If you're anything like me, you spend way more time on your phone than you probably should. Some may call it unhealthy, but it feels necessary. You feel naked if you go somewhere without your phone. Your phone is attached to your hip and you may not even think about it.
Well today, I left my phone in my car and guess what?
I lived to tell the tale.
I didn't even miss any important notifications in the hour and a half that I neglected. I'm not the kind of person who has my phone blowing up all the time. I really only talk to a handful of people on the phone on a regular basis, but somehow I feel like I might miss something if I don't have my phone on me, so I carry it around just in case. It doesn't even make a whole lot of sense, but I don't want to lose that potential line of communication for even a little bit if at all possible.
But at the time I'm writing this, it's Good Friday (April 14th) and my church had a service for it, so I decided to go. As I was pulling into the parking lot, I made an agreement with myself that I would leave my phone in the car when I went to church to worship and reflect. It's not like I would really look at my phone during the service or anything, but sometimes just knowing that it's there in my pocket is a distraction in and of itself.
The only way I can avoid that potential distraction is to hide it from myself. Then I can be in the moment wherever I am and not think about what time it is, who might be texting me, or what's going on on all of my social media newsfeeds.
Sitting there in church and reflecting on the sacrifice that Jesus made so that we could live, I realized that I need to make sacrifices in order to draw closer to him. It's a two-way street. And right now I'm pretty much avoiding that road altogether. In moments where I could be reflecting on the real aspects of my life, my automatic reflex is to reach for my phone and get sucked into that virtual world instead.
Because that's the kind of world we're living in.
People act like they're busy by playing around on their phones or use it as a tool to avoid communication that might have the potential to be awkward. Our first reflex when we wake up in the morning is to reach for our phones and see what everyone else is up to. What a way to start the day, huh?
As much as this may seem like I'm sweeping everyone into this or generalizing this topic, I realize that I can only truly speak for myself.
I just know that personally, sometimes I just feel like a slave to my phone. I depend on it for information and as my main source of communication. I often don't feel as though I can leave it in my car, even if I'm going into a store for 15 minutes. I need to stop letting myself believe that I'm gonna miss something important if I don't have my phone on me. Odds are I will miss something important in real life if I spend too much time checking Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat on my phone.
I don't want that to be a risk I'm comfortable with taking anymore.
I want to focus more on real life and real relationships, whether that be with Jesus or simply the people that mean most to me.
But that's just me.
Where do you stand?
