While I was growing up, one of my father’s frequent phrases was “junk in, junk out.” He used this phrase to discourage me from watching movies filled with cuss words, or playing video games filled with violence. I knew his sentiment carried some truth, but I often rolled my eyes and ignored the caution.

My father was not alone in this sentiment. I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s when entertainment sensibilities were changing fairly dramatically. Hollywood was booming and people were spending more and more time in front of the TV. Cable television had enabled movies-on-demand. Companies like Redbox made movie rental easier, and Blockbuster reached its revenue peak in 2004. On top of the increase of “content in” from screens, the nature of that screen content had changed as well. The late 80s had established the commercial potential of R-rated film and in 1985 the PG-13 rating was introduced. At its inception, PG-13 films featured only a little more violence than a typical PG movie, but, by 2005, PG-13 films featured the same degree of gun violence as R-rated films (American Academy of Pediatrics).

Naturally, the conservative Christian community was concerned. The phrase “garbage in, garbage out” (adopted from the computer programming world) had already been popularized by James Dobson and Focus on the Family in the early 80s. With the increase in violent media throughout the 90s, the phrase became common in Christian households across the country, sometimes abbreviated to “junk in, junk out.”

The media landscape we face now is a totally different animal. 

Now, the data on violent movie content is mixed and the debate continues regarding how much violent film actually influences us. The most that seems reliably demonstrable is that violent media, on average, tends to make us more suspicious of others (Wiley).

Now, regardless of how that media shaped us in the 90s and 2000s, the media landscape we face now is a totally different animal. While there is debate on the formative impact of 1995 Hollywood, there is less debate on the formative impact of the algorithm-driven, hyper-monetized, hyper-personalized media feeds we digest today.

Redbox is no more. Movies on demand evolved into Netflix and all the other streaming subscriptions. Most of all, our screen-time became dominated by social media. I wish this were good news. I’m afraid, it’s far from it. The time we used to spend in front of one Hollywood narrative is now filled with 50 Facebook stories, TikToks, or YouTube shorts. Instead of one Hollywood script attempting to entertain us, we get four-dozen clips an hour unambiguously attempting to shape us. We watch a pundit attempting to shape us into more loyal voters. We see a guru attempting to shape us into a devoted follower (read customer). Even that innocent comedy bit is part of our platform’s endless feed (or “infinite scroll”) designed to keep us on their platform longer (to shape us into heavier users of their app).

What we take in, influences what comes back out, and our devices are economically-incentivized to feed us malforming “junk.”

In early 2004 (that year of Blockbuster’s peak), Facebook did not exist, and your MySpace feed only showed updates from your existing connections. Now, our feeds are endlessly filled with whatever the algorithm decides will keep us online longer. Popular documentaries, such as The Social Dilemma, have helpfully shown how malforming this is. It just so happens that we’re more likely to watch content we get enthusiastically excited about, or enthusiastically frustrated with; the two extremes. Indeed, the most extreme voices get the most views, regardless of credibility (Duke University). “Junk food” media goes viral. What we could call “health food,” unexaggerated, well-researched media that acknowledges nuance and refuses to give oversimplified answers, does not go viral. We call that “junk food” media clickbait for a reason. It baits us. The effect of this is that our feeds are filled, more and more, with the extreme views of our own camp, and the extreme views of the camp we disagree with. The more time we spend on social media, then, the more we find ourselves inclined to think those radical ideas within our own camp aren’t actually that fringe, and, simultaneously, that the people we already disagreed with are more radical than we first thought. We come to believe more and more unhelpfully-exaggerated ideas about our neighbors. We lose sense of a reasonable middle to anything. Simply put, we become more ideologically rigid, and more suspicious of those who disagree with us. We become, as many have said, more polarized. More than Hollywood in the 90s, the media we take in today influences how we live and the people we become. If there was any merit to my dad’s slogan “junk in, junk out,” in the 90s, it’s become incontestably true today. Our screen time influences who we become. What we take in, influences what comes back out, and our devices are economically-incentivized to feed us malforming “junk.”

The more time we spend on social media, then, the more we find ourselves inclined to think those radical ideas within our own camp aren’t actually that fringe, and, simultaneously, that the people we already disagreed with are more radical than we first thought. We come to believe more and more unhelpfully-exaggerated ideas about our neighbors.

I encounter this almost daily. I lived in NYC for about six years. There, a majority of the folks I met leaned center left. Now I live in upstate NY, and a majority of my community leans center right. Within my closest 10 friends are incredibly loving, Christlike, and intelligent individuals on both sides of the aisle. Because I believe deeply in our potential to be smarter together, I regularly broach topics of difference and it’s striking how different the information is that we bring to the table from our different feeds.

I encounter, too, very personally, the impact of the tone of media that gets views. Compassionate, nuanced conversation doesn’t go very viral. Passion does. Anger does. Disgust does. Exasperation does. This impassioned click-bait content, masquerading as “righteous anger,” does us no favors. I’m sure many of us have had friends or family too riled-up by Sean Hannity to respond to disagreement with anything but a louder voice. I’m sure many of us have had friends or family rendered too cynical of “the other side” to give anything they said a chance. I know, myself, the feeling of low level frustration rising as I spend more time with my feed. If we’re honest, I reckon we all do.

