Don’t Say It
It is a word never to be uttered. It should especially never be mentioned in an e-newsletter or any other subscription-based form of communication. It is in every way taboo, and one every marketing plan will scream for you to steer clear of at all costs. Despite all these realities, it is a word you and I should take seriously and deploy regularly:
Unsubscribe.
You live in a world of endless information. You can access more information in a few seconds than most generations have been able to learn in a lifetime. It is both an immense gift and an enormous risk to the wellbeing of your soul.
There are countless layers to this, but we will confine ourselves to one this week: Your singular ambition must be “to gaze on the beauty of the Lord” (Ps. 27:4). In order to achieve this singular aim with your life, you must become proficient at unsubscribing.
Your world relentlessly offers you “more.” More education, more opportunity, more habits for good health, more wealth, more knowledge, more service, more connectivity, more information, more efficiency, more entertainment, more, more, more.
Plenty of those “mores” are good things—biblical things even (for example, you and I should be seeking out ways to serve our neighbors—Matt. 22:39). But my friend, the truth is as clear as it is difficult to accept and implement: A singular devotion to the voice of God will require the tuning out of competing voices. You cannot always choose more and still be devoted to the One.
Put another way, in order to adequately subscribe to the One you must be able to clearly hear when He whispers, you will have to unsubscribe from anything that is drowning out His voice. There cannot always be more.
This will be counter-cultural in every way, because our world runs on a mantra of “more.” The wares of our time are wrapped in quantity and speed and being perpetually “plugged in.” But the promise you have from your Creator has nothing to do with keeping up with the world into which you were created, but rather everything to do with knowing the One who created you.
So do a candid evaluation today about where you are subscribed. Evaluate even the “good” things—and even those things to which you were once clearly called. How many places and things are you plugged into? Are those commitments amplifying the voice of your Creator and drawing you deeper into relationship with Him? What about the overall volume of those obligations? Does it leave room for you to be still and quiet enough to hear the One who truly matters?
If not, have the courage this week to do the radically counter-cultural thing: Simply unsubscribe.
As you do so, I suspect you will find new appreciation for the words of the familiar hymn:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.
The following article originally appeared in Thann’s “The Equipped” Weekly Newsletter. For more information on Thann’s weekly email, click here.