Deep Distraction, Shallow Faith
Welcome to Going Deeper!
For those who don’t know me, I’m a huge book lover. I just love books—I probably spend most of my spending money on them. I also love podcasts, music, all the things. So I thought starting each episode with a recommendation could be kind of fun.
Recently, a friend of mine, Kimberly—who actually works for the Journeywoman podcast—recommended The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi. It’s been such a good read! I truly enjoyed it. It’s highly practical, not very spiritual, but packed with tangible tips I could start using right away. She also has a cookbook called The Lazy Genius Kitchen, which I’ve started reading too.
So: The Lazy Genius Way, the Journeywoman podcast (because Kimberly, I love you!), and the song “Living Water” by Southeast Worship—oh my goodness, it’s so good. I’ll include all those recommendations in the show notes.
Before we dive into today’s topic, a couple housekeeping things:
First, please help me spread the word by rating, reviewing, and sharing this episode with a friend. It really helps this podcast show up in recommended feeds.
Second, I created something called the Go Deeper Guide—think of it as a companion to this podcast. It’s free, two pages long, and compiles some of my favorite resources: books, podcasts, and links, plus 15 ways to go deeper in your relationship with God this season. You can download it from the link in the show notes.
I want to share a little about the heart behind this podcast. Some of you may know that I started a podcast back in 2019 called Stewards of Grace. After four years, I recorded my final episode early last year. Since then, I’ve wanted to get back into podcasting but felt the Lord closing that door—until now, with this fresh rebrand to Going Deeper.
I want to unpack my heart a bit more than I did in the trailer. I’m naturally someone who goes against the grain—a bit of a challenger of the status quo. Sometimes that leans toward a critical spirit, and I work against that, but I find myself questioning and reflecting on culture and societal norms a lot.
Just to be clear, this isn’t a political podcast. There are plenty of biblically based political podcasts out there, and that’s not my aim. What I want is to tackle cultural topics from a Christian perspective. But beyond simply answering questions like, “Is yoga biblical?”—which, by the way, we won’t be doing here—I want to hold a gospel mirror up to the cultural narratives around us.
We absolutely should be theologically accurate in unpacking cultural ideas, and I plan to do that. But my main goal is to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and His message of hope to a lost and broken world. Because it’s so easy to forget the gospel in today’s culture.
Honestly, much of my planning for this podcast ties into today’s topic: distraction.
My social feed—especially Instagram—is full of inspirational podcast clips from people like Jackie O’Peretti and John Mark Homer dropping 90-second truth bombs. I can’t get enough. But here’s the problem: I don’t just watch one reel and move on. I watch 35 reels and waste an hour that could be spent so much better.
The Christian creator space on social media often feels like screaming into a packed stadium where everyone else is screaming too. At what point is it just noise? I’ve had this conversation with several friends in the Christian creator world who feel the same burden and ask the same questions.
So, when discerning whether to start this podcast, I asked myself: do I want to spend all my time creating encouraging content for social media? I feel a lot of conviction around social media—it’s a tricky space that often brings more anxiety than it’s worth.
All the things God is teaching me and wants me to share—I don’t want those to live only on Instagram reels. I don’t want to be just another voice shouting into the abyss. I’m not saying if you’re doing great things on social media, stop—keep going if you feel called! But for me, podcasts have been the most spiritually impactful medium, and I hope they can be for you too.
So, without rambling any longer, let’s dive into today’s topic: distraction.
Why start here? Because I believe distraction is one of the greatest hurdles Christians face in experiencing a deep, wholehearted faith—exactly what this podcast is about.
Thinking about my own life over the past decade, I see how distraction has played out in different seasons.
In college, I wrestled with my faith and often distracted myself from God through partying, drinking, and planning my future.
After I recommitted to the Lord around 2018, I found myself distracted by my circumstances. Nothing was going as planned, and I felt discontent. I stayed busy to escape, constantly doing and planning something, and yes, consuming a ton of YouTube videos.
For the past five years, I’ve wrestled with this question: How do I live wholeheartedly for Christ when I can’t sustain 30 minutes of prayer without getting bored, restless, or distracted?
I’ve tried an 18-month social media fast, removed useless apps, set screen time limits, practiced minimalism, and become more mindful of my time spent on Netflix versus time spent with God. The list goes on—and distractions keep getting harder.
Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, streaming services, work emails, endless calls, group texts... the digital world is relentless. And I know I’m not alone—this is our collective reality in a post-technological age of constant connection and distraction.
Research shows the average person spends nine years on their phone and touches it over 2,600 times a day. 71% of people check their phones within 10 minutes of waking, and 74% feel uneasy leaving their phones at home. Pew Research found that 79% of Americans say social media distracts them from important issues.
