Fasting from information is one way for us to come away when taking time off work is not possible and the demands of ministry and family can’t be avoided. When times of solitude are few and far between, we can still reduce the surrounding noise.

A Still and Quiet Mind is scheduled to be released on June 22; pre-order here.

REST YOUR THOUGHTS

I’m sitting outside in my favorite chair while I write. The sun warms my face while a strong breeze hits my body. The temperature is perfect. I can’t help but pause from my writing to enjoy the simple pleasure of being outside.

I live in a suburban neighborhood, and it’s surprising how much wildlife I notice when I stop to pay attention. A squirrel trounces by like it owns our yard. Two red-breasted robins fly past, a crow lands on our fence, and a yellow bird of unknown variety pecks for juicy morsels in the grass. A bumblebee lazily drinks from a vibrant flowering bush.

I’ve been stuck inside all winter, and suddenly—it’s spring. I close my eyes and enjoy the surround-sound chorus of caws and whistles. The pleasant cacophony of bird calls is much louder than I realized when I was focused on my work. Good words and good feelings fill my mind and my soul. Warmth. Peace. Stillness. Sunshine. Rest. Thank you, God, for this moment.

I’m thankful for the break. Life is busy these days. I often spend the entire day working on my computer, only to find myself drawn to my phone every time I take a break. I love my work. I’m also thankful for the convenience, connection, and entertainment I find each time I open my phone. Still, the constant intake of information, data, and opinions sometimes leaves my mind filled with restless, racing thoughts by the end of the day.

Knowing my mind’s tendency toward exhaustion, I purposefully look for moments when I can set my phone aside and step outside. I don’t need to travel far. A few minutes sitting in my backyard or a short meander to the neighborhood park is often enough to help me to clear my mind. It’s good to breathe the fresh air and allow myself to simply exist without doing work or consuming information. My mind is most at peace when I create purposeful space to pause in restful and beautiful outside places without the company of my phone.

I think these moments help me to put into practice Jesus’s invitation to set aside my worries, stress, and fear. I look at the birds and the flowers and all he has created and thank God for his goodness and care for me (see Matt. 6:25–30). This is rest for my mind. It’s how I pull my attention away from the exhaustion of worry and work and choose to meditate on the beauty and goodness of all God has created.

REST FROM CONSTANT DISTRACTION AND HURRY

Our minds need rest just as much as our hearts and souls do. This rest can be difficult to find because many of us live in a constant state of hurry and distraction. We throw ourselves into work and schedule ourselves to the brim. We avoid silence and solitude and use digital technology every moment we are forced to be alone.

While I am quick to embrace the many benefits of technology, statistics force us to reckon with the concerning impact that smart-phones, social media, and mindless consumption of information and entertainment can have on the state of our minds. High levels of smartphone usage increase people’s likelihood of anxiety and their perceived levels of stress.¹ Experts have attributed alarming rises in teen suicide and depression in part to the introduction of social media and the smartphone.² Unchecked technology usage can disrupt sleep and decrease our desire to seek out in-person community. Without adequate sleep and people to help us sort through our thoughts, the process of change can become more difficult.

It’s ironic that we often turn back to technology to alleviate our thought-related problems. Our phones have become “digital pacifiers” that help us to avoid difficult feelings and problematic thoughts.³ I realized this tendency in myself when the Screen Time app was released on my iPhone. I was surprised by how much my phone usage increased on days when I was anxious. Instead of pausing to know my thoughts or pray through my thinking, I would reach for my phone and scroll.

Richard Foster has called the distraction of constant technology “the primary spiritual problem in contemporary culture.”⁴ The multitasking encouraged by internet-enabled technologies has hijacked our attentional capacity.⁵ This makes it more difficult for us to focus for any length of time on spiritual disciplines. We have less space, desire, and ability to examine our thoughts in the solitude of our own minds. We have fewer moments of quiet and less ability to concentrate on bringing our thoughts to God in prayer for any length of time.

In response to our hurry and distraction, God extends an invitation. As I look through Scripture, I imagine him speaking these words to you and to me: Come away to a restful place (see Mark 6:31). Slow down and savor the beauty and goodness in the world I have created. Let me show you how it reveals who I am (see Matt. 6:25–30).

