Sleeping with the Enemy

I sleep with my phone. I don’t mean I sleep with it on the nightstand. I sleep with it. It’s in the bed with me. It’s attached to me by headphones. How weird is that? Now on the positive, I do that partly so I can go to sleep listening to music and, yes, it is mostly praise music. Yet I have to wonder if I’m sleeping with the enemy.

For example, today I woke at three a.m. and immediately started tapping icons on my phone. I quickly came across this article, Six Wrong Reasons to Check Your Phone in the Morning.  That’s kind of eye-opening when you are checking your phone at three in the morning. The article was pretty good. In summary, the author feels there are three “candy” reasons and three “avoidance” reasons that it’s wrong to check your phone in the morning.

In the “candy” group are:

1. Novelty Candy. We want to know what’s new and we want to be one of the first to know so that we can be tellers and not “tellees.”

2. Ego Candy. We want to know if someone “liked” us. Did we get reposted or retweeted. Did someone comment on our blog? It’s “like” getting a kiss. Nice way to start the day.

3. Entertainment Candy. The weirdest stuff gets posted on the internet. Things that are funny, amazing and, yes, entertaining.

4. Boredom Avoidance. Face it. Most of our lives are boring. We aren’t excited about jumping out of bed to face pretty much the same non-exciting stuff we faced yesterday and the day before.

5. Responsibility Avoidance. We all have someone expecting something from us, many of us several someones. It’s tough. It may be where great satisfaction lives, but we aren’t particularly eager to take up those crosses.

6. Hardship Avoidance. Sometimes there are real issues facing us. Most of us, at least sometimes, are in the middle of something hard. We’re not excited about jumping back into it, whatever “it” is.

I have to admit relating to all six reasons. None of them, however, are the biggest reason it’s wrong to start our day checking our phone.

Last night I attended our Wednesday night prayer and teaching session at Amana. I have to admit I wasn’t there primarily for the teaching. I needed some time in prayer and with other believers. When the teaching started I sat in the back and was, frankly, pretty distracted. When I got home I couldn’t tell my wife, without real thought, what verses were covered or if the pastor finally finished the chapter. I did come away with this: Our purpose as Christians still here on earth is getting to know more about our God. He is a wonder whose unfolding will be a life-long process. It’s a process that gives our lives real meaning, motivation and joy. Checking the phone doesn’t do that. Shouldn’t we start our day focused on Him and not on intentional distraction?

Yes, our pastor did finish Chapter 11 of Romans. It ends like this:

Doxology