Good morning church family,
What if by some inexplicable act of cosmic happenstance, the length of a day increased from twenty-four to thirty-six hours? Someone bumped the galactic game board, let’s say, and all the universe’s pieces went pell-mell; expanding solar systems and redrawing constellations. What do you imagine we’d do with all the extra time we’d suddenly have at our disposal? Would we work more? Sleep more? Throw another meal in there?
I’m sure that it would take some time for our schedules to sync up with our new circadian rhythms. But once we finally figured it out and hit our stride, we’d have to find something to fill all the empty hours in our planners. And yet I wonder – even with twelve more hours in a day – would we be able to find the time to have our daily devotions with the Lord?
Many years ago now I remember lamenting to a colleague of mine that my church salary was insufficient to my needs. He responded by first asking if I had asked the church for a raise. I informed him that I had not – the church could hardly afford a full-time pastor as it was. He then inquired if I might be able to do some moonlighting. With a cocked head and one eye squinched shut, I told him that I imagined a second job to be an impossibility. “Well,” he then said, smiling, “you can always make more money by spending less.”
Now, that wasn’t very nice of him. Sure, I spent fifty dollars a month on cable TV, but the promise of pixilated company every evening was as necessary to me as any other utility. I needed television. And let’s not talk about the forty dollars a week I’d spend on fast food. My mom lived over a thousand miles away and I needed a hot meal every now and again – man can’t live by Frosted Flakes and cold cuts alone now; can he? And don’t dare try and take the red pen to my golfing hobby. The blessed exercise and fresh air that I’d get every week or so was more than worth the twenty-five dollars I’d pay for a round. Or was it? The more I thought about it, these expenses might be perfectly defensible if I had the disposable income sufficient to afford them. But I didn’t – I was pretty strapped for cash. There were a number of vital things missing in my life that could have easily been paid for by the three-hundred-or-so dollars a month I might save from cutting the cord, the clubs, and the supersized me.
I sometimes think about that sage bit of financial advice I got years ago; especially when I get to lamenting about how little time I seem to have for prayer and personal Bible study. Now, I’d be ashamed to ask God to hold the sun still in the sky and extend the day just to suit me and I can’t cheat sleep any more than I already do without becoming part of some government sleep-deprivation study. And that, of course, only leaves one other option. I can almost picture the Spirit smiling. “You could always find more time by wasting less” He might say.
Every Sunday morning while I’m getting ready for church, the same notification lights up the home screen on my iPhone. The message isn’t from a family member or friend; some news site or any of the apps I’ve downloaded. No – the message actually comes from my phone itself. On this past Sunday morning at 9:17am I received a message with a little hourglass icon at the left side of the message box. “Weekly Report Available” read the headline. “Your screen time was up 6% last week for an average of … hours, and … minutes a day,” read the subtext (with the latter figures mercifully omitted by the author). Now, I have no idea why Apple created such a feature – perhaps it’s the work of some ethicist they keep on staff to assuage the company’s sense of guilt at making us all bent-necked, lobotomized, automatons. Maybe it’s the work of some liability lawyer they keep on retainer – some kind of preemptive Surgeon General’s warning. I don’t know – but reading this report each week horrifies me. Now, I do a lot of noble things on my phone. I correspond, research, navigate, and I sometimes even use it to talk to someone. But the report isn’t vague and unspecific in its presentation of the data – it brings the receipts. It tells me how much time I spend here, there, and everywhere. Sadly, it’s a pretty faithful chronicler of my week’s wasted hours.
The world is awfully good at creating dependencies in us for things that are utterly unnecessary for our fulfillment as human beings. Were aliens to observe us from outer space, they’d certainly think that staring into backlit screens was somehow necessary to the survival of the species, that the efforts of grown men chasing balls of all shapes and sizes in arenas packed with cheering people must be vital to the interests of national security, and that a chicken sandwich that takes forty-five minutes of waiting in a drive-thru to be able to eat must rapture a human being to transcendent heights of fulfillment. Well… maybe if you get the waffle fries to go with it. But seriously, a lot of what we’re slavishly attending to every day need not master over us. We have to follow this team, finish that show, scroll through our newsfeed, and listen to the breathless analysis of the latest poll. Or do we? So many of the things that we become emotionally invested in, care deeply about, and wring our hands over don’t actually warrant the burning of a single brain cell. Our heart’s passion and our mind’s focus should be devoted to much more important and ennobling pursuits. Wonderful and amazing opportunities are open to us every day! God has gone to great lengths to make Himself known through the gift of His word. Let us read all about Him! He has paid the greatest of prices to make it possible for us to approach His throne and to fellowship with Him in the temple of our hearts. Let us befriend Him!
While I’m fairly confident that we’re not being observed by any aliens today – I know for a fact that God is watching over us. What must He think when He sees that our Bibles lay dusty while our screens are Windex-clean? Or when He sees that our dens are lively and jolly while our prayer closets are silent and lonesome? He must think He’s not all that important to us. O Lord, may we love you more by loving the world less!
We’re looking forward to gathering together in the morning to check in with Heaven and one another, compare notes on what we’ve seen and heard throughout the week, and to look our Creator in the eye and tell Him we love Him! It’s going to be good to blend our voices, lean into the load shoulder to shoulder, and walk the narrow way as a family. What a blessing! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!
- Pastor Tate
