To wit, I no longer listen to non-christian oriented music (not an insignificant alteration change in my life, to say the least), I no longer visit news or political sites (I've focused on sites that either edify me spiritually or help me with general living such as home/garden/fishing), and I have ceased nearly all of my TV viewing (Pretty much old Turner Classic Movies and such).

Now I say this not to pat myself on the back or any other such non-sense, but to highlight a truth that Al Mohler has blogged about recently, "The Challenge of Attention in the Digital Age".

It's been about 2 months since I've made these changes and so the timing of this article for me couldn't have been better placed. 

In retrospect, the amount of noise that I had allowed into my life was tremendous. It may seem to be a bit of an exaggeration, but I tend lately to liken it to smoking (another bad habit I kicked long ago) in that it's an insidious habit that ever so slowly saps you of your ability to enjoy the things in life that we gain joy from, with smoking it's energy, appearance, and length of life, with digital distractions it's family, mind, and the ability to give the proper and required attention to my spiritual life.

I fully recognize that we're all different. I'm particularly susceptible, for instance, to being distracted by shiny objects, so I suspect that the problem of focus and distraction has been far more acute for me than what it likely is for many other people. Never the less, with all of us being human and everyone having the same 24 hours to work with each day, there really isn't a lot of room, if any, for casual television, internet or music that all work to affect our mood and thought-life with things that do not glorify God.

If you're fine with how things are in your life and you've found the right balance, good for you.

If you find yourself wishing you were better in this thing or that thing, or find yourself always behind rather than ahead of situations, or (now here comes the sting) if you can't even remember what was preached last Sunday or know what you should be praying for in your family and friends lives, then perhaps you have some changes to make as well.