At first I thought it was just one group of middle-aged women, but then I noticed it had nothing to do with age. Everyone was continually looking at their phones. Teens, young moms, senior adults, and business folks. Some were actually texting as they continued to talk to the people in front of them. Just as I was tempted to make a snap judgement on attention spans and the discourteous multi-tasking I realized I too, had glanced down at my phone at least three times while making my observation, although I was alone. It occurred to me that technology has hijacked our attention, or made all of us ADD. But I think it's part of a bigger problem that began before our obsession with gadgets. Technology just expedited it.
What happens when a culture is possessed by its possessions? Our big screens, cars, boats, golf clubs, laptops, iPads/Kindles, Samsung, Androids, iPhones, and homes can become our masters if we aren't careful. One night of FB posting and surfing can turn into multiple nights of endless hours reading about a long lost high school friend's new love life, or job. Nothing wrong with FB either, but there is something wrong when our gadgets/possessions hold us hostage from relating to family, friends, and others in meaningful conversation that demands our undivided attention. Charles Spurgeon even called it a "fearful disease,"---the divided heart:
A stony heart may be turned to flesh but turn a divided heart into whatsoever you please, so long as it is divided, all is ill. Nothing can go right when that which should be one organ becomes two; when the one motive power begins to send forth its life-floods into two diverse channels, and so creates intestine strife and war. A united heart is life to a man, but if the heart be cut in twain, in the highest, deepest, and most spiritual sense, he dies. It is a disease which is not only affecting a vital part, but affecting it after the most deadly fashion.
Jesus saw this long ago. He knew the human heart could be hijacked from God's purposes. He knew our loyalties could be fleeting. In Matthew 22, in response to a trick question from the Pharisees, Jesus provides an answer that really addresses this issue. He reminds us to give Caesar what is Caesar's, but to give God what is God's. The point, everything is God's! Especially our possessions, talent, finances, and resources. He is reminding the legalists that NOTHING trumps God. Even Caesar had human and earthly limitations, but not God. God should get ALL because God not only provided it, but He gave ALL, in giving us Jesus Christ! As I use these resources, I need to regularly remind myself to use them, but to guard against being being used by them.
I'm worried that some people aren't going to be able to cope in heaven without a Smartphone. God's not a phone call or text away, but a breath!
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