In a Distracted and Anxious Age, What Can Bring You Peace? This Can

When you’re in school, you find all sorts of ways to make money.  I washed dishes.  I worked as a security guard.  And my good buddy Ted became a guinea pig.  Our school happened to be close to some big drug companies.  And those companies paid you a couple grand just to hang out and live in a nice dormitory on their research campus.  All you had to do was take a pill and let them watch what the pill did…to you.  They assured you, of course, that the side-effects would be minimal, as in you almost certainly wouldn’t die.   And Ted didn’t.  He remains alive and well, none the worse for his guinea pig days.  Still, when he said to me.  “Kennedy, you should try it out.  It’s easy money.”  I told him.  “No, I don’t think so.” 

But this week, I realized.  I’ve become a guinea pig right now, and nobody is paying but me.  I am paying to be the guinea pig, and probably so are you.   What do I mean?  Look at this prank video from about six years ago.   In it, a man walks by random folks, and as he does so, he triggers a familiar noise.  Look at what happens as he walks by. 

These phones are acting as one article put it, as “the world’s largest slot machine.”   When you pull that lever or click that link, you never know what you’re going to get.  And that whole surprise gives you a little dopamine rush, the brain chemical that makes you feel good.   So, you keep clicking or tapping or whatever to get the rush.  That’s why you get so tempted to look at your phone like all the time.  It doesn’t even matter what you are looking at.   It’s the unpredictability of the deal that gives the rush.

And when it beeps, it gets worse.  Then your brain goes,” ooh what’s that, something new!”   Boom goes the dopamine, and you just gotta look.   You now own the world’s smallest slot machine.  And you carry it around literally everywhere.   That’s why all those folks picked up their phone even when they really knew it wasn’t even their phone beeping! 

These phones have created a human experiment that now encompasses most of the planet.  And it’s not working out well.   People are becoming more anxious, more over-stimulated, more attention impaired.    And becoming happier? No way! People have become more depressed and distracted than ever.  But as bad as those phones can be, our distracted ways didn’t begin there.  Before the phones we had the TV, and before the TV, the radio and before that we found other ways to distract ourselves. Heck, hundreds of years ago, the philosopher and mathematician Pascal put it well.  He said.  The sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room.

And because those words carry more truth now than ever, we need to hear these words of Jesus more than ever.  How do you free yourself from the bondage of this beeping, interconnected, stressed out world, from your own distracted ways? How do you return to focusing on what truly matters? In these words, Jesus shows you the way.  Let’s listen and hear what Jesus has to say.

Matthew 5:8 - Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. 

In these words, Jesus is giving you the key to a life that frees you from distraction, from anxiety, frees you for a life that is truly fulfilled.    After all, that’s what blessed means.  It means happy, fulfilled.   So, what is Jesus telling you in these words about happiness, about fulfillment?   Jesus is saying.  Fulfillment comes when you have a clear enough mind to see the God who is already right there.  What do I mean by that?

When I first came to Florida, lots of things about this part of the world blew me away; seeing the exotic birds, the egrets walking on the lawns or how fast everything grew or just the palm trees everywhere.   But do you know what stunned me the most?  The water. 

I grew up swimming in muddy lakes.   Once you stuck your foot in the water, it seemed like it disappeared.  You couldn’t see a thing underwater ever.   And then when I did live near the ocean in New York, it didn’t get any better.   You walk in the water there.  You don’t see squat.  But here you can walk out into the water, and you see everything.  You see your feet right below you.  You see fishes and other creatures just swimming around.   It’s amazing!

But I also discovered you can make that all go away.  You kick your feet up, and the sand billows out, and you see nothing, at least until the sand settles.   All that stuff gets in the way of what is really there.

Do you see where I’m going here?  When Jesus talks about the pure in heart, he isn’t talking about people being super good or having some sort of naïve innocence.    No, Jesus is talking about an unclouded heart, a mind, a heart that isn’t all clouded up so to speak.

