Auditory Multi-Tasking

I am not an auditory multi-tasker. (Thank you Erica Watkins and Kelle Chitwood Gibson for the term.) I turn off the radio and get off the phone in traffic. I simply cannot compete with the noise from a TV when trying to talk to someone and am forever having to hit the "mute" button on patient's TVs. For that matter, seeing the brightly colored ever-changing scenes from the TV out of the corner of my eye is distracting even when it is on mute. Have to turn that off!


But I just cannot turn off the noise in my mind.  Trying to turn off all the previous conversations of the day, the messages left for me reminding me of that note that needs writing, that fax that needs sending,  Facebook posts I just cannot let go of-- all interfere and battle for my attention.  I try to listen to my kids but the white noise takes over.  Head hits the pillow  but  voices and images take over my intention to sleep.


In this age of technology there is an increasing need to unplug from all my media, all the requests and demands that take me away from time with my family and time with the Father.  Constant stimulation wears out the God-given fight or flight responses leaving no reserves for the real trials when the come, and they will come.  Never was a verse more appropriate as this:

"Be still and know that I am God."  Psalm 46:10