Of course, I’m not the first to point this out, and I certainly wont be the last. So my aim is not to talk you off your screen (though I wouldn’t discourage that approach). My hope is less ambitious (but maybe more). My hope, regardless of the size of your junk food habit, is to remind you where to get your greens. My hope, in our time of malforming digital distraction, is a nudge back to the powerful formation of daily devotion.

I truly believe a daily devotional is akin to a daily serving of greens.

I know, I know, “how quaint,” you say… A “daily devo,” for many, might stir thoughts of half-baked Christian platitudes wrapped in a cheesy floral covered notebook. For what it’s worth, I’m not here to argue that every devotional guide is excellent (or even good), nor that the shame-laden rebuke you may have received for failing to have a daily devo time was Christlike. Indeed, much harm has been done, I think, by Christians who, upon finding a devotional habit that works for them, insist every “faithful” Christian must do that same thing. So much harm has been done by Christians who, having experienced God powerfully through a spiritual practice, insist that one who doesn’t experience the same thing must not be really trying, or must be “unrepentant” in some area of life. I’m not here to give you a formula, a precise “meal-plan,” you might say. I’d rather remind you that veggies exist, and encourage you to make your own salad, however suits you. We’re privileged with both clarity on what is nourishing, and variety for a diversity of recipes. I think some of us have grown uninterested in devotional time because the only recipe we were ever given was steamed broccoli.

I’ll abuse this metaphor further because I truly believe a daily devotional is akin to a daily serving of greens. In it we find sustenance we need to live, to be healthy human beings. “Man does not live by bread alone…” When we sit down alone, quietly, in front of the Bible or a devotional book, our posture changes as well as our mind. Every minute we spend drawing our attention to God and His words, we fill our minds with nourishment, and temporarily cut-off the incessant onslaught of junk. As we turn off our screens and step into prayerful attentiveness, we find ourselves meaningfully “reset” physically, mentally, and spiritually in ways that even screen time with Christian content will never do.

Jesus himself is our model, who “often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” If Jesus, God himself, warranted regular time alone, attentive to the Father, needful, how much more must we? Indeed if He is “the vine” and we are the “branches”, how foolish we would be to believe we can live fruitfully without nourishing daily connection to Him. John 15 is no metaphor of ideological assent. It’s a metaphor of connection. Jesus says in the same passage, “I no longer call you servants… I have called you friends.” We do not call someone a friend who we merely learn a lot about. We call someone a friend who we enjoy spending time with.

If Jesus, God himself, warranted regular time alone, attentive to the Father, needful, how much more must we?

Alright, I know; this isn’t rocket science. The rub, most likely, isn’t the concept that a daily devo is the needed antidote to our junk food media diet. The rub is likely the execution. Maybe you know vegetables are healthy, but you’ve only been handed the recipe for steamed broccoli. So let me stop making the argument for a daily devo, and talk a little about recipes. Perhaps it would be best to start by helping us let go of a few unhelpful constraints:

Your devo time doesn’t have to be at 6am.
Yes, absolutely, making your devo time the first thing you do in the morning can be such a rich way to start the day. Don’t let me stop you! But it absolutely does not need to be. Some of the richest years of my devotional life were years when I would take my devotional time in the late afternoon just after returning from work or school.

It doesn’t have to be inside.
I know several people who, after years of frustration with the standard devotional formula, suddenly discovered a love for devotional time when they tried taking it outside.

It doesn’t have to be an hour long.
Don’t get me wrong, I certainly do recommend an hour if you can take it, but you don’t have to start there. If you can’t manage any longer, start by carving out 20 protected minutes. Like the onramp to a healthier diet, as you start to try it, you’ll begin to feel the difference, your taste buds will change and your appetite will grow.

You don’t have to start on page 1 of the Bible and read it straight through.
In fact, I would suggest you don’t take this approach. Start with the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). Continue with the epistles. Feel free to read a little Old Testament and a little New Testament in the same sitting. This is what much of the church has done throughout Christian history.

With those out of the way, let’s talk “ingredients”.

With those out of the way, let’s talk “ingredients”; recommended components of your devotional time. Feel free to mix and match what seems to fit how you connect with God most naturally. This list is long. The invitation is not to do them all, but to create a devotional time out of 2-4 “ingredients” here that feel most inviting.

Music: Play, sing, or pray along with a worship song.

Nature: Go for a prayer walk somewhere quiet and beautiful. Talk with God as you walk.

Silence: Center yourself and quiet your thoughts, becoming more open to God’s still small voice, through silence. “Be still and know that I am God.5”

The Psalms: The Psalms are called “the prayerbook of the Church” for a reason. Use them. It could be a new Psalm each day, or a powerful one you love and want to daily shape you (such as Psalm 23).

