Most of us know how important things such as quiet times are to spiritual growth, but sometimes quiet times can be anything but quiet. Take my devotional time this morning, for instance.

I began by logging into BibleGateway.com. As I scrolled down through Psalm 23, which was my passage for today, I noticed the ad offering to link me to the site's new online bookstore. I had to take a quick look and see what special offers they had.

In between "The Lord is my shepherd" and "He makes me lie down beside still waters," two e-mail notifications popped up. One message seemed urgent, so I just had to respond before I forgot.

Then my cell phone vibrated. I had to see who it was to make sure I wasn't missing something important. By the time I got down to "He restores my soul," I'll be honest, I wasn't feeling very restored.

Day after day, I find that as I engage in certain disciplines of the faith and strive for meaningful spiritual growth, my technology-saturated lifestyle seems to get in the way of what it really takes to experience a deep, focused and purposeful Christian life.

When we live in a culture where being productive and doing lots of things at once are so highly valued, there are certain spiritual disciplines such as solitude, meditation, fasting, even keeping the Sabbath that can feel a little out of step. Unfortunately, as our technology speeds up our lives and reshapes the value we put on things such as efficiency and productivity, these spiritual disciplines are more important than ever.

Let's face it, whether texts, posts, ads, tweets, pokes, e-mails, links, updates, chats or iTunes, our technology has a way of cluttering up our lives and slowly sucking the purpose and focus from our days. Some of us don't even notice the big sucking sound of our spiritual lives disappearing.

What we—and our kids—desperately need now more than ever, is sacred time and space. I believe that finding that precious space, that unimpeded time when we can reconnect with our Creator, can be the most significant thing we do as we seek to be effective ministers of the gospel. Here's how we can reclaim it from the dominance of our technology and our Attention Deficit Disorder culture.

Outage, Silence and the Sacred

If we truly want to slow down and reconnect, it usually takes a little peace and quiet; but really, when is the last time you actually heard silence in your house that wasn't accompanied by snoring? For me it was the last time the electricity went out.

I was in the middle of American Idol and off it went. I looked at my dog and back at the dark TV screen. I was lost. Everything was so, well, quiet. Honestly, silence takes a little getting used to. It dawned on me that night that I don't perceive silence as being golden. I perceive it as being awkward and boring. The usual stimuli I have bombarding my every waking moment have created a deep restlessness in me when it is all turned off.