A few week ago I was sat in the dentist waiting room for my first ever filling!!! I’m not afraid of the dentist so that didn’t bother me. What did bother me was the fact that I left my phone at home!! I have never ever in my life left my phone at home.
I was sat on my own in a white room with nothing to do. No facebook to scroll through, tweets to tweet, instragram to browse, emails to check, texts to to send, weather to check, buzz feed to read….. nothing. I was there for 20 minutes and boy did it drag.
Here’s an honest one for you….I realised that I think I might be addicted to my phone.
Every time I’m waiting for something I’ll check my phone. Waiting in a que, waiting in the car, waiting for the kettle to boil, waiting in a coffee shop, sat on a train, first thing in the morning, last thing at night, throughout the day…. What am I doing? Checking my phone!
I rarely look around me, speak to other people or just ‘think’.
I wonder how much more I would notice if I wasn’t on my phone? I wonder what I would think about if my mind wasn’t being filled with other people’s posts.
I’m not saying phones are wrong… but I know I’m definitely on mine too much!
A few weeks ago I was on a train home and I was just about to put Spotify on when a lady in front of me got out a file of songs in Persian. I asked her what she was doing and she said she ran a singing class for refugees at her church. We had a great chat about what she did, about Fusion and what I did and about church. I noticed she had her arm strapped up so I also ended up praying for her for healing. It was a great train journey and I felt so excited by what had just happened.
I wonder if that would happen once a week rather than once a year if I wasn’t so absorbed by a screen every day.
I wonder what the holy spirit would nudge me about, or what prayers I could pray or people I could tell Jesus to, if I was more aware of what was happening around me?
This Christmas (and an early new years resolution…) I’m going to challenge myself to not be on my phone so much! I’m going to go cold turkey for a whole day and not use my phone at all. I’m also going to quit social media first thing in the morning and last thing at night. When I’m ‘waiting’ for something, I’m going to look around, think about more and engage with others more. Christmas is supposed to be a time of friends and family and the special people in your life. What a perfect time to start to focus on those around us more. What a perfect time to start to use the waiting space in your life to pray more and get to know Jesus more.
