TV shows influencing our life

Yesterday, a plane went down in NY. It was all over the news, and the pilot was able to land the plane in the Hudson. All the passengers survived and the pilot really was a hero. They are still checking into what brought the plane down, but they believe that it was birds. Wow, birds. It is truly an amazing story.

The flight number of the plane was 1549.

Now, if you have ever watched the TV show Lost, you would know it is a show about how a group of people live together on an island after their plane goes down. I don't watch the show, but I know that much. I also know that one of the characters, Hurley, won the lottery right before his plane went down and throughout the show, the lottery numbers that he used were considered "evil"...used in various circumstances in the show.

So, after the miraculous landing of flight 1549, the pick 4 lottery in Connecticut sold out of the number 1549.

Wow. It is hard for me to connect with beliefs like this...that if a plane goes down, but is saved miraculously, that the numbers of the plane would be somehow lucky. But that is not what really gets to me. What really strikes me about this story, is that it shows me how highly influenced we are by the culture around us. A simple TV show like Lost has embedded itself into the system of how we view the world.

I have watched this show maybe two or three times, mostly while just flipping through channels, and I knew enough to connect with this story. It is amazing to me how we are so highly influenced by our culture and what we view, or experience, embeds itself into how we think, move and act.

My question is...how aware are we of this influence and how careful are we to filter what we view?

Undoubtedly, we are over loaded with messages daily, but how much of that influence is connected with Jesus? How often are we influenced, daily, by the message of this first century Rabbi?

Grace and Peace!
Micah