Jeff Bezos Is Getting Divorced

As I'm sure you have heard, Jeff Bezos is getting divorced. This is news because Mr. Bezos is--at least on paper--the world's richest man, and presumably his divorce settlement will have effects on both his company--Amazon--and maybe on the American economy itself. I am very sorry for this news; Mr. Bezos and his wife are real people with real feelings, and it must be humiliating to have your private details known all around the world. I feel sorry for them.

But this news just proves once again what virtually everyone who ever lived used to know, and what most people today have forgotten: our deepest problems are spiritual problems.

The spiritual is real, but it is not the material. The material can be experienced with the five senses; the spiritual can't be seen, touched, tasted, smelled, or heard. But it is definitely real.

For example, friendship is spiritual in nature. It has effects in the material world, absolutely--you might meet a friend for coffee and the mugs you hold are material--but the source of the friendship is spiritual.

If it were the case that our deepest problems were material, then money would fix our deepest problems. But they aren't, and it can't. Our deepest problems are spiritual. And so Jeff Bezos--world's richest man--is getting divorced.

If it were the case that our deepest problems were material, then money would fix our deepest problems. But they aren't, and it can't. Our deepest problems are spiritual. And so Jeff Bezos--world's richest man--is getting divorced.

In Matthew 9, Jesus first forgives a man of his sins, and then heals his paralysis. Why? Because the man needed both--spiritual healing and physical healing. Jesus clearly knew that if he had only healed the man's legs, the man would still be lacking. It would be false to say that our material needs don't matter--the baby would never have been born in Bethlehem if God didn't love the material world--but it is true that our deepest problems are spiritual.

The good news: the God who is Spirit entered into material reality and fixed our problem himself.

Scripture:

Matthew 9:1-8

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Of Pigs and Human Nature

Do you actually want to change, or would you rather wallow in the filthy status quo?

^28?And when he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed?men met him, coming out of the tombs, so fierce that no one could pass that way. ^29?And behold, they cried out, What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?? ^30?Now a herd of many pigs was feeding at some distance from them. ^31?And the demons begged him, saying, If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs. ^32?And he said to them, ?Go. So they came out and went into the pigs, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters. ^33?The herdsmen fled, and going into the city they told everything, especially what had happened to the demon-possessed men. ^34?And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region. (Matthew 8:28-34)

Jesus performs an astounding miracle in their village, freeing these two men from filth and misery,?and the villagers would prefer he leave than cause any more changes to the way things are.You don't think that those villagers had parts of their lives that needed healing? But rather than begging Jesus to stay and work among them, their immediate response is to beg him to leave and never come back.How true of human nature--so often we prefer the pain we know to the possibility of change.  

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