Looking Above Episode 48 - Sensory Rest

This season we're talking about rest. In this episode, Karen and Brooklyn discuss sensory rest.  Sensory rest involves allowing our senses to take a break from the constant stimulation that assaults your nervous system. I. After listening, it would be highly valuable to sit down and talk with a friend or small group about these questions:

1. Do you think you have a naturally high or low tolerance to sensory stimulation?  Which of your senses is most likely to be overstimulated?
2. In what season of your life have you felt the most sensory overload? 
3. Do you put on "comfy clothes" when you get home?  What other examples can you think of of ways you may try to rest your senses without even being aware that it is what you're doing?
4. Respond to this quote: “We accept the health benefits of avoiding junk food, but we rarely consider the effects of the junky cluttered sensory impressions we receive from our choices of entertainment of living environment.” (Sacred Rest, Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, p 89) What type of "junk food" have you been allowing to bombard your senses?
5. What evidence of sensory exhaustion can you see in your life right now? Think through each of your senses. Which senses are most in need of a rest?
6. How does sensory exhaustion affect you mentally? Physically? Relationally?
7. God gave us our senses so that we could interact with and receive information from the world around us.  In what ways could we better care for our senses, so they are best able to serve us?
8. How might constant sensory stimulation lead to a spiritual dullness?
9. Read Isaiah 30:15.  Reflect on this phrase, "In quietness and confidence is your strength." How does quietness produce spiritual strength?  How might depriving our senses lead to greater strength?
10. Is it possible that we are intentionally (or unintentionally) crowding God out of our lives, by filling our environments with so much noise and sensory stimulation that we are no longer able to see and hear Him? What steps are you willing to take to lessen your sensory input?