A Favorite Scripture: Like Psalm 23, perhaps there’s a particular verse you want to meditate on daily (such as Isaiah 40:31, or 1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

Liturgies and Historic Prayers of the Church: There are so many rich prayers written for us by those who have come before. From the “Our Father” Jesus invited His disciples to pray, to the prayer of Saint Francis, “O Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,” we have a rich library to pull from and lean on, especially when we can’t find the words ourselves.

Prayer Request (and/or gratitude) Lists: Keep a journal of the requests and burdens of yourself and others that you would lift in prayer. Use part of your time to do so. Do the same with gratitude and thanksgivings.

Scripture Journaling: I discovered early on in my faith journey that I process Scripture more thoughtfully, and even chew on it more prayerfully, if I take notes in a journal as I read. My notes start as simple bullets of the plot until something strikes me. When it does, I’ll write that thought or question, and process it on the page writing the train of thought as it evolves. Afterwards, I’ll return to the Scripture and keep bulleting. It’s not uncommon that something I paused to explore comes up again. Because I’d just spent some time chewing on it, its second mention stands out all the more, and I’m able to process the whole passage more meaningfully.

Write your prayers. In similar fashion, I’ve found writing my prayers, as I pray, makes me more focused and engaged. It’s a little clunky when my hands can’t match the pace of my thoughts, but it’s proven to be worth the slower pace. As I write my words, I try to listen for His. I continue journaling as I chew on what I think He may be saying.

Deep Study: I sometimes incorporate study tools, like word studies and commentaries, to really chase down a scripture or understand a theological topic. (Just be sure to balance study with attentiveness, to balance trying to understand scripture, with trying to listen to it. Even as you try to master Scripture, do not forget to let Scripture master you.)

This is an inexhaustive list, but hopefully a helpful start. For a fuller discussion of the diversity of ways we connect with God, I recommend Sacred Pathways by Gary Thomas.

Of course, daily time with God is much more than an antidote for our almost inescapable “junk food” media diet, but it’s certainly not less.

Finally, I thought it would be helpful to have some high-level tips as you create your recipe, and endeavor to re-engage (or start for the first time) a daily devotional habit:

Treat Scripture as fiber.
While we certainly can draw our attention to God without a Bible open before us, Scripture is our most reliable way. Even simply psychologically, amidst the buzz of distraction running through our mind most of the day, pausing to draw our attention to words on a page has a powerfully centering effect. I love how Tim Mackie, of The Bible Project, talks about the Scripture, referring to it as “a unified story that points to Jesus.” In seeking to know a person, it would be silly to ignore the letter they sent us. Now, we don’t read the Bible as if God wrote each word. We know, of course, humans did. We read it, though, as a collection of writings that He guided people to write, so that through them He might be discovered and known. How neglectful we would be not to give it our full attention. If we accept my metaphor of our devotional time as veggies, the Bible is like the fiber inside veggies. We could, perhaps, survive on a fiberless diet, but not very well, and it’s not clear how long. I’ll confess; some of my devotional times are exclusively times of prayer, but if I go a couple days without opening my Bible, I neglect a core component of what makes that devotional time a time of nourishment.

Find a good guide.
We are made to journey together, and we come to God more fully with each other’s help. A devotional guide can be such a gift in helping us along. Yes, in our consumerist age, there are plenty of trite, spiritually half-baked devotionals. There are still plenty of rich ones too. I am forever grateful for the gift of a copy of My Utmost for His Highest early in my Christian walk. In more recent years, I have deeply appreciated both the structure and reflections of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality’s Day by Day. Besides pulling from a rich diversity of Christians throughout history, it includes, too, a nudge to pause in prayerful silence before and after each reading. It marries nicely the devotional tradition of the modern Protestant with the more contemplatively-prayerful posture of so many who have come before us. If you haven’t picked up a devotional guide in a while, or aren’t loving the one you have at the moment, I highly recommend it!

Don’t be frustrated if it doesn’t seem to be “working” at first (or every day).
Slowing down for prayerful attentiveness is more of a muscle than a switch. It takes time to develop. Don’t be silly by keeping your phone right next to you during the time, but also don’t be frustrated if you feel like you spend 25 of 30 minutes distracted the whole first week of your new rhythm. As you persist, you will get quicker at drawing your attention to Him. And, it should be said, a distracted prayer time is not one wholly wasted. Saint Francis de Sales famously put it this way, “If your mind strays 99 times during prayer, God sees how you refocus 100 times. Even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed.”

I’ll conclude where I began. We are unavoidably, at least in part, products of our environment. In our time, our environment is more unashamedly trying to form us in particular ways that are not the way of life. We’re daily exposed, for hours, to forces working hard and cunningly to make us more riled up about political issues, more fearful of our neighbor, and more dissatisfied with our current car, house, and clothes. We are incessantly bombarded with content trying to shape us into consumers and partisans. In short, we live in a time when “junk in” is unavoidable, and that junk is more persuasive and unashamedly formative than ever before. In this moment we face, we need the rooting, formative power of daily time with God more than ever. This isn’t optional advanced spirituality for the over-achiever. It’s the essential nourishment we need every day.

Of course, daily time with God is much more than an antidote for our almost inescapable “junk food” media diet, but it’s certainly not less.