When you approach me in stillness and in trust, you are strengthened. You need a buffer zone of silence around you in order to focus on things that are unseen. Since I am invisible, you must not let your senses dominate your thinking. The curse of this age is overstimulation of the senses, which blocks out awareness of the unseen world.
Jesus Calling, Sarah Young
When I read that the other morning during prayer time, well, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I’ve been convicted. Lately, I’ve been completely out of focus, and I didn’t even realize it, although if I had been vigilant I would have. I’ve definitely been letting my senses dominate my thoughts. I’ve been focusing on what my eyes see – images of pain, hurt, anger, sorrow, chaos, injustice, destruction, violence, masks, images that shock the mind. I’ve been focusing on what my ears are hearing – words of hate, drama, frustration, shouts of anger, cries of sorrow, loud percussions that jolt the body. I’ve been focusing on the seen and not the unseen. I’ve been focusing on the visible world. Am I alone?
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18
The Word of God tells us repeatedly to focus on what is unseen, live by faith not by our senses. Our senses can be deceptive. What we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste can change in perception and intensity from day-to-day. What we have faith in though, God, never changes. He is never deceptive, always the same, always pedal to the metal intensely calling us.
We live in this world, so how do we stop the sensory overload that we experience? There’s almost no place we can go that we’re don’t have reception, that we’re not assaulted by sight or sound. Even as I sit here at 5:00 a.m. in the dark at the foot of the mountain, my senses pick up the sounds of the interstate, a sensory distraction. Back to the question – how do we stop the sensory overload that we experience on a day-by-day, minute-by-minute basis? Here are a few things I’m going to try that might help create a buffer zone:
1. Put down my cell phone – unfortunately and unnecessarily, my cell phone has become an appendage. I have two arms, two legs and one cell phone. It’s not really an extension of my arm, it’s much bigger, it’s its own separate appendage. It’s a kind of drug, actually a stimulant. It’s constantly whistling, flashing and vying for our attention, through our senses and because I’m sensory focused, it causes me anxiety, I’m constantly hitting the button. You too?
2. Turn off the TV – television has mastered the human senses. I can’t walk through a room with a TV on without absorbing what’s on the screen. I’m drawn in. I check myself. The room I was meant to pass through many minutes before has now become my sensory feed and I take a seat.
3. Turn off the radio – our senses are constantly searching for the right song, the right news, the right opinion.
These may all seem like small things, but they make me focus on me. What I can see, what I can hear. When I’m distracted by these things, eternity is not in my thoughts.
That is why we live by believing and not by seeing. 2 Corinthians 5:7
We need to check our focus. Are we focusing on the seen (the world) or the unseen (eternity)? We’ve said before, it’s hard to turn off the world. After all, the world we’re constantly trying to escape is the world we usually run to for refuge. Think about that. We think the only way to treat sensory overload is with our senses, with what’s in front of us, what we can see. Here’s the thing, we yearn within for something that cannot be satisfied by our human senses, it can only be satisfied with the promise of eternity. That should be our focus – to use our senses to seek what we do not see.