Silencing False Alarms

Have you ever reached for your phone because you were certain it vibrated—only to find your pocket empty?

Doctors have a name for this: phantom vibration syndrome. Our minds grow so accustomed to the hum of incoming messages that sometimes they invent one. The brain fires a false alarm because it has been trained to expect a signal.

It seems like a small, harmless quirk of modern life, but it points to something profound about the human heart: what we give our attention to most often will eventually shape us. We condition our hearts the same way we condition our thumbs to swipe across a screen.

Day after day, our constant watch for pings and posts trains our bodies to respond—even when there is nothing there. Spiritually, we do the same. We become so tuned to the noise of the world—deadlines, headlines, opinions, and anxieties—that alarms start going off in our souls. We sense urgency where none exists.

How often does your heart vibrate for no reason? How often does fear buzz inside your spirit? Just as the phone’s vibration can be a false alarm, so can our worries. Not every buzz is a battle. Not every feeling of urgency is a true emergency.

The spiritual life calls us to retrain our senses. We must learn to tune out the false vibrations of fear and tune in to the still, small voice of God.

The psalmist says: “They will have no fear of bad news; their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord” (Psalm 112:7). This is what it looks like when a heart is anchored in God—it does not tremble at every rumor, or shake at every headline, or buzz at every false alarm. Instead, it rests in trust, grounded in eternal truth.

Friends, put down the weight of phantom fears and false alarms. Lay them at the feet of Christ. Let Him retrain your heart, anchor your soul, and steady your spirit. And then, when the world vibrates with noise and fear, your heart will be calm, your steps will be firm, and your trust will be unshaken.

That’s the life God is calling us to live, not buzzing with phantom fears, but ringing with His joy.