What's Wrong With Happiness?

As I wrote previously, the problem with happiness is it doesn't last. Our good feelings are dependent on happenstance and are lost when we experience adversity.

We feel tempted to envy those wicked, rich people, assuming riches make us glad. Everything goes well for them and they feel no oppression. But we find out in Job 21:13 (BBE) that their good times don't last. "Their days come to an end without trouble, and suddenly they go down to the underworld."

And though we disagree about politicians, we can all say "Amen!" to what Proverbs 12:19 (BBE) says. "True lips are certain for ever, but a false tongue is only for a minute."

The joy we feel inside, even when things go sideways for us, is because we know who will give us eternal bliss. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:17 (BBE), saying, "For our present trouble, which is only for a short time, is working out for us a much greater weight of glory;"

It seems contrary to logic but we can be glad even in persecution. James 5:11 (BBE) reminds us, "We say that those men who have gone through pain are happy: you have the story of Job and the troubles through which he went and have seen that the Lord was full of pity and mercy in the end." What a reassurance!

Better still, following the Lord keeps us out of activities which would only harm us in the end. Proverbs 28:14 (BBE) tells us the fate of those who rebel against God. "Happy is the man in whom is the fear of the Lord at all times; but he whose heart is hard will come into trouble."

Paul certainly learned the secret of being content. As he wrote in Philippians 4:11 (BBE), "But I will not say anything about my needs, for I am able, wherever I am, to be dependent on myself."

I fondly remember a CB radio saying back in the seventies. "I send my signal out 26 miles and God does the rest. Let's do what we can but let God take care of what we can't handle.

On Thursday, Christ's return not withstanding, I hope to post about why wealth won't satisfy us.

Saturday Song: C. W. McCall, Convoy

Who here remembers the Citizen's Band craze of the seventies? I was one of millions of people who became fanatical regarding this public form of communication. All a person needed was a radio, coaxial cable, and an antenna. Unlike amateur radio with its strict rules, CB was a much easier choice for millions of folks.

CB radio became so popular that movies were made around the hobby. C. W. McCall also released a song called "Convoy" in 1976.

Here the song here.

But like anything fun in life, a few idiots had to ruin it. People often had their conversations interrupted by "turkeys," as we called them. Rude individuals would deliberately play music to blot out somebody's signal. Sometimes people got so angry that physical fights broke out.

Because of CB radio's bad reputation, the elders of the house church worried that I'd be influenced by the swearing and dirty jokes I heard on the air. As I've written before, they considered CB radio to be a waste of time and an outlet for the Devil.

But those superstitious fools didn't realize what Jesus said in Matthew 15:11 (KJV). "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man."

Instead of being "defiled" by CB radio, I chose the handle Cosmic Christian and I often spoke about the gospel on the air. This angered many CBers but I persisted.

So, what are your memories and experiences of CB radio? Were you active or was it just a passing phase with you. Please leave me a reply in the box below. And if you don't feel like doing that, have a good weekend anyway.

TRICKY ADVERTISING AND HOW I RESENTED IT

Does it bother you when products are advertised in glowing terms but the claims are exaggerated? It certainly upsets me. In fact, I've purchased many things and found them to be not as advertised. Thanks to Abbie Taylor for reminding me of one misleading product.

The first stereo I bought had an 8-track recorder built into it. When I unpacked it and set it up, I found that there were in fact only four tracks. The fact that each stereo channel was called a track dawned on me as I tried to figure out the discrepancy. "What a rip off," I muttered as I pushed the track selector button. I had heard of special tape recorders in recording studios where a person could record on one of eight tracks and listen to the others so I expected something similar. Once my disappointment wore off, I enjoyed the commercially-recorded music cartridges I bought as well as those on which I taped my favourite songs from records.

A year later, I felt disappointed by another advertising slight of hand. One of these false ads was in the 1977 Radio Shack catalogue. I had just started in the CB hobby when I read about a radio with a-hundred-and-twenty channels. While paying my rent, I asked my knowledgeable landlord about this amazing radio. "It doesn't really have that many channels," he explained. "They include the forty AM channels as well as each upper and lower sideband." Again I felt let down by clever marketing.

