Focal Passages: Ps. 1:1-3; 119:11-16; Mk. 1:35-39
No offense, but are you a digital zombie? Americans spend
way too much time answering e-mails, surfing the web, tweeting, blogging,
googling (just to mention a few of the ‘new’ technological verbs that have
recently become a part of our language).
No matter where you go, you’ll find
people with their nose stuck in a screen: at the office, on the street, on the
park bench, and even on the highway.
According to a recent study of viewing habits, adults spend
an average of nearly three hours a day interacting with computer screens.
Add TV viewing and you get a screen time of about 8-1/2
hours.
“People are spending more time in media and especially screen media than
anything else they’re doing in life,” says Bill Moult of Sequent Partners, one
of two organizations that provided the study.
It’s become so much of a part of our culture that in October
of 2009, two Northwest Airlines pilots flew their passenger jet 150 miles past
their destination because they were distracted by their laptop computers!
Don’t get me wrong.
Technology has more advantages for communication than you
can shake a memory stick at.
But all our efforts to communicate more efficiently have
produced a disastrous side-effect: we are numbed by the volume of voices that
vie for our attention.
We are losing the ability to prioritize information.
All information should not inform equally.
We may be communicating more than ever, but what’s being
said?
We are undoubtedly connected, but to what?
If God wanted to speak to us, would He need our cell number
to get through?
The scriptures uphold the art of meditating on God’s Word.
After all, shouldn’t what God says be infinitely more important than anything
else?
Meditating implies reading, re-reading, studying intently, reflection,
contemplation, and perhaps discussion.
Meditating takes time; time that must be taken from
something else.
No one “finds” time.
Every one of us has the same amount. There will never be
“more hours in the day.”
We only have 24.
So it’s not a question of “can I find the
time” to mediate on God’s Word.
The question is: will I choose to invest the time?
The most needful communication we can have is with God.
He is speaking.
But are we listening?
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