Aug 28, 2014

Returning to My Old Razor

I went backwards a few months ago; I stepped out and stopped the progress of modern inventions and returned to what worked in the past. What did I do? I went back to a single razor blade for shaving. No, it wasn’t anything major or life altering, but it made a whole lot of sense to go backwards instead of forward.
 
When I started shaving around 1974, I used a safety razor because that was the only type available other than electric (which does a good job if you like to shave while you drive to work, while irritating your skin).  
 
Since 1974, I have used two, three, four and five blade razors; all of which seemed to do the job of removing hairs from my face. Each time a new blade was developed, the claim was that more blades gave the user a closer and better shave and I wondered how far this inventive insanity would eventually go to…
 
I never did try the “Smart Sense Razor” or the “Vida Mia” six-blade razors or even the “DORCO SXA5000 SEVEN-Blade Manual Shaver Razors” because I was concerned that I would be removing the epidermis layer down to the dermis layer of my skin; when all I wanted to do was remove the hair!   
 
And it was becoming crazy what consumers seemed to be willing to pay for razor blades! An eight-pack of your typical three-blade razor cartridges run about three dollars per cartridge. The five-blade cartridges cost about four to five dollars per cartridge! The biggest difference I saw between the number of blades had to do with how much money was REMOVED from my wallet after I purchased them!
 
So I went back to my old single-blade safety razor and started removing my hairs, instead of money from my wallet. The cost of one hundred double edge stainless steel blades cost around fourteen dollars; that’s fourteen cents a blade!
 
I rediscovered that shaving with a safety razor removes the hairs while eliminating the skin irritation and leaves my face clean and healthy looking because I’m just using one blade instead of several that chew up my face in order to cut my whiskers.
 
No, it wasn’t anything major or life altering, but it made a whole lot of sense to go backwards instead of forward; kind of like my walk with the Lord. 
 
All around the world, “Christians” are trying the latest and greatest ideas and forms of philosophy to explain who God is and what we can get from Him and what He will do for us; while compromising on true orthodox theology of Christianity.
 
Modern theologians are casting aside good hermeneutics as scriptures are being twisted or even eliminated to explain the latest thoughts about what they think that God thinks in order to justify a new position or stand for their beliefs.
 
Yet, with all of the modern inventions of Christianity, they never really get to the real reason behind the Savior’s birth, death, and resurrection; to deal with the sin in our lives.
 
And left behind them is a trail of irritated and wounded people with empty wallets who simply are looking for truth without all of the hype. Kind of like me, who simply wanted a good shave, without all the hype.
 
This isn’t a new problem; God has been dealing with this since the time when man fell in the Garden of Eden. In Jeremiah 16:6 we hear God calling out:
Thus says the Lord:
      • Stand in the ways and see,
      • And ask for the old paths,
      • Where the good way is, and walk in it;
      • Then you will find rest for your souls.
 
Pretty clear and simple, but look at how they respond:
               But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.
 
God has continually called man to follow Him while man has chosen to come up with his own plan; continuing to ignore God while man tries to invent some new way to deal with the sin issue in our lives.
 
That’s the bad news. The good news is that God continues, even today, to call each of us back to His ways and to Himself and back to the simple truths of His Word, the Bible.
 
Even today He is calling out; perhaps even to you the reader, to come to Him and Him alone as the total source.
 
Aren’t you tired of trying one more thing, one more promise that leaves you irritated and wounded with an empty wallet as you look for truth?
 
He cries out; “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30 NKJV)