A Spiritual Dilemma

Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise. Psalm 145, verse 3. Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our reading titled, A Spiritual Dilemma, was written by John Blaise and read by Stephen Tabor. Psalm 145, verses 1 through 8. I will exalt You, my God the King. I will praise Your name forever and ever. Every day I will praise You and extol Your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise.

His greatness no one can fathom. One generation commends Your works to another. They tell of Your mighty acts. They speak of the glorious splendor of Your majesty. And I will meditate on Your wonderful works. They tell of the power of Your awesome works. And I will proclaim Your great deeds. They celebrate Your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of Your righteousness. The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.

A Spiritual Dilemma, written by John Blaise. The average person checks his or her phone 150 times a day. Let that sink in a minute. Something has our attention, and it may not be for our good. Tristan Harris believes this. He is one of the voices in a film that features some of the top names in technology, people who ushered us into social media. But instead of praise, their voices are sounding an alarm, calling our reality and the film The Social Dilemma. We are the product. Our attention is the product being sold to advertisers, Harris said. We give our attention to what we believe is valuable or worthy, and in a very real sense, what we give attention to, we can find ourselves worshiping.

That word dilemma indicates a situation where a choice has to be made. Believe it or not, we face such a dilemma in our spiritual lives, a choice we have to make daily. Who or what will I give my attention to? In other words, who or what will I worship? The psalmist clearly made his choice, declaring in Psalm 145, Every day I will praise you, God, and extol your name forever and ever.

The verse that follows gives his rationale. Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise. His greatness no one can fathom. The psalmist believed nothing compares to God's greatness, and so he focused his attention there. God and God alone is worthy of our praise. Would you spend some time in prayer with me? Dear Lord, you alone are worthy of all our attention and praise. Help us fix our hearts on your greatness and majesty every single day and worship you with all of our being. Thank you, Lord. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. As you go about your day, reflect on these questions. In contrast to time for praying or reading scripture, what vies for your attention? What changes can you make to keep technology from becoming an idol?