announces his activities loudly as he walks through the house.
Sound familiar?
But going back to the earthquake…
I was in an earthquake once, back in ’95, when I was visiting friends in Costa Rica. I don’t remember what it scored on the Richter scale, but it was a substantial quake. Damage was minimal, but it was what everyone was talking about that night at church. Even when we are bombarded by the mundane all day long, when something BIG happens, we want people to know. Good or bad, we share it, and if we hear of something BIG, we pass it along. Twitter is just a digital voice to what humans have done for centuries.
So the question is: of all the things that have ever happened to you, that are happening to you, and will ever happen to you, is there anything BIGGER than the impact God has in your life? Is there anything WORSE than our sinful condition, anything GREATER than His love, anything MORE AMAZING than Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf?
If you have felt the impact of knowing and being known by the Maker of the Universe through a personal relationship with His Son, Jesus Christ, is anything else more newsworthy?
Bad news travels fast.
The Good News needs to travel faster.
