...except after "C"

My apologies to blakeps374, charrstarr39, cherylrwood, cindy, clblevins, danaspals, dawn.martin, elbigcat, franjohnson13, jackdebalexander, jeanbluder, JOEWANDAWOERNER, juliaedavis, karisjoy, michael_blatt, mpullig, Myssfyre4u, oakenterprises, safleet, seaker316, shirlps27, susan, TEENF, the4warners, TIAB1202, tisha1024, vonnie845, WEISTJAW, and yanfam5, if you are reading this.

In very uncharacteristic fashion, I was quite taken by an email forward that I received recently, and it has caused me to ponder and develop the thought into a post. I'm not even sure how I ended up on this person's forward list, and I generally just hit the delete button. The subject of this one was "Fw: Cell Phone vs. Bible" and I was in the sixth generation of recipients. That means that if each of the 88 people in the distribution chain behaved exactly as everyone else in their generation, by now this email could have reached some 1,275,120 inboxes.

However, my point today is not to analyze the math nor the sociology underlying email forwarding phenomena, but to spend a moment imagining if our attitude toward cell phones and Bibles were reversed...

• Before we go to bed at night, we would check our Bible for any last minute important instructions and then leave it in a convenient place to find it first thing in the morning.
  
• Whenever we leave the house for the day, or even for a short errand, we would be sure that we had our Bible with us, just in case the need might arise to consult it.
  
• In the middle of important conversations, we would suddenly realize that the Bible was trying to say something about our situation, and we would immediately drop what we are doing to look up the passage that comes to mind. Even if we don't spend the time at that moment to study the passage God calls to mind, we might at the very least jot the reference down to look up later.
• We would develop a habit of constantly checking God's Word to see if we missed something whenever we were away from it for a while.
• Many of us would probably forget to our manners and would inject verses into totally inappropriate situations, when instead at times we should set our Bibles on "vibrate" so we can be quietly reminded of God's thoughts on issues.
• We would be very interested in a "new-every-two" plan to replace our Bibles on a regular basis because the covers would wear out, the pages would tear, and our notes would begin to fill the margins.
• Some people would be more interested in the "bells and whistles" (fancy add-ins, pretty pictures, pithy quotes) than whether they were able to accurately handle the Word of Truth.
• Whenever we forgot about the Bible for a day or so, we would feel totally lost and out of touch.

• Our cell phones would sit on our nightstand, in a drawer, on a shelf, or in the glove box most of the time.
• When our cell phones rang (if they were even on) the most we might do is glance at the number to take note of who is calling. We might consider calling them back when it's more convenient for us.
  
• If we were in the middle of an important conversation we would never consider interrupting it to take a phone call.
• If we were in a crisis, we would go and find our cell phone and turn it on to make a call.
• The cell phone that our parents gave us for graduation would probably be sufficient to satisfy our needs for the next 10-30 years.
• Even though our plan allowed for unlimited day-time minutes, we would restrict ourselves to mainly nights and weekends (mostly Sundays).
• It would be considered unconstitutional to use our cell phone in school, and many other public places as well.
• We might be totally un-cool if people saw our cell phone.
  

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