Life Matters - October 15, 2025

The year was 1969, give or take a few years, and the nine year old boy, give or take a few years, sat on his usual bench spot at the familiar supper table in the sturdy brick farmhouse of his fortunate upbringing where he, his siblings, and his parents sat at their usual, unspoken for but reserved nonetheless, seats where as a general rule, they all gathered for breakfast and supper, with the noon meal being a bit more scattered.  

Yes, I was that nine year old, give or take a few years, and I was particularly fascinated by the table conversation this evening as my oldest two brothers filled us in on their eventful day of touring some of the businesses within a several mile radius of the home farm. I knew very little about how these businesses made their products and so I listened intently to the regaling of machines and mechanical automation that did so many things formerly done by people. Dat was very knowledgeable about the world around us, but as the conversation progressed I perceived that some of these mechanical inventions were new even to him. I also perceived that he did not seem all that impressed. 

As one or the other of his energized sons pushing their upper teens was telling us of another newly invented and employed machine, possibly and probably at the New Holland Machinery manufacturing plant, I looked at Dat to see what he thought, and yes, I could see what he thought. Fascinated, I watched Dat’s beginnings-of-hoary head shaking slowly and as he bent forward to partake of his home-cooked nourishing food he gravely stated to no one in particular, but to all in general, “There goes another job.”

Dat left this earth for his reward in 2006. He was six months shy of 86 years old and was born at a time when there were six cars for every 100 people in the U.S. By the time he was 9 or 10 there were nineteen cars per 100 people. Some states had more, some less, but by the time Dat passed on in 2006 the number of automobiles (not including trucks and buses) operational in the U.S. stood at 135,399,945 plus 6,227,146 motorcycles as reported by the U.S. Bureau of Transportation. Given the U.S. population is recorded at 298.5 million by that time some quick math tells us that Americans went from six cars per 100 people in 1920, to approximately one car per 2.2 people in 2006, or from six to 45 cars per 100 people; motorcycles, trucks and buses not included. 

Though the Wright brothers first flying machine flew in 1903, commercial air transport for passengers took another 50 years of inventions. Jet airliners began transporting passengers in late 1950s America. For this homegrown youngster in mid-1960, passenger jet-streams with that tell-tale glint at the fore were still cause to stop what I was doing to stare and gawk while my older (and wiser) siblings shook their heads and exclaimed about what was going on. By the end of that event-filled decade we barely noted the jet-streams as they were by then a common and daily occurrence. Dat saw those changes and more. Though he opted for civil service over fighting, Dat saw the airplane go from a novelty to the terribly efficient fighting machines of World War II, and then beyond, to air transport being common. Before the war Dat was a teenaged boy of the Great Depression years and methinks he and his kind could cope with the hardships that came with such times. Hard work was a vital part of health, life, and happiness. 

But not all think like Dat who only rode in cars when a horse was not feasible for the situation, used phones when there was no other good option, never rode in an airplane, used a calculator sparingly and a computer never; though he saw the world around him go from the local interaction of horses being a common mode of transportation to satellites in space being the common form of world wide web communications. 

With the advent and now the rapid escalation of AI development, change is happening at a scale heretofore unseen. I seem to see my dad’s hoary head shaking and his deep voice intoning, “There goes another job.” Jobs are being taken over by AI robots with more coming down the pike. It could seem as if some humans are on a quest to invent, discover, to implement AI until the rest of us humans become irrelevant. And then what? 

Even so come Lord Jesus! 

Since we do not know the day nor the hour, however, let us remember God’s Word to Noah in Genesis 8:22 when Noah and his family came forth out of the ark; “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease.”

God accompanied and sealed that promise with a rainbow in the clouds. When we see the rainbow we see the promise—God’s promise to sustain life here for as long as the earth continues its spinning orbit around the sun. 

God has a continuum of promise (I Thessalonians 4:17) to those faithfully awaiting the second coming of Jesus with anticipation; ‘’Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

By the authority of God’s Word, I can give us all this comforting promise; there will be no artificial intelligence left as artificial is shattered by the Source of all Intelligence. May it be so for us even now as God shares His wisdom with us. May Truth prevail. 

Life Matters!