Five Days to a Healthier Spiritual LifeSýnishorn

What Has Your Attention?

Digital distraction is not only a constant pull on our attention, but it is the most agenda-driven and culturally pervasive factor we freely welcome into our modern lives.

If your life feels dominated by work, your kids’ sports schedules, making lunches, cleaning the house, and sitting in class—what do you do when you need a break from the moment? Same thing you might do in church when the Word of God goes to work: you reach for a digital fix.

Just as the addict runs to the substances of nicotine, sugar, or alcohol to numb the sting of stress or pain (and then eventually just runs to the substance whenever because the habit has become entrenched in his daily rhythms), we all—each one of us—seek pleasure on demand from tiny screens and heart buttons. If we’re honest, we not only do this in hard moments from which we want to escape but in any moment. Even the fun ones. Even the meaningful ones. Our attention is that disoriented.

Being made in God’s image is not about what we should or should not do. Instead, God’s image calls us to become the kind of person who can delight in what is true, good, and beautiful. You are meant to enjoy life with delight that reflects God’s glory.

When we give away our attention for the reward of distraction, we forfeit the quiet moments of our lives that we need to hear God. It’s hard to cultivate awareness of God, self, and others when staring at a screen.

If we want to become healthier Christians—if we want to become that future self who looks more like Christ—the first major area of life in which we need to be spiritually disciplined is our attention. Or said, more specifically, what we do with the gift of our attention.

How are we stewarding moments with our families, communities, and our workplace? How do we view time alone? Is it time to think, or is it our default to check in on our digital worlds?

The addiction loops we share with our tech habits keep us checking in somewhere else instead of joining in on what we’re divinely invited into. We have an eternal purpose, and it’s not measured in likes.