There’s no denying it: smartphones are, well, smart. Nifty and immensely helpful gadgets, they seem to do everything we need: connect us to our peeps, answer all our questions, and guide us to our destinations. We grab them when we wake up, and fall asleep with them in our hands. (See infographic, below). We drive with them, keep track of our kids with them, and work better with them. As a nation, we have become addicted to the kind of personal technology that helps us live life, lose weight, look smart, and keep up with the daily grind – yet still fits in our pocket. There really isn’t much a smartphone can’t do – and we like that – a lot!
For those of Judeo-Christian backgrounds, however, the smartphone explosion looks uncannily like a scripture passage in Deuteronomy 6. It reads:
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Jesus says in the Great Commission, "Go and preach the Gospel to every creature." (Mark 16:15).
This week, I was inspired by an idea Kevin Senapatiratne wrote about at Christ Connection. It's a great new "tool" for my missions toolbox, and I asked Kevin if I could share it with others. He is delighted to share this idea with you, too, and you'll find it right here:
For those of Judeo-Christian backgrounds, however, the smartphone explosion looks uncannily like a scripture passage in Deuteronomy 6. It reads:
And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
(Deuteronomy 6:6-9, NKJV).
It doesn’t take a rabbi or a theologian to see that the kind of interaction we have with our smartphones today is the kind of interaction God designed for us to have with Him. Wearable technology – the kind you “bind upon your hand” – is becoming the newest trend, and Google has even created GoogleGlass ™, which looks eerily like the above statement about “frontlets between your eyes.”
Click here to continue reading: Have-Smartphones-Replaced-God?
I often wonder about the future of our grandchildren growing up in a society where apathy, and even hostility, toward Jesus Christ is prevalent today. We are living in a complicated world. An aggressive attack is being launched by using media, technology, education, social influences, and political pressures to desensitize and cloud the boundaries of truth that holds our families together. The enemy’s attacks against our families and our nation’s moral foundations are relentless and growing worse with time.
However, Daniel, the one in the lion’s den for not obeying the king, stood strong for God in a very complicated ungodly culture. Today, let’s stand in the gap for our grandchildren, praying they will stand strong for God. Just as Esther stood in the gap for her people, the Israelites when their lives were threatened physically, we can stand in the gap for the spiritual lives of our grandchildren.
- Pray your grandchildren will invite Jesus into their hearts.
- Pray your grandchildren will be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.¹
- Pray for your grandchildren to recognize the difference of the truth and deception in their culture so they can flee from it.
- Pray for your grandchildren to respect authority and pray for those in authority over them, like their parents, teachers, and others.
Our hope for the future generation can only be in the Lord, not in this complex world.
Please share in the comments - What are you doing to stand in the gap for your grandchildren?
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¹ Ephesians 6:10
So, how is it that someone as reluctant about technology as I could become semi-addicted to it? I suppose it’s a professional necessity in this information-driven world of ours—but it still scares me a little.
Earlier this year I read Nicholas Carr’s sobering book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. In it, while acknowledging the many positive benefits of technology, he also points out some extremely negative ones. Chiefly, that technology is changing the way our minds work. Citing numerous studies for his assertions, Carr says that technology causes our attention spans to become shorter. We are becoming less capable of deep reading and deep thinking. We don’t retain information as well as we used to. Creativity suffers, as does our problem-solving ability. Our emotional powers are also diminishing. Technology robs us of the ability to have a calm and attentive mind. And without that, our capacity for empathy and compassion are reduced. But even worse than all of this, Carr suggests that our technology habits are resulting in an actual physiological rewiring of our brains. If we continue in our technology habits, it may be very difficult for us to go back to our old ways of reading, thinking, processing, and remembering. We become more machine-like and less human.
What does this have to do with prayer? Carr’s book is not a “Christian” book. He does not discuss his faith. But he does lament our decreasing capacity for “meditative thought.”
"That doesn’t mean that promoting the rapid discovery and retrieval of information is bad. It’s not. The development of a well-rounded mind requires both an ability to find and quickly parse a wide range of information and a capacity for open-ended reflection. There needs to be time for efficient data collection and time for inefficient contemplation, time to operate the machine and time to sit idly in the garden. We need to work in Google’s “world of numbers,” but we also need to be able to retreat to Sleepy Hollow. The problem today is that we’re losing our ability to strike a balance between those two very different states of mind. Mentally, we’re in perpetual locomotion." (p. 168)Obviously, technology is not going to go away. Nor do I want it to. After all, I think that Pray Network (www.praynetwork.org) is the best thing since sliced bread. It is also a wonderful thing to be able to pray with and for people around the world in “real time” via Skype, teleconferencing, emails, IM-ing and more. Never has the body of Christ had more potential for connection and mutual support—and we have technology to thank for this.
However, technology, like everything else, is a resource to be stewarded. We use it; it should not use us. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:12, “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.”
I want to use technology for God’s Kingdom—but I sure don’t want to be a slave to it! I don’t want it to rewire my brain so I can no longer think deeply, ponder, contemplate, focus, and dream God-given dreams.
So what to do? I’m still reflecting on this, but for starters, I’ve scheduled a personal prayer retreat next week during which I’ll unplug for 24 hours. (Or at least I’ll try!) For the last month of so I have been setting aside regular time on Sundays for extended conversation with God (And I’ll do this with my computer shut down. Believe it or not, I used to allow the familiar “You’ve got mail” bing on my computer interrupt prayer times. I’m embarrassed to admit that, but I did!) I’m disciplining myself not to give in to every urge to click on all those enticing links that flit across my computer screen. And I’m making myself take breaks from the computer to take a walk or spend time with a friend or read an old-fashioned paper-and-ink book. We’ll see how it goes—hopefully these small steps will help me to stay engaged with the world while maintaining spiritual and emotional depth—and healthy brain cells.
I’d love to hear from you: How does technology affect your prayer life? Share your experiences with me—both positive and negative—by writing to commenting on this blog..
(This blog originally appeared as an article in Pray! Online News. For your free subscription to Pray! Online News, go to: www.navpress.com/account/newsletters.aspx)
