If we are to be powerful members of the Body of Christ, we need to be charged up with the Holy Spirit and filled with faith; we need to be living under the commands of Jesus and not be sucked into the chaotic vacuum of the world and its endless dramas, lies, and group tensions. I feel closest to God when I turn off the internet for the day, put the smart phone in a drawer, and spend the day in nature and at home quietly reading the Word. This combination feels like the food spoken of in Isaiah 55. It is the free food that God has provided to replenish our souls.
Isaiah 55
“Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
2 Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare.
After a couple of hours meandering through the forest or at the beach the Scriptures open like a flower in spring. However, things are not like this if I am lukewarm in my approach to worship and am jumping between the Word, prayer and news sites. There is a time and place for learning from other brothers and sisters, and there is a time to withdraw and sit with the pure peace of God.
In the age of the internet and smartphones, everyone is at risk of becoming lost in the endless maze of information, fake or true. If we do not detach from it from time to time, our minds become cluttered, and our ability to hear God speaking to us through his Word and directly into our minds via his Spirit gets dimmer. With less light coming into us, our internal life becomes darker, and we risk turning into people with unhealthy eyes, as described by Jesus, the Light of all light, in the Sermon on the Mount.
Matthew 6
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
To keep the light shining within us we need the light to come in through our eyes. We need to be looking at the beauty of nature and be reading God’s Word. The more we do this, and the less time we spend watching the news, consuming mindless entertainment, arguing with people on X, or showcasing our lives on Instagram and Facebook, the brighter our inner light will begin to shine. We simply cannot be lamps that shine forth the glory of God if we are in near constant darkness due to what we are feeding our souls.
The Lord is to be our everlasting light (Isaiah 60:19) and has provided us free tools to charge ourselves with His light: nature, prayer, fasting, and the Holy Bible. However, the enemy has scattered distractions and spiritual pollution in all directions that at times masquerade as things that are worthy of our time. For me political news sucked up years of my life that would have been far better spent in reading the Word and walking in nature. However, of late I have gone to great lengths to rectify this, including implementing weekly internet fasts, which both clears the mind and leaves a large amount of time for reading the Word.
We cannot renew our minds and escape the clutches of the world if we continuously feed our minds junk-food via our eyes. In contrast, if we shine the light of truth and peace into our inner beings, we can expect that light to shine back out of us, and for us to become lampstands in the darkness. For as Isaiah tells us, God has promised us that if we give it a proper chance, His Word will begin to change our innermost being, and we will begin to burst forth with fruits of the spirit.
Isaiah 55
10 As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
11 so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
12 You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.