Isolation from local needs and overexposure to overwhelming but distant need, make our responses to strangers uncertain and tentative at best.” — Christine D. Pohl, Making Room

We are living in a time of overwhelming amounts of information—an overload of tragedy and discourse. Everything is all happening at once.

But the Word of God says in Ecclesiastes 1:9, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”

What has made us believe otherwise is access to all information in a unfiltered Ai influenced flood, via our phones and internet access at our fingertips at all times.

I believe God is calling our attention to the surrounding areas He has planted us in. I am not saying don’t catch up on current events; I am saying don’t be consumed by them. We will leave no room for the purpose that God has called us to right here, right now.

Look around. What needs of those around you do you know? Not those from a screen, but a person you can touch, have coffee with, or directly impact by meeting a tangible need in real time. What holy, set-apart tools has God equipped you with? What encouraging words has Jesus filled you with to pour out on those around you?

What I have observed is that when empathy has nowhere to go, anxiety takes over. When you can’t do something about what you intensely feel, it affects you deeply. And some of us are feeling that with each swipe and each breaking story.

Be specific with Jesus. Ask Him if your knowledge is surpassing your ability to do. And then trust Him with what He does want you to know and what He wants you to do with that knowledge.

James says to be not just hearers of the word, but doers.

God has planted you, so He will sustain you.

Jeremiah 17:7–8 (NIV)

“But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.”