“We Are Being Rocked to Sleep By a Lullaby of Entertainment”
Welcome back to our second blog here on The Shepherd’s Porch Website. This blog is inspired by a couple of things. One being a podcast I watched recently by Bryce Crawford called “My Biggest Warning To Christians”. Two being the Youtube documentary I mentioned in the last blog “Sheep Among Wolves II”. But aside from these, the inspiration also comes from a place of experience in my life living in America but having traveled and experienced God in other countries as well. An inspiration and motivation to help others see and hear God and how that can lead to a less stressful, less anxiety filled, simpler life. How following Jesus with your whole mind, body and soul can and will lead us back to living a life the way God intended.
The title of this blog is a quote from the lady I mentioned in the first blog who moved back to Iran after moving to America because she said it was harder to hear God in America than in Iran. She said “we are being rocked to sleep by a lullaby of entertainment” here in America. I want to use this blog to dive into what this truly means for us as Americans, for us as Christians, and what we can do to fix this.
The first question is, what does this mean for us as Americans? This means that in America we have a different kind of trial that we face. We are not persecuted for our faith, we have unlimited freedom in religion, we have access to unlimited opportunities and information. We have all the things we need to be highly educated/knowledgeable in our faith, to spread the Gospel to everyone everywhere and to live peacefully in God’s will. So why is America among some of the top rated countries in stress, depression and anxiety. You would think that having access to literally everything you could possibly need or think of would lead a country to be stress free. When we are hungry we can go buy food, when we are broke we can go get a job, when we are bored we can watch tv, when we need to get our minds off something we can scroll on our phone, when we are sick we can go to the doctor. In America we have unlimited solutions to all of our problems. When we have everything we need, why would we need God? But the truth is having this false kind of comfort, convenience, and security distracts us from the one and only true solution which is God. As Christians we know that God is the only one that can give us peace and joy. However, most of the time we forget what true peace and joy feel like because we are so distracted with the happiness, comfort and convenience that material things give us. But happiness is not the same as joy and comfort/convenience/or security is not what true peace feels like.
Personally, this has opened my eyes in my own life. As I dove deeper into this idea that America is one of the hardest places to hear God, I started to see how much I truly am being rocked to sleep by a lullaby of entertainment. That “entertainment” isn’t just a show we watch or an amusement park we go to. This “entertainment” includes everything that entertains us to the extent of endless dopamine hits all day everyday. Between scrolling on our phones on the toilet, in the shower, in the car, while waiting in lines all the way to endless plans, events, parties, or opportunities that we have access to. Thinking about this takes me back to being a little kid. I was one of the last generations to grow up (kind of) without a phone. I was born in 2000 and growing up we did not have phones, ipads, barely had a computer and tv was only a thing we watched at night as a family. When video games started to become more popular, tv shows started coming out, netflix got big, telephones turned into iphones with endless timeconsuming things to do was when I started to stay inside more. I stopped actually sitting down to think about decisions, I started to care more about what people thought about me online. I stopped playing outside, I stopped listening to the birds outside, I stopped looking at the way the wind blew the trees, the way the squirrels chirped, the clouds and their funny shapes. I realized that with the increase in social media, opportunities, and entertainment there was a decrease in taking time to listen to God, to see God. In fact, saying there was a decrease is an understatement. There was a complete removal of any time to listen or hear God. All of my time, and I mean all of my time was filled with a screen, an event, a party, music, activities, sports, or projects. Bryce quoted, “if the devil can’t make you sin he’ll make you busy”. I think this quote perfectly describes America and exactly how we are being rocked to sleep by a lullaby of entertainment.
The second question is, what does this mean for us as Christian? I believe this means that we are called to live our lives as Christ-like examples for those seeking the Lord’s true peace and joy. We are called to deny what our society of constant entertainment and convenience deems as important, in order to hear God’s calling in our lives more clearly. We are called to raise above what others around us are doing in order to show others what Christ can and will do in their life. The truth is, God is constantly talking to us and telling us where to go and what to do next. The problem is we are too distracted to hear it. This week in my personal bible study, I have been reading about the major prophets in the old testament. Sometimes reading through 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles and then reading Isaiah, Jeremiah and now Ezekiel it can feel like the same thing is happening over and over again. There is a good king and then there are so many bad kings that follow. Then there is a prophet that God speaks to in order to warn his people and tell them what they should be doing. Then the process just repeats itself. However, what I have realized through reading all of these stories is that God was always trying to communicate, warn and guide his people back to him. Over and over and over and over again he kept trying. What’s even more amazing is that he still to this day is trying to communicate with you and me. He never gave up then and he will never give up now trying to have a relationship with you. The problem was never His lack of communication but our lack of listening.
This leads to the third question, what are the steps toward hearing God. If you have read this far you probably already guessed it; limiting distractions and to stop worshipping entertainment. I believe this is the biggest step that we as Christian Americans can take to open our ears to be available for God’s voice. This is the first step that I have taken in my life and it has not only helped me hear God but also it has made my life more peaceful. What I have to continue to be careful of, and warn you about, is to not fill up the “empty time” you made for talking and listening to God with other stuff. Or to not fill up the “empty time” with other things like reading the bible, church events, or Christian music. Although these are amazing things to do, the most important thing I have found in actually hearing God is making that "empty time” in your day to do nothing but sit and talk to God and just listen. I try to do this in the morning on my front porch where I can listen to the birds, see the sunrise and praise God for his beautiful creation. In my search of growing closer to Jesus I found myself feeling satisfaction by checking off my bible reading for the day, listening to christian music while doing everything and if I ran out of time I would just say to myself that I can just pray in the car or while i was doing something else. What I found is that you can learn all you want about someone, you could read millions of books, listen to thousands of songs about them but none of that is going to help you know what their actual voice sounds like. Actually talking to them and having a conversation is what does that. Reading the bible, listening to worship music and attenidng church definitely helps you learn how to communicate with God and what His character is like but actually talking to Him is what connects the dots when trying to hear His voice.
What I challenge you with this week is this: make time each day to just sit with no distractions and talk to God, start reading your bible (I recommend “The Bible Recap” by Terra-Leigh Cobble) and if you have enough guts delete social media (STOP SCROLLING!). Scroll through the bible instead. Don’t escape your thoughts through entertainment, give your thoughts to God. He does a lot more with them than ignoring them ever will. It’s not going to be easy and it takes a lot of self-discipline but it is so worth it.
