Unbound: Freedom in a Digital WorldSample

From prison, Paul writes, “I have learned the secret to being content.”

Wouldn’t that be awesome?

Do you long for contentment?

I don’t usually trust people when they tell me that they have the secret to success, happiness, or whatever else. Usually it ends up that they are trying to sell me something, but with Paul it’s different. He has nothing to gain from the Philippians or from me. He is in prison. He is not asking for money or fame. Rather, quite the opposite. He suffers daily from the burden of the churches and the remnant pain of all the physical suffering he has endured for Christ. He is brow-beaten, lashed, and chained. Yet, this guy claims that he needs nothing. Whether in plenty or in want, he claims to be content in every situation. Maybe he does know the secret.

It might be good for us to listen to a different voice when it comes to dealing with our discontentment. For years now, many of us have turned routinely to social media and our digital devices in our times of discontentment, anxiety, or depression in hopes that we might find the secret to a happier, more content way of being. We might not google “the secret to being content,” but we reach for the mind-numbing distraction of our devices to keep us just preoccupied enough to temporarily forget our discontentment (and everything else in the world around us.)

In her wonderful book on how to live a Christian life in the digital age, Filicia Wu Song nails the problem with this approach, “Social media platforms gain nothing from attempting to resolve our feelings of being overwhelmed or even protect us from being buried by information or harassed by online toxicity. Rather, they seem to wholly benefit from stoking our anxieties and feelings of inadequacy and outrage, so that in our discontent, we find ourselves running back into the arms of social media. "

Do you really want to know the secret to being content?

Paul says his secret to being content is doing all things in Christ. We have spent the last few weeks already parsing out what that means in day-to-day life. Paul’s secret to contentment is really not a surprise to us as Christians. It’s a secret that most of us already know and, yet, have a hard time trusting to be true in our actions. We need help in trusting Christ for our contentment.

Practice doing all things in Christ today by making a broad list of your expected activities for the next couple of days. Then beside each activity, answer these two questions:

1. Do I need my cell phone for this activity?
2. How does life in Christ give me contentment in this activity?

As you go about the activities for the next couple days, remember how Christ gives you contentment in that activity and, if you said you don’t need your phone for an activity, then don’t engage with it during that activity.