Kimberly also told me about a book she’s reading called The Anxious Generation. It links rising anxiety among teens with their device addiction. Adults who didn’t grow up in this tech boom don’t have the same anxiety rates, but we’re still frazzled and exhausted by constant digital interruptions. That’s a direct quote from the book.
While digital distraction isn’t the only kind keeping us distant from God, it’s definitely the most common.
By definition (because we have to define our terms): distraction is anything that prevents someone from giving full attention to something else. It’s all about attention and focus—or our lack thereof.
So let’s work backwards: if distraction keeps us from paying full attention, what is the something else we’re supposed to be focusing on?
A few weeks ago, I caught myself just going through the motions. I was living each day very reactionary. I had intentionally, knowingly redownloaded social media apps onto my phone. I was using every idle moment to scroll or binge-watch a true crime series. You know, it’s summer, I’m a pregnant mom with toddlers and little to no help — the days can feel really, really long. And I could feel myself growing numb.
I knew what I was doing. I was struggling physically and emotionally because being a mom is draining and hard. Instead of seeking soul rest, I chose shows, noise, and stimulation.
One morning, before my kids were up, I literally typed “numb” into Apple Podcasts. Now, don’t judge me — I’m a chronic Googler. I Google everything. But this time, I wasn’t Googling about numb skin. I was hoping a podcast episode would come up that talked about this feeling of numbing out, of almost suppressing emotions.
Usually, I regret the chronic Googling, but this time I truly sensed it was a divine intervention. One of the first podcasts that popped up blew my mind. It was Mel Robbins interviewing Dr. Alok Kanojia — he’s the author of How to Raise a Healthy Gamer. I’ll link that episode in the show notes because it was full of gold.
One major idea I took from Dr. K was this: we are so drawn to technology — especially picking up our phones and the distraction it brings — because our brains are trying to protect us from negative emotions.
We have emotions like boredom, idleness, grief, anxiety — whatever negative feelings we experience in a day — and our brains have figured out that technology offers relief from those feelings. Why? Because technology causes us to externalize our attention instead of internalize it.
If we have a negative feeling, we can choose to ignore it by distracting ourselves with technology. For example, after a long, hard day — the chaos of work, dinner, bedtime routines — when you finally sit down, your brain doesn’t want to process all those emotions. The temptation is strong to say, “I’m going to spend the next two hours scrolling TikTok.” That sounds so good because you’re physically and mentally exhausted.
I’m not bashing TikTok. I’m just saying this is what our brains want to do — numb out through technology when we don’t want to face negative emotions, stress, or exhaustion.
Dr. K also talked about how, in the pre-technology days, humans did lots of manual, idle tasks like churning butter or tying rope. We had plenty of time to process life — walking back to camp for hours after a hunt, forced to be bored and face discomfort because there weren’t as many distractions to externalize our attention. We had more capacity for silence, stillness, and boredom.
And here’s the tension — this is where our souls find rest. This is where God speaks loudest: in the silence, the stillness, the boredom.
So, going back to the big question: What is the something else we’re not paying full attention to?
We could all give multiple answers — our families, health, finances, church. But the one I want to focus on today is this: We’re not giving focus to our souls and to God anymore because we don’t make time to sit with ourselves and with Him.
Ten minutes of uninterrupted prayer feels like forever, but ten minutes on TikTok flies by in a blink. Why?
When we choose to sit and pray, read the Bible, or fast, we’re practicing self-denial. We’re denying our flesh the temporary satisfaction it wants by doing hard things.
Our brains, as part of our fleshly bodies corrupted by sin, try to protect us from discomfort, discipline, and self-denial. They urge us to pick up our phones or put on a movie instead of sitting quietly to journal and pray about the angst we feel after a hard day.
This could be a whole other topic, but that’s why it’s so important to constantly renew our minds. Our brains are part of our sinful flesh, but Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:16 that we have the mind of Christ.
So distraction is our brain’s way of protecting us from doing hard but necessary things for real soul change. It’s like the ultimate procrastination game.
We have to renew our minds to what is true, to what’s really going on inside us — being honest about our souls — so we can resist temptation and tell our brains: No, no, no. Self-denial, discomfort, discipline aren’t things to run from. They’re things to embrace because that’s where God does His best work.
That’s when our souls find true rest — when we can sit in the tension, the stress, the anxiety, and choose prayer instead of our phones.
