As usual, I have had many ideas for blogs running through my head but little time to write them. And my time today has been cut down even more – for lovely reasons though. It was the last day of my children’s holiday before school starts back. We had a friend drop by in the morning and then this afternoon we took a spur of the minute decision and went to the cinema. It’s been a really precious time – but that’s not the point of this blog!
What I want to think about today is whether our technogically based lives these days leave any space to properly connect with God. With phones that gives us instant access to the internet it means that not only can people reach us at any time, anywhere, we can also be constantly connected to twitter, facebook and other networking sites. And, be honest, how hard it is to ignore those status updates that show a new posting has come through?!
I obviously don’t know what your own personal devotional times with God look like, but I’ve been thinking about mine ever since someone I’ve been mentoring emailed to ask how much time she should be spending with God one on one, and how much time do I spend. At first I was rather disgruntled by the questions – after all it isn’t about quantity but about quality right? And each individual needs to work out how they best connect to God and when. But then I was ashamed. Ashamed and not wanting to answer her question. Because recently I’ve got busier and busier with work and I had to acknowledge the fact that making time for God has got harder. It has been significantly harder since having kids but the last quarter of this year I can look back and see I didn’t do much quiet dwelling in God’s presence. There was always a bit of work to do, the kids to sort, someone who needed my help at church – oh and a few hundred tweets to wade through. And I would say I’m worse off now.
Don’t get me wrong – I think the things we can achieve via the internet, and the connections we can make with other individuals (and for me the work contacts I’ve made) are fantastic. But keeping up with the very small amount of social networking I do has made it even harder for me to connect to God – because it is just one more thing that gets in the way – that I find vies for my attention and often wins over quality time with my maker.
I watched the last episode of Living with the Amish over the holiday period and, again, was challenged on the same point. One family had left the most strict Amish community and was going it alone. This meant they had embraced some technological advances – including the internet. The eldest daughter of the family was interviewed and she said that her brothers now have facebook and twitter. She said she didn’t know what they were (and didn’t want to know) but she was sad for her brothers, because they now wasted so much time that they could be reading God’s word – and she then patted her Bible as if it was her most precious possession. That really resonated with me. Not because I want to give up on the internet, but I do want to make sure my priorities are straight as I start this new year – with all the joys and challenges it will most certainly bring. How about you? Are you connecting with God as well as you are with others on the internet?
