I think that I am suffering from information overload. Anyone else feel the same? In our media driven world, its so easy to find information on any given subject. Take for instance, the economy. You can find all sorts of YouTube videos that can give you a world class education on macro economics. If you listen to enough people, you can take advantage of all their education. If you sift through all the information, you can cross reference it and take out all the things that aren’t quite correct. In the end, it is possible to come up with a pretty clear yet comprehensive picture of what’s happening globally and nationally along with all the inner workings of the Federal Reserve, commercial banks and government efforts to control the world currency flow. As I said, you have to watch a lot of videos over an extended period of time. Multiple that by all the subjects of interest, like Biblical prophecy, election challenges, Covid vaccine information, lock downs in Australia, national, corporate, and global debt, history rewrite, the Woke movement, Critical Race Theory and on and on it goes. So why do we as Christians feel like we must keep abreast of all this information just to have an informed opinion? Seems strange to me to have to cover so much information just to be able to speak about the subject. Of course, the expectation is if you haven’t been paying attention, you have no right to an opinion. So, we try, as Christians, to keep up with all the news and understand what’s happening with everything and everybody everywhere in the world so we can “weigh in” in the marketplace of ideas. Of course, fifty years ago, there wasn’t as much to weigh in about.  Do we really have to keep up with all the information today? Can’t we just turn it off for a while? Can I still speak even if I don’t know everything about the subject? I would say, yes, yes, and yes!

First, I don’t think we have to know everything just to have an opinion. Second, I don’t think its wise to waste a whole lot of time getting the information just to stay abreast of a subject, unless, its your favorite subject and you have an interest that piques your curiosity. Third, there are other things that we must keep in balance before we overload our brains with such a vast amount of information. Now, I am not saying that we should go hide under a rock, I am saying that we need to understand where our personal limits are to what is healthy to invest our mental time in. The apostle Paul would say, “All things in moderation”. I would say, that it might be important to prioritize our mental activity by first of all making time for discovery of the information contained in Scripture as the basis of screening all other information and time spent attaining that information. If you find yourself spending hours and hours on YouTube and don’t at least spend and proportionate amount of time with God in the Scriptures, you might not have the best approach as to how to prioritize your mental time and attention to life. All the things of this world can find their right place if we make God and time with God our first priority. From there, we can find the peace to move forward in this chaotic world. We can also find the answers and proper opinions without having to “overdose” on information. You might be surprised at how the Word of God can speak to every situation in the world without having to understand everything about that situation. Somehow, I think that we have replaced the power of the Word of God with human ability and human reasoning through human intelligence as the best response to things around us. No wonder the power has gone out from Christians to change the world. It might be that we have tried to do things in the energy or our own understanding and our own human wisdom.

I am thinking about the Scriptures response to us when we are confronted by opposition. The admonition is not think of what you would say, but depend on the Spirit of God to give the words to say. Now, I don’t think that means go brain dead, but I do think that it means that we cannot depend on our ability to debate, arrange the information, overcome our opponents with our knowledge of a subject and win the argument by human ability and skills of oratory. I think it means that if we are fully attuned to the power of God, our walk with Him, and the understanding of the truth found in Scripture, we are fully armed and capable to make an answer to anyone about anything that pertains to life here and the life to come. We can, in fact, cut to the chase and go right for the truth and the real issues of life and what is happening today. God is shaking this world and the purpose is to expose to all men the reality of who God is and the need for all men to come to Him through Jesus Christ. There really is no other issue, there really is no other point to anything in this world but that alone. So, I would encourage you to not get too caught up in all the rhetoric going on today. I give you permission to tune some if not most of it out in favor of spending time with God. I think that from there, you will know how to go forward. You definitely will find strength and peace to move forward as this world goes up in flames and who knows, you just might find people wanting to know how you can be so calm when everything is going so badly…