Image
“The jet turned at an impossible angle. It was going too fast to make a safe landing. It can’t be a passenger plane, or it would be in trouble.” Those were my thoughts standing by the gate at Sacramento airport. As it got closer, I could see it was a fighter jet and it very lightly touched down before rocketing off the runway and steeply banking to the left just a few hundred feet away from the panoramic windows. As it launched, a roar many times louder than a passenger plane filled the waiting area. That was the jet’s first of several “touch and goes.” What struck me most was not just the plane’s stunning agility, speed, and sound but the fact that no one was watching.
Everyone in the waiting area had their heads down, looking at their phones, or just staring off at some far point on a wall seemingly oblivious to the airshow just outside. At one point, an older gentlemen noticed and started looking, but of the hundreds in the waiting area no one else seemed to pay any attention.
We live in a distracted country. 24/7 access to the internet has created an insatiable hunger for digital content that cannot be sated by physical reality — even when the reality is visually and aurally spectacular. What does this mean for our spiritual lives? If virtual reality and metaverse connections are so compelling that we become disconnected to the people and events that surround us, how will we ever appreciate supernatural truth? With constant (and seemingly endless) digital input, how will we ever long for eternal reality? This is not an entirely new phenomenon. For decades we have known that if you stand in the middle of Times Square you’ll never be able to see the beauty of the galaxies. But it seems that everyone can now live in Times Square — at least virtually.
Richard Foster, in his book Celebration of Discipline, challenges followers of Christ to practice prayer, simplicity, solitude, worship, and celebration (among other disciplines). Perhaps today more than ever we need to adopt an intentionality to living that routinely directs us to these disciplines? It may come down to a choice between discipline or distraction. Psalm 19:1 tells us that “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim his handiwork.” How can we ever grasp this truth without looking up? Today it may be easier than ever for us to distract ourselves to a spiritual death.