Information Saturation

“There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.” This quote from Emerson personifies much of what I have come to believe over time. Often when I read, listen, or watch the news for a long period of time, my mood shifts drastically. The information I take in affects me adversely. I have found that purposefully avoiding the source of information allows me to take control over how I react to the range of information with which I am constantly bombarded. However, I also realized that even at the beginning of the last century, a “simpler” life existed.

Modern civilization, among many other changes, has evolved into a society that exists in a virtually inescapable onslaught of information. From the days of the pony express to the mere seconds of e-mail, IM, and text messaging, the methods of mass media have changed their faces. With these changes has also come a more complicated way of life—automobiles, mobile telephones, computers. Complicated in the sense that things are more complex, yet more efficient in the way they allow us to live our lives. The delivery system of modern media has radically and permanently altered the way we communicate by affording us prompt access to pertinent and time-sensitive information.

I asked myself the question, Am I at a point where I rely on the media too much? At the shocking realization that I did, the actual triviality of all this information became rather apparent. Quite simply, the news that one hears has little to do with the other side of eternity. True, a follower of Christ is affected by the same things that alter the lives of everyone in the world. The difference lies in how we handle that information.

For me, I found that when I compared the events of the day in eternity's light, these seemingly important matters became noticeably dimmer. When our worldview aligns with scripture, we can more easily handle less than favorable news and events. Remeber, the truth of God’s word trumps anything that happens in the world. I’ve read the end—God wins and we win! Until then, we are compelled to praise Him at all times.

David wrote about this in Psalm 34: “I will praise the Lord at all times; his praise is always on my lips.” I think this is a good example to follow. After all, we already have good news: “People who do what is right may have problems, but the Lord will solve them all. He will protect their very bones, not one of them will be broken. Evil will kill the wicked; those who hate good people will be judged guilty. But the Lord saves his servants’ lives; no one who trusts him will be judged guilty.” (Psalm 34: 19-22). I yearn for the day where the only thing in which I'm saturated is God's book of life instructions.

It’s no surprise that we live in a fallen world; Romans 1 illustrates this fact in detail. Our responses to such corruption demonstrates our level of faith in God. Living our lives as closely by God’s design as possible requires that we be discerning individuals in all matters. Everything that passes through our brains needs to take a detour the our hearts, where the Holy Spirit filter gives us insight into the eternal perspective.

Where are you getting your news?

"Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that's not the way of Christ. Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don't need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything."
-Colossians 2:8-10, The Message