Meet WiMax

Don't you hate to wait on your computer? You wake it up and log on to the Internet, and the thing whirs and chatters and finally connects two seconds later. Then you open a browser and click on a file, and are forced to wait another second or so for the thing to load. That's three seconds of your day wasted. Now someone's going to do something about it, investing a mere $3.2 billion to give you the fastest Internet yet.

Today's Wall Street Journal introduces us to WiMax, the anticipated next generation of the Internet. Financial backers include Sprint Nextel, Clearwire, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Google and Intel. The entire venture will eventually cost more than $12 billion. The new network will theoretically deliver much faster Internet access for cell phones and laptops. It's about time--literally.

You and I live in a "real time" world. It wasn't always that way, of course. I'm old enough to remember when Jack In The Box invented the first drive-through restaurant, with a clown taking your order and someone magically preparing it by the time you pulled up at the window. When I wanted a new bike, we collected S&H Green Stamps for months until we had enough, then brought them to the store, chose the bike, and waited weeks for it to arrive. My sons would understand nothing I just wrote.

Imagine doing today's email essay just 25 years ago at my first pastorate, where I inherited a mimeograph machine. I would use a typewriter to type this essay onto a "master," then affix it to a drum which transferred ink onto sheets of paper fed through the machine. Then I would stack the paper until the ink was dry, put it through a folding machine, stuff the letters into envelopes, lick and seal them, affix stamps, and take them to the post office. Three days later they would arrive in your mailbox.

Now everything's changing, quickly. More text messages will be sent and received today than the planet's population. Google searches this month will total more than 2.7 billion. Three thousand books will be published today. The technological revolution is shrinking the world and creating a global economy and experience.

But the things that matter most won't change. A wise pastor once claimed that every person needs three things: help, home, and hope. WiMax cannot create any of them. The Person who offers them all to your heart today is closer than your computer, more available than email. He's ready to hear your next prayer and heal your next hurt. He's holding you in his hand this moment (John 10:28). Will you hold his today?

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