Unplugged and Listening
While going through some old files, I found my notes from another day at a conference in Nashville a few years ago. I started my notes with this: “My brain is at capacity as I go to the last session today!”
It was a Christian leadership and learning conference. However, one of the speakers, Kaiwei Tang, told the group that he was not a person of faith. In the session interview, he was asked what made him use his innovation skills to invent a small, sleek, and modern phone that is not a smart phone? His invention could only make and receive calls. Pretty retro for our advancing technology. You can't store names or numbers. His response was that he was on a train in New York and saw a Chase Bank advertisement that had a picture of a man holding his young daughter in one hand who 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 answer was to invent a phone that would allow him to be available to his mom if she needed him but also unplugged from his distractions.
I left the session and headed to a late lunch and saw a crowd gathering in a downtown park, so I walked over. It was an award ceremony and induction for the Nashville Walk of Fame, and Amy Grant was being inducted. I thought of all the Amy Grant songs I have sung over the years and remembered the one from the verse below, which I learned maybe 30 plus years ago. As I watched this ceremony, the words to the song, “Thy Word,” rang in my head.
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 with distraction. One thing I am thinking about is how I can find times to unplug so that we are present and available to the conversations with the people in our paths and to the God who lights our paths.
It was just a week ago that I retired from my 20 years as president of Point University. As I pause this month before working in a different role and with a different schedule, I am fully aware that I have been plugged in for a long time and need to learn to take a breath. Honestly, whether you are working full time, part time, or some time, I suspect that you need the same thing—namely, a few minutes or hours during the week where your devices are not top of mind. It will take some discipline, but I bet we can both find ways to slow down, unplug, and simply listen to God, to our family, and to our friends. And, best of all, maybe in person.
Your Time with God’s Word
Psalms 81:1,6-16, 92:1-2, 4, 12-15, 119:17-18, 29, 32, 36-37, 105 ESV
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