Author: Tony Reinkey
IS YOUR HAND RAISING FOR YOUR PHONE WHEN YOUR EYES HAVEN’T EVEN OPENED?
Today, our phones “go” with us everywhere we go, and that means literally everywhere. Many of us even sleep with our phones. The phone wakes us up in the morning, monitors our sleep status and makes us accessible in emergencies.
All this is good, but the problem is that the first thing we do in the morning out of habit is check email and social networks as soon as we open our eyes.
In our study of 8,000 desiringGod.org readers surveyed, more than half (54%) admitted that they pick up their phone almost immediately after waking up.
We then asked whether you check email and social media before or after your morning time with God and 73 percent of those surveyed answered “before.” Below you can see a more detailed graph of our research.
In fact, we know without this schedule that we don’t have to make much effort to open Facebook, but we do have to discipline ourselves to spend time with God. And in this sense, Pastor John Piper is right when he says that “I need to be saved every morning, because as soon as I wake up, the devil is already sitting next to me.”
And this is a good opportunity to talk about the challenges that we face in our Christian lives.
In other words, what we focus on early in the morning shapes our entire day.
So why are we so quick to check our email or log onto Facebook as soon as we open our eyes and take the time to spend time with God reading Scripture and praying? How can we discipline ourselves in this matter?
I asked Pastor John Piper this question and this is what he answered.
Why do we tend to grab our phones before we do anything else?I’m thinking of six possible reasons that come to mind from my experiences with temptation.
And it seems to me that all six are somehow rooted in the sin of not wanting to serve others and enjoy God.
We are called to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength from the very early hours of the morning. And we must also be willing to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matt. 22:37-40).
Few of us wake up in the morning with a soul ready to love God and our neighbors. This situation, to put it mildly, requires some adjustment through the word of God and prayer.
Here are six reasons why many of us experience that morning addiction to our phones. I call the first three reasons for sweetness, and the second three reasons for avoidance.
Reason 1: News sweetness
We just like to learn about news in the world and among our friends. What has happened in the world since we last read/watched the news? Most of us want to be among the first to know this, then we will not have to humbly listen to someone who tells us something smart that others already know.
By being the first to hear the news, we act as an informant, not an ignorant person who needs to be educated about what happened because he was not smart enough to find out about it earlier from social networks.
Reason 2: The sweetness of selfishness
What people are saying about us in the latest news on social networks. Who left a comment on our post, who reposted us, who mentioned us, “liked” us and follows our news feed? In our fallen, sinful state, there is a special pleasure that we experience from participation in something. Some of us are weak, wounded, fragile and insecure, so any, even the smallest mention of us makes us feel better. It’s like someone kissed us.
Reason 3: The sweetness of entertainment
There are so many exciting, crazy, weird, amazing, shocking, compelling and funny pictures, quotes, videos, stories and links on the internet. Many of us are literally addicted to something amazing and extraordinary, extraordinary and amazing.
So, at least, there are three sweet reasons that force us to satisfy these internal needs through our phones in the morning.
What follows are three reasons for avoidance. These reasons force us to avoid something in life that we do not want to face, at least in the next five minutes.
Reason 4: Avoiding boredom
We wake up and the beginning of the day seems boring to us. There is nothing exciting at the start of the day and we have to make an effort to shake ourselves out of bed. And of course, the human soul hates vacuum. If we don’t have anything meaningful, positive, and hopeful in front of us to fill the void in our soul, then we use our phones to escape that boredom.
Reason 5: Avoidance of responsibility
Each of us has a certain role in life: father, mother, boss, subordinate, etc. There are duties that we must perform every day, and they are not easy. Finances are stopping us. We have to make decisions about our children, our houses, our money, and hundreds of other things. Life is full of such responsibilities, we feel their burden on us, we fall asleep with a feeling of fear or resentment because people have placed these heavy burdens of responsibility on us. The day doesn’t seem that attractive to us and we prefer to avoid it for at least 5-10 minutes. And the phone helps us do this.
Reason 6: Avoiding difficulties
Perhaps now in the morning you are experiencing not only boredom, the burden of responsibility, but also serious interpersonal conflicts or battling illness or even disability among your family, feeling betrayed by your friends or experiencing pain in your body, joints and can hardly just drag yourself out of bed due to severe pain in the morning. And you just want to stay in bed longer because of all this. And the phone is your salvation.
Thinking in a different direction
These are my six reasons for morning phone addiction – the sweetness reasons and the avoidance reasons.
But think about this. Suppose you picked up your phone in the morning and the first news you read was terrible. Or, while continuing to ponder the question of “the sweetness of selfishness,” you saw a caustic comment on your social network page that someone left late at night. Or you spent 5 minutes in the morning entertaining yourself and thereby avoiding the responsibility that this new day brings to you. And at the end of those happy 5 minutes, you suddenly found yourself in a stupid, shallow and immature mood.
Do you think it was worth it?
Or you spent 5 minutes trying to avoid boredom, responsibility and the complexities of life, only to find out that you are spiritually, morally and emotionally unprepared to face the reality of this day.
Was it worth it?
What we really need in the morning is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We need something that will give us a desire to glorify Christ in our daily activities. We need strength to face any challenge that awaits us this day. We need something that will give us joy and courage to treat others better than ourselves and strive for true greatness in serving others (Matt. 20:26-28). This is how our morning should be!
time in the morning.
Our time in the morning is important
Only a few of us, when we wake up in the morning, already have the power to do all these glorious things. So I think for others a good way to start the day would be to read and meditate on the Psalms.
“Lord! early hear my voice, early I will appear before You, and I will wait.” (Ps. 5:3)
Let prayer be the first thing that comes out of your mouth when you wake up and still lie in bed: “Lord, I love you. I need You. Help me, Lord.” Let these words be the first thing that comes out of your mouth in the morning. And then, come before the Lord and wait. I think that coming before the Lord means that I have my attention and time dedicated to Him.
I expect the Lord to come and do what? What do I expect?
“Let me hear about Your mercy in the morning, for I rely on You. Show me the path along which I should go, for I lift up my soul to You.” (Ps. 142:8)
I expect to hear God’s mercy and I expect to hear it through His word.
“Saturate us in the morning with Your mercy, so that we may rejoice and be merry all our days.” (Ps. 89:14)
In His Word we see the revelation of His mercy and guidance for our lives with a deep sense of satisfaction that God is amazing and He cares for us.
“My eyes go before the morning watch to meditate on Your word.” (Ps. 119:148)
“How dear are Your thoughts to me, God, How great are their number! I will begin to count them – they are more numerous than sand. When I wake up, I am still with You.” (Ps. 139:17-18)
Before you go to bed, make a decision and make a plan to break free from sugar addictions and avoidance habits that are destroying the potential of your morning.
Source: yeshua.org, book by Tony Reinke – 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You Paperback (2017)
