I have a remarkable amount of information available.

For example, if, in an effort to see all the real life cooking, home renovation, life renovation, theories about pyramids, and true crime, I watched all 55,000 episodes available on Discovery+, I’d be into early August 2023 and ready to do something with that information (assuming that 2/3 are 42 minutes and 1/3 are 21 minutes and that I’m streaming on every device, 24/7.)

But I’m starting to ask myself what I need information for.

I can spend my time on taking in information. But my calling is not to gather information but to process it, to make sense of it, and to be helpful to people in particular moments and settings.

At some point, I need to stop skimming and do whatever is next. Sometimes that is resting (the Discovery process excluded sleep and food). Sometimes that is turning to the person next to me to reflect on the information, to decide when information has fallen into categories like gossip, speculation, deception, abuse. Sometimes that is talking with God. Sometimes that is discerning what people need and responding to those needs, not with information but with time and attention and action.

The other day, in my information gathering, I read, “So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom.“

None of us would argue that watching all 55,000 episodes of other people’s lives is the single best way to spend the next couple years. None of us would argue that watching one episode of Erin and Ben remodel a foster home is the single worst way.

Somewhere between those two is learning to number our days. And is a step on the way to wisdom.