Computer disks also disappointed me when I found out that they aren't the values claimed on the packaging. Floppy disks and CD-Rs have some of the data space used for disk information and sector tracks. The same is true of external hard drives. So that one terabyte hard drive might only hold sixty megabytes of reserved space. While I feel it's misleading to value these media devices in terms of total data space, as opposed to actual storage space, I understand the need to have such reserve space but I still feel cheated.

I also resented that compact fluorescent bulbs were touted as environmentally friendly. Certainly they use a quarter of the power needed by incandescent bulbs but providing the same level of lighting. What we weren't told at first about was the mercury inside them. America's Environmental Protection Agency eventually warned people of how to clean up broken bulb fragments but in an overblown way. So what they promised was canceled by the danger these bulbs pose when not properly disposed of. I personally found the light from these lamps to be irritating to my vision. LED bulbs are now at the level of brightness where they can replace forty and even sixty watt incandescent bulbs, plus there's no danger of mercury poisoning with them.

I also was misled spiritually. How I Was Razed shows how easily toxic church leaders can control their followers with promises of power and advanced knowledge. Find out more at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Virtual Bookworm Publishers.

HOW THE CB BUG BIT ME

Radio communication has always fascinated me. Since my first transistor radio, which I received as a ten-year-old,, I fell passionately in love with the hobby.

When my mom caved into my begging and bought me a pair of walkie-talkies, being able to transmit my voice to a receiver felt like walking on air. I loved it but I found that getting family members to talk with me on the radio was difficult.

When the CB craze hit in the seventies, I knew I had to have one. I went down to the nearest Radio Shack and purchased a Navaho TRC-30A twenty-three-channel transceiver. Then I applied for my licence with the Department of Transport.

As with any new hobby, the downside of it often becomes apparent after spending money on it. I got into hot water with my landlord for putting up an antenna on the roof without his permission. He did relent but only after giving me a lecture about how inconsiderate I was in not asking him first.

Within a few weeks of going on the air, I had made a few friends. They invited me to "coffee breaks," unofficial meetings of CBers at restaurants. I fondly remember meeting my new friends and putting faces to the voices I had formerly only heard.

Then I discovered the phenomena called by the slang term "skip." Radio signals in the CB band sometimes are reflected back to earth several thousand miles from the transmitter. Attracting the attention of other CBers was difficult because of the thousands of people all talking at once on each channel. Even so, I had a few successes through the years which I was an avid CBer.

When I passed my amateur radio exam and was awarded my licence, I gave up CB radio. Even so, I still have a few transceivers as mementos of those golden times in my radio hobby.

I wrote about my involvement with CB and amateur radio in all three of my memoirs. My CB years are featured in my latest book called How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. Visit Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Virtual Bookworm Publishers for details of this wondrous testimony of God's providential care.

THE LAST COFFEE BREAK.

Remember CB radio? Back in the late seventies, it was all the rage. I was caught up in it as well. Though some people were rude jerks on the air, I met many excellent CBers and formed strong friendships with them. I remember very clearly the last coffee break that The Channel Five Crowd, as we referred to ourselves, met for the last time. Auntie Diane, as we called her, organized it at a certain restaurant for an afternoon in October. Over burgers and many cups of coffee, the six of us talked for several hours. Afterward, we posed for pictures by the Edmonton Colosseum, as it was called then. We eventually parted, not realizing it was the last time we'd meet together. My friends and I continued to be active on the radio but something changed that day. One by one, my CB buddies disappeared. I eventually gave up the CB and studied for my amateur radio licence. Though my new ham operator friends and I met for coffee occasionally, the informal warmth of The Channel Five Crowd was missing. I wrote about my love of radio in Deliverance from Jericho and When a Man Loves a Rabbit. Both books are available from this page.