Wake Up, Look Up

[Music]

hello everyone thanks for listening to

wake up lookup a podcast where we

connect events happening in real time to

the Gospel of Jesus Christ I'm Zach wck

and in today's episode we're asking the

question who owns your mind this is

prompted by a pretty thought-provoking

article I read in the Atlantic by Chris

Hayes who's a news anchor on MSNBC and

he was talking about what the reality

that most Americans maybe are not aware

of which is that attention is the new

most valuable commodity that what

companies want increasingly is your

attention that is what they're after

whether it's social media or like uh Mr

Hayes the news Market they're looking

for more and more of your time how to

get your attention and then how to keep

it what he says is that he

underestimated how important this would

be when he took his job covering the

news he says that when he took the job

he thought I'll cover the news I'll I'll

choose the stories I think matter most

I'll cover them in a way I think is the

best way to cover them he says but

actually now I realize that I'm just

driving a sailboat and the wind is

wherever attention will take me that's a

pretty scary thought for a news agency

for a news reporter to say really all I

want is your attention and then to keep

it it's less about communicating

information and more about just holding

on to your attention what hay says is

that companies spend most of their time

now figuring out how to manipulate and

distract us how to get attention and how

to keep it how to keep us from thinking

about other things we should be doing or

other things we should be thinking about

and to keep us Focus fused on their

products he makes the point that now

companies recognize

visibility is more important than values

even when you cover the news more people

watching is far more important than what

it is you're telling them uh listen what

that means for news is a different

podcast episode for a different day what

I want to talk about is this uh the

Bible has a lot to say about spiritual

warfare and your mind Romans 12 Paul

tells us to be renewed by the

transforming of our minds but

increasingly here's what I think is

happening major multi-billion dollar

corporations are hiring really smart

people to spend all day thinking about

how to transform our minds in a way that

leads to buying their products or

sharing their worldview meanwhile most

of us are spending no time thinking

about what goes on in our mind well what

do you think happens as a result they

take us wherever they want us to go uh

one of the things Hayes says is in his

articles that each person should be

asking themselves if it wasn't for

manipulation if it wasn't for

distraction what would I actually want

to give my attention to I hope the

answer to that for most Christians is I

would want to give my attention to God I

would want to grow in my understanding

of who he is I would want the spirit to

take better control more control of my

life well here's the thing you can do

that but it's increasingly becoming true

that the first step probably isn't

picking up your Bible the first step is

disentangling yourself from the

apparatus that has sought to distract

you you got to turn off your phone you

have to turn off the news you've got to

detox a little bit before you can

actually give your attention to the

Bible because they're building companies

around the idea that when you do pick up

your Bible after 15 seconds you're going

to be bored because that's what they've

wired you to do increasingly we've got

to unplug from the system in order to

plug into God this maybe is not the

application Peter had in mind but it's

the spirit he had in mind in First Peter

5 when he tells us to Be watchful to

recognize that the world is Desiring to

move us in a Direction but that is not

where we want to go they are are

promising us these companies things that

they cannot actually deliver true

fulfillment true rest actual personal

growth it's Jesus who said listen if

you're weary and heavy laden in Matthew

11 come to me I will give you rest but

between you and I and Jesus are

multi-billion dollar corporations that

we have got to move out of the way put

down your phone turn off the TV and run

to Jesus realizing that that's the only

way you'll actually grow who owns your

mind that might be the most important

question for your year hey thanks so

much for watching this episode of wake

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