A Prayer For Media Consumption

A Prayer for Media Consumption

O God of the galaxies,

Our world has grown at light speed

And become smaller by the second.

At our fingertips, we have access

To millions of points

Of education and entertainment,

Connectivity and consumption.

We pray for wisdom

Over what our children consume

And how they consume it.

Help us not to be afraid of media

Nor entranced by it.

Protect our children’s growing minds and hearts

From the dark corners of the internet

And from the lies of the enemy,

Who seeks to steal and destroy.

Protect our children from streams of temptation

And from the lure of right now,

For we know what they read and see and do online

Has lasting reverberations in who they are

And who they will be.

Help us use the screens in front of us

As tools of healing, not harm.

Give us wisdom to neither

Weaponize nor idolize technology

But rather use it as a window to connect and energize

For justice and for truth.

May technology be a gateway to spread messages

Of hope and not hate.

May technology bridge divides

And sow reparations instead of disrepair.

Help us learn to navigate the digital tools we have in front of us

So that we may beat our swords of technology

Into plowshares of peace.

Help our children have the discernment to know

That seeing online is not always believing.

Protect them from worlds of excess at their fingertips,

And guard them against the ever-present lure of a glowing screen.

Keep our children from falling prey to online bullying.

May our children be neither the victims

Nor the perpetrators in these attacks,

And shield them from the traps of comparison

And the pressure to commodify themselves,

To contort into an image morphed by filters and smoke screens.

Help us to keep the good in what

Decades of brilliant minds have illuminated for us

In our technology.

We lament that we, too, can lose our sense of time and place,

Transporting ourselves into digital worlds

Because our current reality

Is much too painful.

Help us to have the courage to be in the now

Instead of escaping into a false reality.

Help us as parents to be present

And fight the desire to disconnect from our own reality,

For we have used screens as a way to numb ourselves

From the deeper ache of our hearts.

We’ve used screens as distractions

And cheap alternatives to true connectivity

With others and with You.

God, there are days when our children spend

More time with screens

Than they do with us.

And there are days when we have spent

More time with screens

Than with our children.

Lord, have mercy.

Our children have soaked in more messaging

Than we even know about.

Christ, have mercy.

When we have the option to play outside,

Let us opt for that instead of a video game.

When we have the option to sit with a friend,

Let us opt for that instead of a text.

When we have the option to explore a city,

Let us opt for that instead of a video.

When we have the option to read,

Let us opt for that instead of a movie.

When we have the option to confront injustice,

Let us opt for that instead of a social media comment.

Protect our daughters and sons from streaming violent or sexual content.

Guard them from falling prey to lost social and emotional skills.

Help us and the other adults in their lives live with intention

As we model healthy media behaviors,

Turning off the TV and putting away phones

So we may practice what we preach.

And may our children’s media usage be a door

Into the realities of their local and global neighbors

That they could never see otherwise.

May their media usage grow them

In compassion, empathy, and understanding.

May they see the world from another’s point of view

And see You in bigger ways because of it.

Isaiah 2:4; Colossians 3:16; Hebrews 10:23-25