How did your 24-hour phone fast go? What did you learn?
Several years ago a friend and I made a commitment to read nothing but the Bible each Tuesday. No books. No email. Nothing online. Nothing in print. It was HARD. I didn’t realize the depth of my reading addiction until I found myself reading junk mail. I found that I can’t not read, so I learned to set my Bible open on the counter so I would read it throughout the day.
But as time went by, I found those Tuesdays were valuable. I learned to look forward to a day with my Bible. I’m not really sure why we quit that habit. Probably life just got busier and more complicated for both of us. It is more difficult, though certainly not impossible, for me to detach from the web now. Back then, Ed checked email and texts on Tuesdays and alerted me if anything needed immediate attention. (It usually didn’t.) Now I feel like I need to stay connected to the world. But that isn’t a good excuse. I could still shut down my phone except for the actual calling and text service.
Phone or media fasts aren’t easy, but many worthwhile goals demand sacrifice.
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18
Today’s Challenge: Are you ready to set a regular phone fast or a digital Sabbath? Write down your goal and share it with a friend. This might be simply that you are going to leave your phone off every Friday evening (or every evening) to enjoy time with your family. Make it a treat, not a punishment, to enjoy time without your phone.
And if you did a phone fast this weekend, or some other time, I'd love to hear what you learned from it.
I wanted to do the phone fast but I have a friend whose husband is in hospital with serious health issues. I think I would like to take a either a phone fast or a social media fast. Or maybe both. Gina these challenges have been interesting and hard. I like the idea of not having the phone on during the evenings. I've been doing live stream church at home so the phone is off during that time and also during live stream prayer meeting.
ReplyDeleteI listen to audiobooks on my tablet (another addiction I have!) and I want to make a habit not to read a social media notification that pops up because I crochet while listening to the books.
Slightly beside the point but I'm laughing out loud at the junk mail bit -- I did a similar 'fast' awhile ago and also found myself absentmindedly fascinated by hardware store sales--like sitting down and studying them ��. Dependencies can be stealthy things!
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