A PERSON NEEDS PITY WHO LIVES IN THE CITY!
Pity the person who lives in the city! Yet, those who opt for city living love its honking cars and taxis, the ungiving cement sidewalks and curbs, asphalt streets and the huge diesel buses weaving in and out of traffic. Sky-scrapers faced with unending stories of glass, high-rise apartments, subterranean subways, gourmet restaurants and shoulder-to-shoulder stores full of designer goods in crowded retail districts keep them awed.
But, consider this: There's little to nothing in a city that isn't man-made! Cities herald what man can design and build. They define minutes instead of hours as shoppers and employees hurry from place to place to be efficient in their use of time and business conduct. Nothing in a typical city speaks of God's handiwork or draws a heart to Him. Where is He in all the mix?
How easy it becomes to forget God and instead worship and adore the works of mens' hands! A city boasts so much human achievement and accomplishment within its 'limits' that one who lives there need never be bored. Rather, a city slicker is enamored by all the possibilities in which to participate.
Civilization has become 'citified' by communication systems and social media. While that may sound preposterous, think about this: No television studio, actors' guild or TV sit-com emanates from a farm pasture somewhere. It takes a city to produce what goes out over the air waves.
There was a day when 'city slickers' were a different cut from rural 'hayseeds.' But, no more. Television and the available array of electronics priced so that nearly anyone can access them have leveled the playing field. Their adherents are unified by a single thought stream and perception of what matters.
People around the world have adopted styles of dress that resemble each other, regardless of which continent they call home. Their speech, tastes, and behavior are seeded by the Godless cities of the world. Perhaps it's time to call our world a tower of Babel. God's original language of beauty, truth, righteousness, holiness and goodness has been usurped by world-speak. Those who talk it disdain ones who remain true to the original dialect of God.
Little do city slickers know that God plants wild roses along wooded paths, roses that smell sweet whether or not anyone comes by to inhale their winsome fragrance. Roses simply do what God appoints them to be. On their part there is no doubt or reticence. City slickers have never watched a bee pollinate a flower, seen a robin search for worms to feed their young or caught a glimpse of a hawk circling the sky. They have not learned to appreciate what the hand of God can create, so rapt are they with their own fabrications.
Cities of history past, no matter how magnificent at the peak of their glory, now lie in ruins. Archeologists search their remains for traces of the now-dead civilization. The hunt is more difficult because eons of time have watched God plant a garden of overgrowth where once a city jungle grew.
City sophistication is simply a false, perishable way of life that ends in destruction. It is idolatry, idolatry God absolutely forbade long ago during the wilderness wanderings of Israel on her way to the Promised Land.
God still plants gardens. Men who believe they are invincible and all-wise crash and crumble, and the works of their hands meet destruction. The idols of metal and stone they once worshipped lie in ruins. But God marches on, demonstrating to the world that He still is God and will be forever. Even at the entrance to eternity, He has planted a tree, the Tree of Life.
Cities perish. Men and their heady ways perish. For what good will it do a person if he gains the whole world, but forfeits his soul? Or what will a person give in exchange for his soul? Matthew 16:26.
Pity the person who lives in the city!!