COME AWAY AND GET SOME REST

When Jesus saw his disciples overcome by weariness from their work, he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while” (Mark 6:31). Come away. It’s a needed invitation. To come away is to separate yourself from something. In the disciples’ case, they needed separation from the hustle of ministry. They moved away from people to an isolated place where they could be alone. They changed their location and context to better accommodate their need for rest and communion with God.

What about in your case? Consider what hurries and distracts you. What exhausts your mind? What puts your thoughts into hyperdrive? What blocks your self-reflection or comes between you and time spent praying your thoughts to God? What might you need to come away from?

For me, the answer is clear. My work hurries me. A constant intake of information distracts me. I read the news while eating lunch, listen to audiobooks while doing chores, and read books or watch TV in my spare moments. Text messages, video chats, meetings, and work projects fill my day. There is nothing wrong with all these activities. They are good gifts that often help me to make the best use of my time and mental energy. At the same time, too many of these activities without a break leads to information overload. My mind fills with restless thoughts that can distract me from looking at myself and connecting to God.

Incessant mental chatter.* This may be the type of thought I struggle with the most. The speed of my thoughts tends to correlate with the amount of mental work I do in any given season. My mental load follows me to bed, where I continue creating grocery lists, rewriting sentences, pondering work problems, considering how I will respond to a text, and reviewing my to-do list in my mind. To break this cycle, I need to purposefully step away from work at various points throughout the day. I need to come away.

For me, coming away looks like purposeful times of solitude away from other people. It looks like starting my morning with God through Scripture and prayer. It also looks like purposeful times when I distance myself from information overload.

I first completed a digital detox after reading Cal Newport’s book Digital Minimalism.⁶ A few years later, I was introduced to the concept of reading deprivation in Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way.⁷ I have come to think of reading deprivation in terms of fasting from information. For a week in the summer of 2020, I stepped away from all unnecessary information. I spent a lot of time sitting outside journaling. I had more time to pray. Sometimes I didn’t think much and just rested my mind. Other times, I searched my thoughts deeply. I learned things about myself I had not previously known. The true content of my thoughts and state of my heart became clearer.

Fasting from information is one way for us to come away when taking time off work is not possible and the demands of ministry and family can’t be avoided. When times of solitude are few and far between, we can still reduce the surrounding noise.

I encourage you to try this type of fast at least once as you engage this process of changing your thoughts. You can do this by picking a time frame during which you will fast from all unnecessary intake of information. The time could be fifteen minutes, an hour, a day, or up to a week. During this time, you will avoid TV, music, books (except the Bible), social media, podcasts, video games, news, and all other forms of media and information intake.

Julia Cameron points out that stepping away from information in this way often frees up peoples’ time.⁸ Consider using some of this newly created extra space for the journaling, mental reflection, and prayer-based strategies we have already discussed. Then use the remainder of your extra time to slow down and practice activities that allow your mind to rest.

Pick up forgotten hobbies. Finish projects around the house. Set an hour aside for a walk or hike. Sit outside. Bake cookies and eat them slowly. Plant a tree. Play with your kids. Turn your attention toward savoring the beauty and goodness of all God has created. I’ll give you some ideas of how you might do this in the next section. Let these times of reflective meditation on God’s creation remind you of who God is and all he has done for you.

To pre-orders: https://www.amazon.com/Still-Quiet-Mind-Strategies-Changing/dp/1629959219/

* The strategies in this chapter can be helpful for any type of thoughts, but they may be especially helpful for the category of racing thoughts and incessant mental chatter that was listed in the introduction.

1. See Sei Yon Sohn et al., “Prevalence of Problematic Smartphone Usage and Associated Mental Health Outcomes amongst Children and Young People: A Systematic Review, Meta-analysis and GRADE of the Evidence,” BMC Psychiatry 19, no. 356 (November 2019), https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186 /s12888-019-2350-x.
2. See Jean M. Twenge, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” The Atlantic, September 2017, https://www.theatlantic .com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/.
3. See interview with Tristan Harris in The Social Dilemma, directed by Jeff Orlowski (Los Gatos, CA: Netflix, 2020), https://www.netflix .com/title/81254224.
4. Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, special anniversary ed. (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2018), preface, Kindle (emphasis in original).
5. See Joseph Firth et al., “The ‘Online Brain’: How the Internet May Be Changing Our Cognition,” World Psychiatry 18, no. 2 (June 2019): 119–29.
6. Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World (New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2019).
7. See Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, 25th anniversary ed. (New York: TarcherPerigee, 2016), chap. 4, Kindle.