Navigating truth in a smog of data

Quicker. Faster. Shorter. 140 characters or less. Read something...can't I just watch a video?  Slimmer-faster smart phones.  Insta.  Facebook.  Just a short list of demands coerced upon us from our Information age society. 

Courier or fax were once fast methods to communicate.  AOL, barely over 25 years ago, was all the rage.  June of 2007, the first iPhone hits the marketplace. Can you believe just barely 13 years ago there was no iPhone?!

We watch 24/7 news, we connect to the "cloud" with blazing speeds, we stream, we text.  Social media influencers and millionaires abound, we Tweet (a beat down imho), and it must be working for us, right?  I mean, I am really busy?!  How about you?  Most people have all their text, email, Fb, Insta, news alerts customized the way they like them.  You?

Yet while we immerse ourselves in this massive sea of information - are we uncovering Clarity?  Clarity - a clear, settled-and-ever-present sense that you know Who you are, Why you are Where you are; and Where you are going.

We practically wallow around in social media 24/7, we instantly access data from anywhere in the world, even data in a foreign language.  So why aren't our lives more - well - Clear?  Busyness must have been our goal - I mean - since we all seem to have achieved just that?  Discerning (almost a forgotten word) truth amidst all this information at our fingertips - is it simpler for you?  Crystal clearer for you? 

My favorite author, John Eldredge, said it this way in Waking the Dead:  Twenty clear days a year--that sounds about like my life. I think I see what is really going on about that often. The rest of the time, it feels like fog, like the bathroom mirror after a hot shower.  (read an excerpt)

Look up the term "data smog" - coined by David Shenk back in 1997 - "…this unexpected, unwelcome part of our atmosphere, an expression for the noxious muck and druck of the Information age."  Resonate at all with you?

So, at what cost this glut of Information?  Why is this a problem?  Because when you blur truth; fog up what was clear; it impacts our choices, it distorts Worldviews.  To blur, fog, distort, all describe a lack of Clarity.

Whom do we believe, who’s actions should we defend, whom do we tend to defend, what ignites our passions and why, what do we call "just entertainment" - all these are downstream from our worldview.  The default lens if you will as to how we view the world. 

I am a Son.  20 Clear Days is an outpouring; an aggregation of now decades of life; of stories lived; of finding myself continually in genuine awe of my position in this Kingdom.  However, after decades of life, I am just now realizing that for most of my life I was dangerously non-intentional in my choice of a worldview.  Over-connectivity, social media, data smog, 24/7 news cycles, etc.  All contributing to cold adult beverages, sofa's and "checking out"?  Too blunt to say chicken out?

It is alarming - the lack of Clarity in our hearts and minds.  The lack of what should be our ever-maturing critical thinking "thinker".  A trusted mentor of mine used to always ask me; “...are you sure about this - do you know this down deep in your "knower”?”  I find unfortunately that instead of the answer being "yes", it's more common that Eldredge's foggy bathroom mirror is more accurate.

Cognizant of it or not, we have unintentionally accumulated a lot of whom we defend, what we believe, what drives us in our lives, our choices of "just harmless entertainment, it's not real".  There is a social science warning about this called the Law of unintended consequences. 

My experience: having grown up in dry dusty West Texas, there are lots of straight-for-ten's-of-miles isolated dirt country roads.  Will not say why in my teenage years I was driving down those isolated roads :)!  But I will say that every time I drove my truck on those roads there was a coat of dust that just stuck to my truck - outside and inside.  Unintended consequence: dust accumulated whether you like it or not. 

Except it is not a truck we are talking about.  It is your heart.  It is your mind. 

It is called a paradox.  In mere seconds, from our phones, we now choose from a menu of so many options and choices - that we are not actually making very many intentional choices.  Exercising critical thinking versus just rearranging how we already felt.  The growing concept of "influencer" is succeeding in replacing Leadership.  That is not a good thing.  While arguable in it's origin I don't believe it's validity today is arguable: "better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt".  I will say that a more modern application would be to substitute "to tweet and remove all doubt" for "to speak and remove all doubt"!

I want to challenge us both.  There is a path to more than just 20 Clear Days a year.  You've already read over 700 words from me - all without a video - just reading!  So let's go big or go home:  we'll start with worldview. 

Link to my post On Worldviews here.  Ravi Zacharias boils down the essential elements that form an intentional choice of worldview: "…all humans, regardless of what religion they practiced or whether they had no religious beliefs, had to answer four basic questions: Where do I come from? Why am I here?  How should I treat people? Where am I going? Origin, Meaning, Morality, Destiny." (watch 4:39 minute video here)

The path to more than 20 Clear Days per year?  To a life where Clarity is more common than Eldredge's foggy bathroom mirror?  That path is a Kingdom Worldview.  

So...it's possible you're done with me and this outpouring from Father.  So let me leave you with a thought.  A kind and good King is pursuing you.  Not an angry old man who wrote 10 rules - captain buzz-kill.  One of the most recognizable passages in the Bible is the 23rd Psalm.  It does NOT say "...thy road and thy staff are looking to catch me and beat me..."  A kind and good King is pursuing you - to Love you.  Only sons and daughters are reading these words.

I leave you with two requests: watch this 5 minute video from Brady Boyd here; then this video here.

....the Lord Bless you, and keep you, make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn His, face toward you, and give you peace. 

CLH