I love watching television: sports, the news, good movies and especially the Science Channel & Discovery Channel. Nothing wrong with any of them and in fact, a person can learn quite a bit from watching some of them.
But in the last few months I began to notice that the amount of what I'll call, "inspirational thought" in my life was diminishing. You know, the kind of thoughts that leave you pondering them for a while...sometimes days. Not quite sure what was at the root of this phenomenon, I began to do a little self-inspection. More accurately, God began to challenge me to do this.
You're probably way ahead of me, but what I discovered was that the amount of "inspirational thought" rattling around inside my heart and mind seemed to be directly linked to the amount of TV I watched (and not in a positive equation). Again, it wasn't that the TV was necessarily bad, but what was happening is that the more I watched, the less I read.
If you're anything like me, there's a "waiting list" of significant proportions comprised of the books I still want to read. People either give them to me or recommend them all the time, and you know what? They usually are really good; challenging, stimulating, convicting, correcting & directing my life in God's good hands. So I made a decision that every night after the late news (when I'm usually still waiting for my wife to come to bed and I end up flipping channels), I was going to turn the TV off and start working on some of those great books at my bedside.
The change was nearly instantaneous! I began getting new ideas for teaching, counseling, studying, writing and leading. I found the cobwebs being shaken out and the rythym of my life being reestablished. One cool side benefit: I found myself going to sleep easier at night having spent my final minutes before my rendezvous with the Sandman dwelling on the things of God and His Kingdom.
I'm sure I'll never stop watching TV altogether (not with the Hawkeyes & Cubs on), but I am thankful that the Lord helped me to get my thinking train back on His rails. Of all the good questions that are out there, I believe "TV or not TV" is one of the best ones we can ask of ourselves.
