I had become a “swine”

Could we have missed the voice of the Holy Spirit in the midst of all the noise?
Probably! Most likely...!

I'm going to jump straight into the point: how many hundreds of posts we see every week with subject labelled "word from the Lord" or similar content including various prophesies and other biblical teachings? I don't know about the numbers, but I am concerned about the effect it might have on us.
Most of us just tend to 'go with the flow' and scroll away to our hearts intent, without considering the potential consequences. We know excessive scrolling is bad but we don't quite seem to understand exactly how, hence I wrote this post as I believe the Holy Spirit showed me something important about myself, which might help you too!

THE PROCESS
Because of the sheer volume of posts we consume, however good, however precious and straight from heaven they might be, a lot of this content has actually become a common ground! Therefore we have lost a great deal of regard towards things that we make plentiful. After all, who appreciates things that 'come out of our nostrils'?
So, even with the best intentions, we have exposed ourselves to the torrential flow of ‘precious pearls’!
And the result? Hearts that are hard of hearing...!
Nothing seems to 'excite' any more, as we've heard it all already! Everything we see and read seems to be 'an old hat'. It's all happening subconsciously, and in reality we have lost that first love and spark that kept us curious for the things of God. Somehow, we've become dull and 'stuffed' instead of hungry and burning for the Lord...

How many times has it happened whilst scrolling, you come across something that touches a part of you deeper than many other posts? You stop briefly, think “oh that’s great”, maybe even forward it to someone BUT you immediately return to scrolling… What if that was the Holy Spirit drawing your attention to something that would have really changed your life, at that very moment? God IS speaking but sadly, we have become so hard of hearing, chasing that next dopamine hit!

This was me! It kept happening, so many times over, that one day I had to face it and seriously repent! “What am I doing??? WHY do I keep scrolling!!!?” "WHY can't I just STOP!!!?"
For a very long time, I couldn’t figure out why it had become so hard to hear the voice of the Lord! Until He showed me…! I had become a "swine"! The precious things of God had become a commonplace in my life!

Stop the scroll

For some reason (and I am sure some neuroscientists will be able to tell exactly why) we seemed to have lost the capacity to go deeper than just ‘skim the surface’ in any of the things we see whilst scrolling. Our brains have become inhibitors to anything that's not INSTANTLY satisfying, (or take longer than a few seconds/minutes to consume)! This in turn leaves us weirdly satisfied as we end up with a sense of knowing more stuff due to being exposed to more info... BUT the other side of the coin is the state of our spiritual health. The constant feeding of the brain actually leaves us spiritually hungry, as we haven’t been properly fed by going deep in any of the subjects. We know an awful lot of random things about an awful lot of things BUT we haven’t had our OWN revelation knowledge from the Lord! We are essentially constantly feeding ourselves with regurgitated food, someone's else's revelations, but how long will that feed us?

And to bring the point home even deeper, I realised this is the enemy's tactics - pretty much ALL the knowledge ends up being head knowledge this way, potentially increasing the sense of superiority and pride as we now know more. If that's our only goal, and the only way to 'feed ourselves', is has actually become a TRAP as the Kingdom of God is not built on head knowledge but things revealed to us by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 4:20, 1 Cor. 2:4-5, Rom. 14:17, James 2:19).

HOW DO WE HEAR GOD EASIER?
I think you have already figured the way out... but I will tell you what I had to do.
There were a few stages to this as I couldn't go 'cold turkey' straight away...! I tried to limit my scrolling time over a period of weeks, until one day I moved the FB & IG icons away from my phone's home screen, and replaced them with Enduring word and Bible apps. By changing the allowed amount of news feed, I started automatically slowly but surely appreciating what I didn't have because of the law of scarcity!

Eventually, I got to a point where I didn't visit social media for a whole week! The first thing I noticed happening was the way I suddenly didn't know what to do with that time I used sitting scrolling, (and to be completely honest!) at first I really didn't want to do anything else...

I stuck with it and continued replacing those scrolling times with other things I could think of doing (reading a book, going for a walk, calling a friend, learning a new skill, playing and instrument etc!).
By all means, scroll a bit if you feel you need to, but ensure you are in control of how much comes in, so you CAN appreciate the pearls and not trample on them...
Let's keep the Word of God holy and precious!

WORD FROM THE LORD
Another place I felt the Holy Spirit drawing my attention to, was the prophetic words given to us by our very own church members. Whether it comes in a form of a scripture, a word or a picture - do we recognise it as the Word from God?
Or do we, for whatever reason, listen to it but almost flippantly decide to 'file it'?
This may be due to our resistance to anything we don't really understand or perhaps it's become too common ie. "just ANOTHER word"?
We may have heard it already a number of times?
Or maybe the delivery of the prophetic word 'didn't live up to our standard or expectation' ie. it didn't stand out enough?
Maybe it came through super casually or timidly?
Perhaps it was given by someone we didn't deem to be much?
(and yes you are right, not every word is always the Holy Spirit speaking, but that's another subject...this post is about having a soft heart towards God 🙂 )

This is exactly it...we might just discard the Lord's voice due to it being 'too ordinary' or perhaps something else than WHAT WE EXPECTED.
If we have a preference to anything/anyone, we are essentially doing a "pick 'n mix" ie. "I only listen if such and such gives me word from the Lord!" we are dictating to God how we would like to hear from Him! So, if this is God speaking through people you didn't expect - there must be a good reason! If God has chosen to speak, (in whatever way he can get through to us!) we must do everything in our power to act on it, right?
A good example to this would be a Chinese take-away: if it arrives on a scooter rather than in a Bentley, you wouldn't send it back, would you? As it still tastes the same!

We really don't want to be choosing the way God can speak to us, do we? Let's trust Him to do His business - He knows who He can use to speak to us.
There is a holy God and His Word is alive and active - let's appreciate it as such and give it the place it deserves (in whatever form it comes, pictures or word) - THE HIGHEST PLACE OF HONOUR! We treat it with respect, whoever it comes through!

CALL TO OBEDIENCE
Let this post be your pause to say to God: "I am here, I am listening to You! I will be obedient to Your voice: I will stop and I will ask for Your help to be the good steward of the prophetic word You gave Lord! Let it be far from me that I try and choose the version of You I would like to hear from!"

PRAYER

I thank you Father God that you have given me everything necessary for life and godliness (2Pet 1:3)! I know you have given me the power over the enemy (Luke 10:19) therefore I believe I can overcome my scrolling habit. Holy Spirit, would You please guide me to see other opportunities beside the scrolling habit and give me strength to say 'no' when I feel tempted to waste my time away on the phone.
I ask that you would please soften my heart towards you God so that I would seek to please You every day. Lord I decide to be the doer of the word and not just a hearer, please help me to pause so that You could reveal to me things I need to understand. I know that you hear every prayer and I thank you that you have answered me, in Jesus' name.