What an exciting time we live in! We’re riding the crest of a long technological wave. Technologies are upgraded at a breathtaking pace. All around us are new opportunities for interest, involvement, employment, fascination, and—yes—distraction.

    If you are at all like me, the Internet, digital photography, digital sound, multi-media graphics, international chat, instant email, and satellite communications fascinate you. I recently was visiting with my partner at Heartlight, Paul Lee. He was in Virginia. I was in Texas. We were chatting online about an upcoming issue. My television card was pumping the Olympics into a 2 inch square box on my monitor. Paul and I were both using ftp to transfer files to our remote Heartlight server, answering email, coding html documents, and listening to streaming audio from Heartsounds. On my laptop computer, I was checking the latest news updates on the web. In the middle of my chat, I took a phone call on my cellular phone.

    Most of this was not possible 20 years ago. Here I was, doing it all at the same time in my own home. In fact, this is my regular Tuesday night routine. The digital age has brought remarkable new opportunities. It has also left us with some hard choices that often go unrecognized.

We must not let digital distraction keep us from what is most important—living our lives for the Lord.

    We can be digitally wired 24 hours a day—constant stimulation and information! Dangerously lurking beneath this great opportunity is the “thief of always.” Without prioritizing our time, focusing our energies, analyzing our gifts, and intentionally choosing our areas of involvement, we lose our lives to digital distraction.

    Digital distraction is life carried along on the currents of technological noise. It can be that intense craving to go buy the newest, fastest, latest hardware, software, or peripheral. It can be skipping from one dazzling technological input to another. It can be the dizzying flood of information and audio-visual stimulation that we bounce between until sensory overload sets in and we drop into bed exhausted. It can be the obsessive checking of email and surfing the web with no intended destination or purpose.

    As much as I am thrilled with the advances and opportunities the digital age offers, we must not let digital distraction keep us from what is most important—living our lives for the Lord. I would like to challenge us to do three things to keep the digital world our tool and not our taskmaster.

    First, spend time in the presence of God through prayer, Scripture, and meditation. We must ask him to clarify our purposes and take over our agendas. Second, let’s inventory the gifts the Spirit has given us and then use them to serve others and glorify God. Third, we must submit our lives to serving people, not use technological pursuits to isolate ourselves from them. The world we are to influence is made up of the people, the very people Jesus died to save.

    I love the digital age, I just don’t want to get bit by the worst of the computer viruses, digital distraction!