“You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the world and therefore they speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.”
1 John 4:4-5
We live in an age where we are literally bombarded every waking moment by information. Here are some statistics – Information consumption in the U.S. equals 3.6 million gigabytes; the average American consumes 12 hours of information a day – outside of work; office workers spend 28% of their time dealing with e-mail; the human brain can only handle 7 pieces of information at the same time; information overload costs U.S. companies $650 billion annually; information overload is linked to greater stress and poorer health and overuse of social media can lead to short-term memory loss. If you can relate – can I have an AMEN?
It’s a wonder that any of us are able to focus and function with any effectiveness. It’s no wonder that we often times lose track of the most important information or are unable to hear God speaking to us amidst the din of information overload. The world tries to tell us what success looks like, how the right products, the right car, the right clothes, the right political candidates, the right whatever will bring us to that place of worldly success – but it doesn’t. There are too many cars, clothes, candidates and whatevers to choose from and so we lose ourselves in the world’s information heap – we are looking but we will never find the needle in this stack of stuff and being lost is painful.
In this week’s passage the Apostle John is helping believers sift through some information overload issues. You see even the early believers had more than one voice speaking into their hearts and minds – the voice of the spirit of God and the voice of the world. The world has the ability to overtake the voice of God not because it is actually more powerful but because it is way louder. John reminds the believers that they are children of God, that He lives in them and because of His power in them they are able to overcome the information overload of the world, sorting through the lies and noise trying to lead them away from His truth, love and freedom. His power can do the same for us with our 21st century information overload.
During this season of Lent shut down some of the information that is bombarding your heart and mind so you can hear the Spirit of God – He’ll give you to the power to say Shush…QUIET to the world.
A Prayer
Father – our world is so noisy these days, information is created and thrown at us faster than ever. It can make us tired, stressed and it hampers are ability to hear you and know who we are in You. Show us how to quiet our minds so we can hear you and live in your power, peace and rest. In the name of Jesus – we pray – Amen.
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