Season 1, Episode 3: What are You Listening to?

What Are You Listening to?

Mark Batterson in his new book, Please, Sorry, Thanks, shares about an incredible study that was done. This study, it was done with undergraduate students and they had to come in and do a scrambled sentence test. There were two groups. In one group, there were words that were spread throughout that were negative, like disturb, bother, or intrude. The second group had words that were more passive, like respect, considerate and yield. The students that were in these tests, they thought that it was just about this scrambled sentence test, but there was a little bit more testing that was being done. So as the students filled out all their information on the test, they walked out of the room and they were supposed to talk to the person running the test as soon as they were done.

The people running the test intentionally put somebody there talking to the person that was running the test. So as they walked out of the room, they were faced with having to interrupt the conversation or wait for that conversation to end. The goal was to see if the students that were faced with the negative words would interrupt faster than those that had the polite words in it.

They found in the study that 65% of those that faced the rude words ended up interrupting within 10 minutes. While only 18% of those faced with polite words interrupted in that same amount of time. All of that to say, it matters what you listen to, it matters what you see in a world full of negativity. Our attitudes and our inner voice is impacted by what we're surrounded with. 

We're gonna look at what we listen to and how it impacts our view of hope and even can change how we look at our entire world. 

Negative Information is a Problem in Our World

I'm not the most optimistic person all the time, if I'm being honest with you. It's not my favorite quality about myself, but it's something that I've seen and continually try to work on. A little while ago, I questioned myself as I was maybe a little more pessimistic and frustrated with my own pessimism than normal. I questioned myself and I asked, what does my pessimism show of my view of God? Because as a Christian, we're not supposed to walk around looking at the world with some blind naivety. But if we lived like God had saved us from hell. And, that same God wanted a relationship with us and he opened up an opportunity to go to paradise with him that he created for us, we would probably live with a smile on our face. We'd probably live with a joy that's indescribable. And it's not because everything in the world is perfect, but it's because we serve a God that is bigger than every situation that we face.

And so it kind of begs the question that, what does my pessimism say about my view of God? Because, we have all these reasons in Christianity to be optimistic, to believe we're better than what we see with our eyes right now, but sometimes we don't feel that. And, I think one of the reasons that is, is one, we have a difficult time in the moment. Something comes up and honestly, we get frustrated pretty easily. At least in my case I do. But the second reason is that there's negative news everywhere. We end up walking around and we're already at a disadvantage because we're just like those students in that study where they were faced with these negative words all day long and it ended up impacting how rude they were as people. We walk around through our lives every single day with negative words, negative news in front of our face all day long, and we end up being pessimistic, probably a little rude sometimes.

Maybe you've found yourself drawn to some of that negative news. You scroll through to find different information on world news so you can keep up and you can keep track of what's going on all over the world. Or maybe you go down some conspiracy theory on TikTok and spend hours watching videos that make you just a little bit nervous that it all could be true. But whenever we go in these rabbit trails and we dig through all this negative information, It can actually have an impact on our mental health.

According to Graham Davey, the professor of psychology at the University of Sussex, he said, "Exposure to bad news can make personal worries seem worse, and even cause acute stress reactions and some symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder that can be quite long lasting. " Those are serious effects based on just what we surround ourselves with.

Just because we put bad news in front of our faces all day long, you might say, and I might say to myself that all this negative news doesn't really affect me. I brush it right off my shoulder, it's really okay, but that impact can be slow. You might not see it immediately. You look at a news article, then you get mad all of a sudden. That might happen to some, but in most cases, it's slow. And, because our world is filled to the brim with bad news, it slowly adds up and it deteriorates our own system. We get stressed. We get overwhelmed. We get caught up in all the things that are going on in this world, and it brings us down. 

Negativity Sells!

I'm just curious, have you ever thought of why there's so much negativity in the news and in articles? If you scroll on Twitter for more than five minutes, you're likely to come across. Some crazy news article about something happening on the other side of the world, but have you ever wondered why all of that's out there? Why we see it all the time? It's because negativity sells. 

