This dependence on technology, which normally comes through our phones, affects our brains and a spotlight spans, but there’s much more to it than that. The constant influx of knowledge and the type of knowledge we decide deeply affect our attitudes, moods, dispositions, and accepted ways of being on this planet. We crave connection and data, but there’s such a thing as TMI—an excessive amount of information.
Trust me, I’m not advocating for ignorance or remaining blissfully uninformed about what is occurring on this planet. However, as a pastor, my path crosses people daily who’re carrying incredibly heavy loads placed upon them by all they see occurring on this planet around them. Most of us wrestle with how much we should always engage and the way much we should always attempt to be at peace with things we cannot directly change today. The line between a lifetime of biblical contemplation and biblical activism could be tricky to search out. When we don’t find it, we change into weighed down by the data we’re either engaging or selecting to do nothing about. We change into confused. Worried. Guilty. Apathetic. Anxious. Desensitized.
The nuance here is significant. As Christ-followers, we’re indeed called to be told so we will engage within the relief of the suffering of the people around us and all over the world. God leads us to “Speak up for individuals who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who’re destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy (Proverbs 31:8-9 NIV). Isaiah implores us to “Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause” (1:17 ESV). And Paul instructs us to “Bear each other’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Ephesians 6:2 ESV).
I could include dozens more scriptures that clearly reveal each God’s empowerment and his expectation for us to be told and engaged in caring for and directly supporting the causes of the poor, the refugee, the orphan, the immigrant, and the widow—and these topics specifically merit one other article within the near future. But for the context of digital health, how can we bear these sorts of heavy burdens (Ephesians 6:2) without being pulled down into the quicksand of worry, despair, anxiety, and depression?
To remain in the right level of concern and engagement without losing oneself within the sheer darkness and seeming futility of so many problems on this planet, we must keep finding the courage to have interaction and the humility to follow Christ into rest. God created rest to be cyclical. It cannot just be attained and kept. It should be re-engaged day by day. Sleep comes for us every night. The Sabbath comes every week. God designed us to hold burdens at certain times but to usually lay them down, remembering our limitations so we will rest within the One who has no limitations. “When my anxious thoughts multiply inside me, Your comfort delights my soul” (Psalm 94:19 NASB).
I’m a perennial worrier (and Enneagram Type Six when you’re into that type of thing). Going through a twelve-step recovery, I learned that worry shouldn’t be responsibility; it’s misplaced meditation. Meditation means various things to different people, but its simplest definition is dwelling on something so long that its truths (or its lies) begin to dwell in you.
When I spend hours on my phone, dwelling on all that’s flawed on this planet, I’m meditating—and eventually, the load of all that information will dwell in me. I should be informed. I should be engaged. But I also should be reminded that I’m not accountable for all that I see. And I should be willing to place down all that I can see to focus my heart and mind on the only One who can restore my soul. After all,
“You alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.” – Psalm 4:8 NIV
I won’t be secure anywhere else, so once I enterprise out right into a world of countless danger and data, I have to create patterns and limits to come back back to safety each day, finding moments with God that restore and feed my weary, overburdened soul. Then, when I am going back out to have interaction in helping the plight of the poor and the marginalized, I’ll humbly remember my limitations as a human and my right-now-eternal connection to the One who has no limitations.
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