And Jesus is saying the more your mind becomes like that, the more unclouded it becomes, the more you see things as they really are.  And when you do, you will see that God is moving in your life, in the world in ways that before you could never see.   You will see God.   And in that seeing, you will experience a freedom, a peace that you might never have thought possible.

So how do you get this purity of heart?  It begins by simply learning this: to sit still.  And in a few minutes, I’m going to actually have you all practice this sitting still.  It’s a group participation sermon.  Yea!   

But let me tell you, this sitting still stuff sounds easier than it is.  It’s not hard to do it really.  In fact, it’s super easy.   In fact, there is only one way that you can mess it up.   And what is that way?  By just not doing it.   That’s where the tough part comes.  It’s so easy not to do it. 

In fact, that’s why we’re going to do it here.  It’s because I know.  If I tell you about sitting still, give you a few tips on doing it, and then tell you to go forth and sit still, if you’re anything like me, you won’t.   I know that because too many days I don’t do it.   I tell myself that I don’t have time.  What a lie.  I have time to check my alerts and text messages.  I have time to watch Netflix or graze over Facebook or Instagram.   No, I resist going there, because I don’t want the dust to settle.   I don’t want things in my heart and mind to clear up.   And do you know why?  I don’t know if I really want to see God, to have God get that close, to be that present. 

But when I move past my fears, when I go there, well, I don’t how else to say it.  It works.  You’ll probably not get a blinding vision or a stunning revelation.  But you will find your heart settle, if only for a few minutes, maybe just a few moments.  But those moments will overflow into your day.  They will start to reshape your heart, even heal wounds.  One wise Christian, a monk, called it a type of divine therapy.   It is more powerful than I can possibly explain. 

And in a few moments, I invite you to experience it, to sit in quietness for five minutes, no more.   Here’s how it works. 

First, you pick a sacred word or phrase to focus on, to simply repeat to yourself.  It could be Jesus or Love or Lord Have Mercy or whatever.  What sacred word doesn’t matter all that much.  The word just gives an intention, that you desire to spend time in the presence of God.   

Then, in the quiet, you begin repeating the word silently to yourself, and as you feel comfortable, letting the word fade away until you are in the silence.

So, let’s say you’ve got your word.  You close your eyes, and the quiet begins.  All of a sudden peaceful bliss and surrender will surround you.  Not!    No. Your mind is likely going to get more active than ever.  All sorts of stuff will pop up.   Don’t stress.  Don’t try to stop it.  Just let it go, like balloons floating up in the air or boats passing by on a river.   Come back to repeating your sacred word to center you.    And don’t come to this time with an agenda.  Be willing to let God do whatever God wants for you in those five minutes, even if it means a couple minute nap!   Remember the only way to mess it up is to not do it.   So, let’s do it.  

Pick your sacred word.  Set your phone (here the phone can be helpful) to ring five minutes from now so it’ll ring to alert you when the five minutes are done.  

Enter into your 5 minutes of silence.........

Now whatever you sense happened or didn’t happen in those five minutes doesn’t matter.  You gave, as best you could, those five minutes to God and God used them.   Now what about doing this for the next ten days?  Set your phone alarm or some other alarm for five minutes each day for ten days at whatever time works.  And do what you did here and if you want a little more guidance, click here for a good site to help you or just google centering prayer.  

But whatever the case, try this for five minutes for 10 days.  And just see what God does.  Don’t stress if you skip a day, just get back to the sitting still the next day.   See how God will work, how God settles your mind, how God will show up.   

And why do this?  Because you have a God who is never distracted from you.  No, this God is always focused on you, on loving you, on giving you life in all its abundance and beauty.   How focused?  In Jesus, this God became one of you.  And in Jesus, he ate with you and laughed with you and healed you. He focused on you.    And even as we rejected and killed him, he never stopped focusing on you, on me, on loving you, on saving you from yourself, from all our mad and distracted ways.    

And as you let go, and open yourself to that focus, to that love for just five minutes a day, see how Jesus will work.  So, will you do it, ten days, five minutes, sitting still with God?    The only way you can mess it up is to not do it.   So, will you?   For as Jesus said, blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God.