People are more likely to click a doom and gloom headline much more than they will something that's kind or something that's positive. Studies have shown that the average click-through rate on headlines with negative superlatives was 63% higher than the positive ones. 63% higher! And the reason that is, is because we're attracted to that negative news because we want to prepare for it. We feel like if we know what's going on in the world, we can be ready for it. We can maintain some kind of level of control over our lives. And it's really easy to get caught up in all of that. And I know I've talked about it for a long time, but I say all of that because we deal with it all the time and it's just become part of our lives. We don't even realize it anymore, but that's not the way God wanted us to live.

Which Report Will You Believe?

Let's consider the 12 Hebrews that went to explore the land of Canaan. In Numbers 13:27-30, it says, "This is what they reported to Moses. We went to the land where you sent us. It really is the land flowing with milk and honey. Here's some of its fruit, but the people who live there are strong and the cities have walls and are very large." You go down a little bit and, "Caleb told the people to be quiet and listen to Moses. Caleb said, let's go now and take possession of the land. We should be more than able to conquer it." 

You see there were 12 spies that went to see how the land looked. They looked around that they got some of the fruit. They looked at the people. They looked at the walls. 10 of them came back scared. The saw the land and how big the people were and they said, we cannot do this. There is no hope of this actually happening. Only two of those men out of the 12 came back and said that the land was good and that we can get it.

But I want to ask you, who do you think the people of Israel ended up following? As you go through the scripture you see that the whole group of Israelites. Decided that they were gonna follow the 10 men and they were gonna be scared. They believed the negative report and they ended up walking around and wandering in the land way longer than they had to, if they had believed the report of the two spies. 

You might wonder, "What in the world does this have to do with our lives? This is a story from thousands of years ago, and we're not trying to take a land." I say all that to say that we face two reports all the time. Think about it, when you see a bad report about a war or some economic issue, you have two choices. You are always faced with two reports. You can either believe that bad terrible thing is going to come and change your world, or you can lean on the promises of God and you are gonna trust that God is gonna work it out. And that's not to say that bad things don't happen, but it's a matter of where you focus.

You can either doom scroll so that you can feel like you have some control over your world, or you can let go and you can trust God that he's taking care of you. And there's nothing wrong with absorbing some news. I'm not saying to go and shut down every news outlet, but it's a matter of what you focus on. If you focus solely on the report of the world, you'll forget that God's in control. 

There's an old song by Casting Crowns called The Voice of Truth. It tells a couple of different stories in it, and one is of David walking up to Goliath and another is of being in the middle of a storm on a boat. In both situations, this inner voice is speaking and saying, you're not good enough.

You're gonna end up not surviving this situation. This situation, this challenge in front of you is far too big, it's not going to work out. And those voices, sometimes they got the better of him and that they made him forget that God was working inside of him and the song reached his pinnacle in the bridge. As it builds up and it says, or the waves, they don't seem so high, the giant's not that big. And you feel through the song, the surge of power rising up in this guy where he feels more and more confident that the situation is gonna work out for good. Against all odds. Against all of our human understanding. It seems like God can pull through and there's a confidence that builds up in him because of his trust in God. 

And the point is, the reason I share all of this is because there is a change of perspective that happens when you focus on God and the voice of God. Every single one of us are faced with negative news, every single one of us. And we have the option to choose to succumb, to that focus on it, dwell on the negativity, and end up being depressed, anxious, and worried. Or, we can trust in the voice of God and in his promises. And some of those promises, we'll get into more incoming episodes. But we have the choice to focus on God. And whenever you focus on God, God takes care of your problems. But whenever you focus on God and his promises, you get focused back on how powerful he is.

And so take heart from this Psalm. Psalm 121:5-8, "The Lord is your guardian. The Lord is your shade at your right hand. By day the sun will not strike you nor the moon. By night, the Lord will guard you from all evil. He will guard your soul. The Lord will guard your coming and your going both now and forever." Take heart that the Lord is your guardian. We'll see you next time.