One of the episodes in my favorite TV series, Person of Interest by Christopher Nolan, portrays a high school student, who looks to be average but is actually a mathematical genius and a prodigy in software programing. He develops a compression algorithm that condenses terabytes into a thumb drive. He later becomes an entrepreneur and a legend in the field for providing large storage capacity in a small space.
A prime vital need of the digital world, with its bourgeoning apps and usage, is storage space. Every device that is launched is promoted by mooting certain specs, topmost of which is storage capacity – so many gigabytes more than the previous or other models. The growth of digital age escalated exponentially with increase of memory in decrease of space.
Space crunch is not an issue confined to certain cities on terra firma, but also a major factor in the digital world. Researchers are scrambling to help their companies master the market through improving the unique capabilities of their product with greater the processing speed and higher the number of applications and finally the size of the product. The smaller and thinner the model the better the saleability of the product. The smaller the device and greater the memory space became the thrust of the digital world.
With the introduction of multiple search engines, coupled with the advent of smartphones and other digital devices that help you access information instanteously and immediately as well as the ability to store that information in a small memory space, has deleted the need to remember many things or keep relevant data in mind.
No one these days even makes an effort at remembering even basic multiplication tables, or conversion rates or any simple functions. A simple touch of the phone is all that is required to perform many actions that once upon a time needed the use of the mind and its capacity for memory. Gone are the days when people would remember many people’s phone numbers as well as other details such birthdays, anniversaries and other minutae with ease.
The key to such a feat is the heart and the mind. Indeed, the heart and mind are second to none for storing and retaining information. Their ability to grow and expand is the added advantage when they are trained to do so. The heart and mind have untold and infinite capacity not just for storage, but for learning, relearning and adapting. They are more versatile and multifaceted than any instrument that man has ever invented.
King David the Psalmist in the Bible says in Ps 119:11 “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” He also says in Ps 1:3 that the one who meditates (focus one’s mind) on God’s law day and night will be evergreen. The king seems to have discovered and declared that the best space for storing and preserving God’s Word are the heart and the mind.
Of course, he did not have the many storage devices and cloud facilities that we have today. He did not have access to digital tablets, though he had other storage devices such as stone tablets, papyrus rolls etc. Some would say that because he did not have all these, he was forced to use the heart and the mind as storage units. That may be true, yet all our gadgets and instruments do not work unless they have been connected or charged by a power source. They also be hacked or corrupted or even destroyed remotely. They can be shut down or made redundant by cutting of their power source.
What if you are in a place and a position where you have no access to such crutches and have to remember things, especially God’s Word? Will you become crippled and at a loss because you don’t have your devices or will you be able to tap into your in-built storage apparatus and draw input from your memory the Word needed for the hour?
Will you be able to draw strength from what you have stored of the life-giving word in your heart and mind?
All our technology and the devices they birth are only making us dependent like suckling babes. It is not wrong to use them when you have, but the question is what if you don’t have them!
We are living in a pandemic period when everyone of our systems are failing or proving to fail. Be it the educational, economic, medical, political, social or cultural construct, each of them have been shown to be of zero help in times like this. Everything around and on which we have building our lives have faltered, demonstrating their inability to help us. Technology alone is to an extent allowing us to maintain a semblance of life. When that too fails, we will be left with only the gifts God created us with and bestowed on us innately.
How about exercising and using your in-built storage capacity and facility, your heart and your mind, so as to come to your aid in times of need?
How about teaching and training our children to use theirs to the maximum to stockpile Scripture, while keeping technology as addendum?
How about giving attention to develop a cache of God’s Word in your heart and mind, tapping in to their full capacity and capability!
MULLINGSPICE 