Unplug to Listen
Today as I read scripture, I had a flashback to something I heard and experienced in April of 2017. I was at the last session of a conference I attended in Nashville. My brain felt like it was at capacity as I went to the final session of a 3-day conference where I had listened to some 40 different speakers.
Kaiwei Tang was being interviewed. In the workshop I attended he said he wasn't a person of faith. He was asked by the host what made him use his innovation skills to invent a small, sleek, and modern phone that was not a smart phone? Remember those phones? The only thing they did was make and receive calls. You can't store names or numbers.
Tang’s response was that one day he was riding on a subway train in New York and saw a Chase Bank advertisement that had a picture of a man holding his young daughter in one hand and she was looking up at him. The dad was holding his smartphone and looking at it. The ad said, “Chase Bank lets you focus on the most important thing in life!”
Kaiwei said that image was so powerful that he thought he needed to find ways to not be so distracted by the technology we carry that we miss life. His solution to his problem was to invent a phone that would allow him to be available to his family if they needed him but unplugged from all other distractions.
I left the session and headed to a late lunch and saw a crowd gathering in a downtown park, so I walked over to see what was happing. It was an award ceremony and induction into the Nashville Walk of Fame, and Amy Grant was being inducted. I thought of all the Amy Grant songs I had sung over the years and remembered a line from one of her huge hits: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”
What strikes me this morning is how our technology consumes us to the point that we struggle to unplug long enough to really meditate and consider how God's word does light our path. In the passage below the psalmist says, "O Israel if you would but listen to me!" It is so hard to listen to another person while we are consumed with distraction. It is harder to listen to an invisible God when we are bombarded by constant social media and political soundbites.
As we are early in this season of Lent, it seems relevant that I challenge you as I challenge myself to find ways and times that we simply unplug so that we can be present with the Lord and with each other.
As we contemplate the path that Jesus walked toward Calvary, it seems appropriate for us to find ways and times to slow our pace and consider the truth of scripture as it reveals the path of obedience and surrender that we are called to accept. There is no magic to this process, but it does require that we are willing to say no to something in order to say yes to the silence as we seek to align ourselves with Jesus.
Father, today give us the courage and discipline to say no to the noise that we might be available to listen for your voice as you speak to us in prayer and through your word. We pray that our time with you would allow us to be more available to the people around us. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Your Time with God’s Word
Psalms 81:1, 6-16, 92:1-2, 4, 12-15, 119:17-18, 29, 32, 36-37 ESV
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