Distracted, Much?

I’m going to be honest. I’m distracted by my new phone. Like, heavily. I was avoiding getting a new phone until I couldn’t wait any longer (my old one works, but barely). So I got a new one. And now, I can’t seem to put it down, more so than my old one. I find I’ve wasted much of the last week on my new phone, and I know it’s by design. It’s designed to keep me attached, through apps and algorithms that want to keep me buying. It’s also distracting me from the moments that I need to be focused on. So I am minimizing what I can do and will do on it, and going back to what I have been called to: to make Christ, not my phone, the center of my life, and from that Center, to love my wife, my kids, and perform the ministry Christ has set for me to do.

Loved ones, we were never meant to be this plugged in to the world. We were never meant to be omniscient keyboard warriors who campaign (online) for injustices. We were made for relationship, with God and with one another. We allow our screens, and many other things, to capture our time, attention and our hearts, and draw them from those whom the belong. Let us, then, accordingly ask God to “teach us to number our days so that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). Let us focus on what matters: our relationship with and to Christ and our relationship with and to others.

Psalm 90

Lord, you have been our dwelling place

in all generations.

Before the mountains were brought forth,

or ever you had formed the earth and the world,

from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

You return man to dust

and say, “Return, O children of man!”

For a thousand years in your sight

are but as yesterday when it is past,

or as a watch in the night.

You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream,

like grass that is renewed in the morning:

in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;

in the evening it fades and withers.

For we are brought to an end by your anger;

by your wrath we are dismayed.

You have set our iniquities before you,

our secret sins in the light of your presence.

For all our days pass away under your wrath;

we bring our years to an end like a sigh.

The years of our life are seventy,

or even by reason of strength eighty;

yet their span is but toil and trouble;

they are soon gone, and we fly away.

Who considers the power of your anger,

and your wrath according to the fear of you?

So teach us to number our days

that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Return, O Lord! How long?

Have pity on your servants!

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,

that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,

and for as many years as we have seen evil.

Let your work be shown to your servants,

and your glorious power to their children.

Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,

and establish the work of our hands upon us;

yes, establish the work of our hands!