One more quote that’s pure gold, from the book 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You:
“We run away like conscientious little bugs, scared rabbits dancing attendance on our machines, our slaves, our masters, clicking, scrolling, tapping, liking, sharing — anything. We think we want peace and silence and freedom and leisure, but deep down we know that this would be unendurable to us. In fact, we want to complexify our lives. We don’t have to. We want to. We want to be harried and hassled and busy. Unconsciously, we want the very thing we complain about. For if we had leisure, we would look at ourselves and listen to our hearts and see the great gaping hole in our hearts and be terrified because that hole is so big that nothing but God can fill it.”
Man, this is what we’re really up against, you guys. If we don’t take the time—daily and weekly—to sit with our souls and God, to be around the body of believers, to confess sin, attend church, serve, worship on a walk, or pray for long, extended periods, then our faith grows shallow. But we often don’t make time for these things. Instead, we waste time on just about anything else. We are deeply distracted.
And here’s where I think the distraction issue runs deeper than just chasing a dopamine hit—at least for some of us. What if we don’t sit quietly reading our Bibles because we’ve failed at routines so many times before that we’ve just given up? So we distract ourselves, not because we’re lazy or just want to numb out, but because we’re afraid to fail again. What if we don’t discipline ourselves in prayer because we feel God has let us down before, hasn’t answered, so why would He start now? What if we distract ourselves from working on our inner soul life because guilt, shame, or condemnation about a sin struggle keeps us trapped?
I don’t think it always has to be that we’re deeply distracted because our faith is shallow. Sometimes it’s the other way around. Maybe your faith is shallow for whatever reason, so you keep yourself distracted—busy with work, future plans, hobbies, life—and in a way, you’ve chosen to gain the world but lose your soul. That sounds heavy, but it’s true. I know because I’ve been there. If that’s you, please stick around, because I do have some hope and encouragement for you.
Like I said earlier, technology isn’t the only distraction pulling us away from faith. If phones didn’t exist, we’d find other ways to externalize our attention—work, gossip, busyness, like Martha in the story of Martha and Mary. Even unhealthy thinking, like complaining instead of gratitude, distracts us.
So what can we do? You probably know the AA 12-step process for overcoming addiction, right? Well, I don’t think we’re addicted to technology exactly—we’re addicted to distraction. We’re addicted to drowning out the noise of stress. It’s a battle we’re not prepared to fight or don’t know how to fight, so we just give in because it’s overwhelming, constant, all-consuming. It feels like the only options are: live without any technology at all in the middle of nowhere, or just suffer while using it. But that’s not true.
The first step in AA is the most important, and I think it applies here: we have to admit we have a problem—or at least admit we could do better. But as sinners, we’re experts at dismissing and downplaying sin. We’ll explain away our struggles as not sin before we acknowledge them as such. Many of us downplay our screen time because it’s “normal” now. If the average is three to four hours a day, we tell ourselves at least it’s not five or six. We do this with all distractions or sin struggles.
So admitting something needs to change—and accepting that if you don’t change, you’ll stay on this path—is key. This world won’t get easier, and it won’t make following Jesus easier anytime soon. In fact, it will get harder.
Step two: I want you to answer these two questions—what’s the “something else” you’re not paying full attention to? And what’s distracting you from giving that thing your full attention? Don’t try to solve everything at once—start small. Maybe you’re neglecting prayer, but your average screen time is four to five hours a day. That’s a great place to start.
The distraction itself isn’t the problem; it’s that we’re intentionally neglecting what truly matters. Watching a movie, scrolling Instagram, listening to music, working on projects—none of these are bad in themselves. But they become a problem when, in the back of our minds, we know we’re neglecting something important.
If you don’t have a notes app open or a pen and paper nearby, grab one now, because I have five practical tips I stole from Dr. K’s podcast that you can use today to fight technological distractions:
Remove easy access to your phone apps. If your favorite social media apps are right there with Face ID or passcodes, it’s too easy to open them and get sucked in. Remove that temptation so you can resist the impulse to scroll. The moment you open the app, you’re basically doomed for a long scroll session.
If you use your phone for work, set boundaries. Try to do as much work as possible on a desktop, not your phone.
Only access social media on your desktop computer. Make this a hard rule to help pull yourself away more easily.
Keep the first and last hour of your day sacred—technology-free. This one is tough but worth it. For me, because I’ve limited access to scrolling apps, I leave my phone by my bedside. At night, instead of scrolling, I read a book. In the morning, I use “sleep mode” on my phone and dive into a devotional, journal, or Bible reading instead of texts or notifications.
Do the work to conquer boredom. When you have idle moments or “rogue” tasks, don’t reach for your phone or distractions. Instead, pace, walk, pray, and give your brain time to embrace silence and process your thoughts and emotions. This builds your endurance for stillness, which is crucial for paying attention to your soul and sanctification.
