We Need To Disconnect

We live in a time in history when we are so attached to our technology that we are losing our ability to truly care for one another in meaningful ways. Our addiction to smartphones have beguiled us into an insatiable hunger to be informed about what’s happening in the world, and people in whom we are interested, that we are unaware of how separated we have become from the people right around us.

The same can be said of our relationship with God. We have many technologies available to educate ourselves about God, but I fear we are actually drifting farther away from the one we want to love. I think we have been “Beguiled” into thinking we are gaining ground with God and others when we are actually starving ourselves through technology.

If there is one truth I am aware of over my 54 years as a Christian it is that Satan is alive and well on planet earth, to coin a phrase from the author Hal Lindsey who wrote the book, “The Late Great Planet Earth.” His book was written in 1970 and has sold over 28 million copies because it struck a cord about the end times deception Satan is attempting to pull off with people. Lindsey wrote about end-time biblical prophecy and then-current events. The book had major impact on people to consider what culture was doing to them and the deception of Satan.

Scripture tells us what Satan’s objectives are, and they haven’t changed since the time Jesus spoke about him. Satan wants to steal from us, kill us and ultimately destroy us through his deception of what is real and important in life and what is not.

John 10:10

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

Consider how smartphones have deceived us into thinking we are getting closer to people when, in fact, we are becoming more separated. When we are actually in each others’ presence we are only able to relate in a superficial way. Secular researchers have concluded that these technologies have greatly affected not only cultural norms, but the brains of those who use them constantly. A New York Post survey found that Americans check their smartphones more than 80 times a day, on average. That’s once every 12 minutes, all while wiring our brains to lose the ability to think and reason with one another and build lasting relationships.

We spend more and more time disengaged from the “real world” while maintaining the online perception of being connected all the time. People used to learn through trial-and-error how to relate and communicate with each other. Now most people just do surface talk that feels unnatural. The same can be said of our relationship with God. We learn scripture that relates principles and ideas, but we often fail at talking to God like a person. Instead, we just quote scripture or our shopping list of things we want and feel we need.

Technology has caused us lose a time of reading God’s word quietly, or listening to music with an open heart to communicate with God so that our faith becomes more mechanical than personal. To be honest, I love most technology, but if we lose our intimacy with God and others because of our dependence on technology it becomes the very tool that steals, kills and destroys us from the inside out.

When I think about the fact that Jesus is our example of what to shoot for in living, the Word states very clearly that Jesus went out to solitary and lonely places to get close to Father God.

Luke 5:15-16

But the news about Him was spreading even farther, and large crowds were gathering to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.

If you and I don’t “SLIP AWAY” from the technology we seem to crave we will find a distance between us and God, and us and others. We have to regularly break away from our unhealthy dependence on stuff in order to feed the true hunger of our souls. Otherwise our souls die slowly until we just medicate our loneliness.  I am reminded of what King David said, that God makes a “HOME” for the lonely. He is the one that can fill the empty spot in our soul so that our relationship with others can have meaning and value.

Psalms 68:6

God makes a home for the lonely;

He leads out the prisoners into prosperity,

Only the rebellious dwell in a parched land.

No one can make us disconnect. We have to choose to do so. We may feel lonely when we disconnect from all the stuff that fills us rather than God, but we need to do it periodically. Don’t let Satan steal from you what God has promised. Don’t let your phone, TV or any other device rob you of your calling to intimacy with God.

Let today be a start of a new season of refreshment and intimacy with God and others.

Questions:

1) Have you been convicted by the Holy Spirit that you need to disconnect from things like your phone or the TV? Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit or you may find you can’t hear his voice very often.

2) Have you discovered you are too busy to spend time in real prayer? I’m talking about prayer that’s more than a few minutes while driving or doing work. It’s about carving out some real time to sit in God’s presence.

Realizing I need to disconnect more also,

Pastor Dale