Leading With LimitationsSample

In Genesis 11, humanity builds what is called the Tower of Babel. In verse 4, the “whole world” is represented as saying, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves.” In their disobedience to God, who had commanded them to spread out over the world, they were essentially trying to play the role of God for themselves. And the Lord’s response to this act is to “confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

In other words: in trying to obtain their own God-like status, humanity lost the ability to have conversation with each other.

What we can and should realize is that when we turn to our smartphones, we are trading our awareness of the present moment—and of whoever is with us in that present moment—for an awareness of something somewhere else. When we use smartphones to avoid the present moment, we are trading presence with whoever is around us for information and power.

But when we make a habit of purposefully embracing limitations, which Jesus did on a much grander scale than we ever will—either by restricting our phone’s settings or by setting our phone somewhere else altogether at times—we make space for attention to and deep conversation with the people God has placed in our lives.