Escape the Digital Prison

Finding life in the Kingdom of God...

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How do you stay focused on what is most important in a world that is over saturated with "information" and programmed interruptions? It's been said the average smartphone user checks their device over 100 times a day, with an average of 4 1/2 half hours connected to their phone — and that does not include time spent watching online video streaming, gaming, or engaging in work-related use of a computer! That doesn't leave most people much time away from their smartphones or other screens, and indeed, being apart from (or losing) their phone creates a sense of anxiety and dread in many. Sadly we have become a “jacked in” culture, dependent on mass media to give us a (false) sense of reality, purpose, and meaning.

Countless people today suffer from "information overload" and "data obesity." Of course genuine communication has its place in life and at times can be a blessing, but how many hours of pings and distracting "infotainment" constitute nothing but “junk food” for the soul? And screens put you at a distance from real life, leading the mind to an "elsewhere" version of reality. It is a form of double mindedness. Distraction. Loneliness. Madness. Smoke and mirrors. It's the "greatest show on earth." There's a whole "world wide web" of diversion and inanity awaiting everyone -- and precious little of it is necessary to live.

We know that what matters most of all is truly living life before God, but how are you using (and misusing) your attention throughout the day? It's been said that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. Look where you are going, because you will inevitable go where you are looking... So where are you looking today? What is the focus of your highest hope? How do you spend your days so at the end of your journey you will not lament your life?

"Seek first the kingdom of God," Yeshua said, and all that you really need will be discovered. Doing so requires diligence of focus, looking away from useless things and concentrating on what is most important. It is the nature of sanctification to set yourself apart from the profanity of the everyday world. "You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart" (Jer. 29:13), and searching with "all your heart" means esteeming God as that which is most important to the purpose of your existence.

The temptation of the world is to take the easy way, the smooth path that offers little resistance to your unreflective consciousness. But taking the "easy way" isn't the easy way, after all. It is a deal made with the devil. Being "comfortably numb" is to die inside, to numb your soul from what is most essential, to "gain the world only to lose your soul." The world system craves security and anesthesia, and it doesn't matter how it serves it up. Mindless entertainment, sexual lusts, envy and gossip, political intrigue, fear mongering, rumors of pointless wars -- heck, even religion can serve that end. Come to greatest show on earth! Vanity Fair is always here to console and distract from your dreary life...

In this connection I remember a Passover several years ago wherein one guest brought their teenage son to the Seder we hosted. As we began the service, the young man was busy scanning his phone, with his ear bud firmly in place. As the seder continued, he was disengaged, going through the motions as he sent texts and engaged others not in the room. He was "elsewhere," not present, and therefore a mere specter among us.... The digital world is a world of "artificial intelligence" that creates a form of "artificial reality." Unless we use critical thinking and logic, we will be deceived and put under its spell.

Seeking God means being willing not to know evil things that distance you from that end (1 John 2:16). We must distance ourselves from the tsunami of worldly "information" and chatter designed to program and seduce us into believing lies and vanities. The "smart phone" is a oxymoronic device intended to make people unthinking, easily led, and dumb. There is now a "normalcy bias" that casts a spell of "disinformation" all about us. It's difficult to pray while keeping an ear open for your smart phone. Are we so gullible that we think that we are not being manipulated by "content providers" and technocratic psychopaths who have their own agenda at heart? Do you consider the people behind Google, Meta, Twitter, CNN, etc., to be "good shepherds" of the human soul?

The digital world has become a noose around the collective neck of humanity, or a "matrix" of ongoing deception and control. Soon enough money will be "digitized" and any so-called personal "freedoms" will be conditionally granted based on a digital social credit scorecard monitored by those who control the illusion of artificial reality. No one will be able to buy or sell without the "mark of the beast" and who do not worship the "image of the beast."

Like Soren Kierkegaard, philosopher Frederick Nietzsche abhorred the "group-think" of the modern world and prophesied of a coming age of "the last man," an archetype of a passive soul that takes no risks and seeks only personal comfort and security. The last man is a person of no real conviction, no working conscience, a member of the herd that lows and bleats out its days. The "last man" is the creation of technology that indoctrinates people into believing the nihilistic lie that life is hopeless, resistance is futile, and therefore all that is left is fantasy and pleasure-seeking. But even the vices of the "last man" are mundane and his life is an ongoing expression of mediocrity:

"The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea-beetle; the last man lives the longest. 'We have invented happiness,' say the last men, and they blink... One no longer becomes poor or rich, for both require too much exertion. One is clever and knows everything that has ever happened, so there is no end of derision. One still quarrels, but is soon reconciled lest it spoil the digestion. One has one's little pleasures for the day and one's little pleasures for the night: but one has a regard for health." (Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1885).

Nietzsche is perhaps notorious for saying "God is dead," though it is not because God does not exist, but rather because the apathy of Christianity had killed him. Such apathy eventually led to the idea that "morality" (in the sense of the self-censorship and cowardice of the postmodern age) is actually immoral, and that being passive and refusing to live is the characteristic virtue of this age. The political world is a lie that panders to the crowd, promising them a life of ease - at the price of their freedom.

The call to follow the Lord is a call away from the soft prison house of the "last man." It is to escape from the deluge of "informational garbage" and vanity that chokes the soul to death. The call represents a decision to live by a different set of axioms that overthrows the nonsense and insanity of the world. It is a radical turn that sets you free (John 8:32). That is the point of life: to learn how to live by following Christ. Seeking first God's kingdom means everything; it is the way, the truth, and the life in Yeshua.

But we are warned: "Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves" (James 1:22). We "come to ourselves" through teshuvah, turning to God and refusing the world's web of lies. But we must be on guard not to "live inside our heads" by playing with theology or religion. Human reason can become a temptation if it leads us to look away from God, even if the reasoning is about God. We know the Lord by doing truth in relationship with Him. Faith is not a static set of doctrines but a passionate mode of choosing to live in trust of God's reality and promises. Theology has its place, of course, but what matters is serving the LORD with all our heart. Amen.

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