The Urgency of Slowing Downનમૂનો

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. —1 John 4:4

I use my phone to video call my kids, map my route, and listen to worship music while I run. But I also check my email too often, spend more time than necessary on social media, and look up random facts that have zero bearing on my life. Did you know that adults spend two to five hours a day on their phones (for teens, it’s five to eight)?

Most of us are struggling to find time to do things like prayer or reading the Bible or visiting with a friend. Yet most of us waste time on our phones.

The tech insiders in Silicon Valley admit they’re manipulating our feeds to keep us online longer and actually manipulating our thought patterns. But wait, we’re not supposed to be conformed to this world, or our phones, or some random techies in California.

We crave the hit of dopamine we get with another like, or text, or notification. We find satisfaction in those hits and self-worth in those pings, and we doubt our self-worth when our phones sit silent. If we pick it up, open an app, check our email, play another round, will it show us that somebody likes us, is interested, noticed? That we matter? Ick! I don’t want to feel that way.

We don’t have to. We have the power of the Holy Spirit living in us. We can choose. We can choose not to be conformed to the patterns of this world. We can choose to let Jesus be the one who renews our minds. We can put down our phones and turn off our notifications. We can delete apps and turn off ringers. We can declutter our social media feeds by unfollowing people we don’t know, or who aren’t healthy for us to follow. We can put old-fashioned alarm clocks in our rooms and wake up to them instead of grabbing our phones first thing.

To clarify, I’m not saying phones are the root of all evil. They’re not. I have a phone. I use my phone. I’m on it every day for a lot of good things. But my phone is also a distraction. And its addictive qualities interrupt my work, prayer time, and time with people around me.

Reducing our phone usage is a simple way to quiet our minds and spend more time with the Lord. With those extra minutes, we can be a little less rushed, less distracted, less influenced by people we don’t know, less stressed, have a little more margin. We can listen a bit better, feel more rested, notice our surroundings more fully, maybe even discover something new.

Reflection:

Go to your settings on your phone and check your daily usage.

Map out a plan for reducing your screen time by fifteen minutes a day this week. You could set limits on apps that distract you, snooze your phone from a certain time each evening to a certain time each morning, choose a day each week to go phone free, or dedicate certain times of day that are off-limits (such as meals or when you’re with others).

Find what works and start eliminating some of your distractions.

Choose how you’ll use your freed-up fifteen minutes, not with another task, but with prayer, stillness, a nap, Bible reading, time outside, or some other sort of rest.

*This devotion is taken from Laura L. Smith’s book The Urgency of Slowing Down: Biblical Wisdom for Everyday Renewal.