The paradox that is life in the USA today is plastered all over the front page of most of our major newspapers. We are building bigger, better and taller buildings, but we have shorter tempers. We have wide highways but are cursed by our narrow minds. We have fancy houses but broken homes. We have houses but not homes.

We spend more and enjoy less. We have more time-saving conveniences and less time. We have more educational degrees but use less common sense. We have more knowledge but less wisdom. We have long range planning but cannot act beyond tomorrow. Experts are many but solved problems are few. We have an abundance of plans but little gets accomplished.

We have more drugs and medical procedures but less wellness and health. We spend twice as much per capita on health than the Swiss, who are second to us, but are 30th as far as national health is concerned. We drink too much, smoke too much, take too many drugs, both prescribed and over the counter, and still are in pain.

We laugh too little, worry too much, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get too tired, watch too much TV, read too little and pray too little. We build bigger and bigger churches and neglect building our inner souls. We are long on fear and short on faith.

We are long on rush, short cuts, asap, but short on patience. We don’t know how to wait.. We are so busy protecting our personal rights we have lost the sense of community and the common good. We are so busy with ME and MINE that we have lost the value of compromise. We are so preoccupied with the past we can’t grasp the future.

We have pills for everything, pills to put you to sleep, pills to keep you awake, pills to grow your hair, pills to keep hair from growing in the wrong places, pills to keep from growing old, yet we grow old early and die young. We love life but do not live as long as we are alive.

We are dissatisfied with our appearances so we spend millions on cosmetics to paint over or cover up what we can’t change by surgery. Yet surgery and cosmetics cannot change who we really are at our core.

We have more religious buildings, books, Bible studies, programs, missions trips but less love, compassion, and acceptance. We have little regard for human life and less love for those who are different or believe differently. We have more and more "Christian" religion and less and less Biblical religion.

We phone more, txt more, e-mail more but have less communication. In most conversations we talk past one another. We spend millions on doctors who will sit and listen to us and try to help us understand what we are saying.

We make life far more complicated than it ought to be. Simplify your life this year. Start with a few basics that have been around ever since man has lived together in community. Treating others as you wish to be treated is a good place to start.

Many are telling us that there are no absolutes; however, I know at least one absolute, and that is love. Be more loving this year, and if you do not know what that means, I have a book I can give you and point you to an example of that kind of simple life. If you are interested, give me a call.