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Put Away Your Phone (Every Now and Then)

“This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” (John 15:8)

Let’s talk frankly about our phones. Phones are great. And they’re also not so great.

Phones can take us away from where we are. Talk about not being present. Someone’s phone will buzz, and they’ll check it to see who called, or they’ll answer an email or text—just for a moment. All at once they are out of the room. They might think they’re there, but they’re not. I know when I do it, I’m miles and miles away. You can’t do two things at once. Not well. You can’t text one person while listening to another. You can’t read an email from one contact while pretending to hear what someone else is saying. You can’t be two places at once. (There were saints back in holy times who could do that, but I haven’t met anyone today who can do the same—even with the magic of a cell phone.)

I decided I’d go on a cell phone fast. Heck, it was Lent. If there was a time for a cell phone fast, wasn’t this it? I wasn’t going to give the phone up for forty days—I had to be realistic. (Don’t ever give yourself spiritual challenges that are impossible to meet.) I’d give it up for several hours a day. That’s all. I’d put it in a drawer or a secret pocket of my briefcase where I wouldn’t respond to it. Couldn’t look at it or look for it for, say, four or five hours.

I failed. Miserably.

I can’t get rid of my phone—or my wife her watch—but I can get rid of it controlling me. “Who’s in charge here?” I ask it. “You’re my phone. I’m not your employee. I’m not required to answer to your every beck and call. Let’s work this out.”

If meditation is good for anything, it is good for reestablishing the right relationship with material things, like our phones or watches.

Here’s the Jesus analogy that comes to mind (one of the weirdest Jesus stories in the Bible): Jesus was with his disciples and noticed the fig tree that had no fruit. He didn’t just wag his finger at it and tell his followers, “Hey, you don’t want to be unproductive like this.” He killed the tree in one fell swoop. Destroyed it.

We’re meant to get rid of what doesn’t produce fruit in ourselves. Don’t coddle our failures of goodness and generosity and abundance; don’t make excuses for them; don’t work aroundthem. Confront them. Weed out the adversaries. Kill the fig-less tree. I had to do that with my phone. I had to make it my ally in faith, not my enemy. Make more use of the “do not disturb” function. Designate “favorites” and pay attention to that. Why have something in your life that doesn’t produce fruit?

Do you find phones have changed habits in other places of your life? At Wednesday night choir rehearsals, we used to get up and chat with one another during our ten-minute break. Now we’re more likely to check our phones and catch up remotely. Somehow we feel we have to see what we might have missed in cyberspace during that first hour of rehearsal.

I ignore my phone when I’m meditating. Any message can wait a few minutes. I might look at it when I’m writing at work, but not for long. The writing, the fruit I’m trying to grow or pick, takes precedence. I’m careful about who I follow on social media. Some of it is fruitful to my spiritual life, some is not. Get rid of that fig-less tree.

As Jesus said, anyone who seeks his life will lose it and anyone who loses his life for Jesus’ sake will find it. With or without your phone.

Respond

What “fig-less trees” are impacting your spiritual life?

Describe a plan for removing them or recalibrating them to be a positive in your life.

Prayer

Lord, show me the things in my life that keep me from producing fruit!