Too. Much. Information.

We know more about what is happening around the world than almost any generation before us. Within seconds, our phones pop up with news about a war across the ocean, a disaster unfolding thousands of miles away, or another tragedy closer to home.

But knowing more doesn’t always mean seeing more clearly.

The suffering we encounter is real, and Christians shouldn’t look away from it. We grieve. We pray. We act. But what we can see is never the whole story. Even in places marked by suffering, opposition, and uncertainty, God is at work in ways that may never reach us.

So we can pay attention to a broken world without being overcome by it. Turmoil, gross inequalities and downright evil plagues much of our world, yet God keeps building His kingdom. 

The following is an article written by Radical’s Jamie Dean that acknowledges our fatigue and anxiety, at the same time offering us a fresh perspective to keep on keeping on.

In the first volume of a book of prayers called Every Moment Holy, author Douglas McKelvey includes an unexpected addition: “A Liturgy for Those Flooded by Too Much Information.”

McKelvey writes about the anxiety of absorbing “more grief, O Lord, than we can rightly consider, of more suffering and scandal than we can respond to, of more hostility, hatred, horror, and injustice than we can engage with compassion.”

We know what he means, don’t we?

Some days, it feels like our news feeds aren’t feeding us but consuming us: Another war breaks out. Another shooting kills a child. Another disease kills a mother. Another earthquake destroys a city. Another church folds. Another pastor falls.

Too. Much. Information.

And it would be too much news, if it was the only news. But, of course, we know there’s much more.

Wars break out in the Middle East, but persecuted Christians in Iran risk their safety to share a loaf of bread and the Bread of Life with frightened neighbors.

A new strain of Ebola does break out in the Congo, but missionaries and Christian medical workers risk their own lives to help the dying.

Well known pastors fall under scandal, but across the ocean, an indigenous pastor prepares to take the gospel to an unreached province in China (or Bangladesh or …).  

These are believers the vast majority of us will never meet in places most of us will never go. Their names will never hit our news feeds. But their Father in heaven sees them. He knows them each by name. And he uses them to build his kingdom. A kingdom that’s not of this world.

It’s why the Apostle Paul can endure persecution and also say: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). 

Because Jesus has already overcome for us.

This doesn’t mean we won’t face sorrow. Jesus promised his disciples they would have trouble in this world. But he also told them: “Take heart, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

Christ’s life, his death, and his resurrection have overcome all that threatens to overcome us.

So, we can read our news feeds with legitimate concern and sadness. We can grieve and lament. We can pray and we can act. But we can also trust. Trust that Christ’s kingdom is much bigger than our news feeds. And that Jesus is never wringing his hands.

As McKelvey also writes:

“But you, O Jesus, are not disquieted by such news of cruelty and terror and war. You are neither anxious or overwhelmed. You carried the full weight of the suffering of a broken world when you hung upon the cross, and you carry it still.” 

--- Jamie Dean

The Commission 

Submitted by High Pointe’s Mission Strategy Team