I’ve become very mindful of when I’m about to numb out or scroll just for the sake of scrolling. I’ve intentionally practiced sitting idle. Like when I had to do a glucola test—you know, drinking syrup and sitting at the doctor’s office for an hour—I brought a book but challenged myself to just sit and stare at the wall when I got bored. Dr. K says it’s about building capacity and endurance for nothingness.
That capacity is vital—not just for this world, but for allowing your mind, heart, and soul to truly rest without outside stimulation.
If you want more tangible ways to go deeper with God this season, don’t forget to download my free guide in the show notes.
And for those of you who feel like you’re wrestling more with God than with distraction discipline, here’s my encouragement:
God never grows tired of your failure. In fact, He delights when you fail and immediately run to Him for grace and restoration.
You might have grown up hearing the “grace message” a million times, but have you truly understood or experienced it? We’re quick to give ourselves grace when we mess up at work or snap at someone, but slow to accept God’s grace when we’ve spent months or years running from Him.
We convince ourselves God is disappointed or ashamed of us, so we avoid Him and distract ourselves instead.
But God never gets tired of you.
Romans 5:20 says, “The law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” So just as sin reigns in death, grace reigns through righteousness, resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ.
Don’t let Satan convince you God’s tired of your sin and failure—He’s not. Where sin abounds, grace abounds even more.
Number two, God delights in those who depend on Him and have faith in Him, and He honors that faith and dependence. He wants to show up. He wants to make Himself known in your life. He wants to move in your life—for your good and His glory. But this requires that we have faith in Him to be who He says He is. It requires faith that He will show up, that He will reveal Himself, that He will move.
If our hearts have grown cold to His promises, or if the world or the enemy has convinced us that He doesn’t care or isn’t listening, then we lack faith. When we look at Jesus’ ministry in the Gospels, what do we see? He moves, He works miracles, and He saves by faith. People who look to Him and say, “I need You, and I trust You.” People who are completely desperate and dependent on Him, saying, “You are who You say You are, and I know You will do what You say You will do.” That is faith, and that’s how God moves. So, God delights in those who depend on Him and have faith in Him—don’t lose that.
Finally, if you are struggling with guilt, shame, or feelings of condemnation, know this: that is not from God. That’s from Satan. Satan would love nothing more than for you to sit in guilt and shame, as long as it keeps you from coming to God for His grace and mercy. He wants you distracted. He wants you scrolling. He wants you to numb out. He wants you to consider every way you’ve gone wrong, every sin in your past. He wants you to dwell there—and distance yourself from God by distracting yourself.
So don’t let shame keep you from a life of deep faith. Romans 8 says, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” None. If you’re saved, when God looks at you, He doesn’t see your failures. He doesn’t see the hour you just spent numbing out on TikTok, or yesterday’s sin, or the sin you might commit tomorrow. He sees the righteousness of Christ. But back to faith—you have to believe this in order to live it out. You have to believe God’s grace abounds, that you have infinite second chances, that His grace is sufficient.
So whether you want to deepen your faith but struggle with distraction, or you find yourself wrestling and keeping busy to avoid spiritual growth, I hope this episode has encouraged and helped you. This isn’t a self-help push to work harder or do better. This is a call to put up arms by the grace and power of Jesus against the enemy, the world, and the culture—all the noise screaming for our attention. We have to admit this problem—this problem of distraction, this problem of technological noise—isn’t going to go away unless we intentionally do something about it.
But there is freedom on the other side. I promise. It can feel defeating—constant, overstimulating, overwhelming, all-consuming—and we don’t know how to move forward. But it’s baby steps. Put into practice the things I mentioned, and move closer to God. Make more room and margin for Him.
That’s all I have for today. If you got something from this or if something resonated with you, please take a moment to leave a review, copy the episode link, and share it with a friend. It means the world to me. And if you have lingering thoughts or questions, don’t hesitate to reach out by email.
Thank you so much for listening. I’ll catch up with you again in next week’s episode.
Listen to Dr. K’s podcast with Mel Robbins: https://www.melrobbins.com/podcasts/episode-180
Books Mentioned:
The Lazy Genius Way: https://amzn.to/4foPnBV
12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You: https://amzn.to/4bZ0n5O
How to Raise a Healthy Gamer: https://amzn.to/4cRGUFr
Download the Go Deeper Guide:
https://justinecheri.ck.page/goingdeeperresourceguide
Download the Dwell App: https://dwellapp.io/aff?ref=mmmxzjz
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