If there was ever a time when we have developed such a close relationship with a non-living thing, it would be now. Easily captivated by its allure, many of us would not be able to ignore our difficulties in resisting this highly attractive modern commodity. Nearly everyone in Singapore owns a smartphone capable of connecting us to a buffet of information unimaginable some 30 years ago, without having the wealth of information critically assessed. It should not take us too long to realise that from the minute our consciousness awakens, we make active decisions to either let our hearts and minds be shaped by our fallen world or the Giver of Life by the voices we choose to listen to and the pieces of information we choose to embrace.
Smartphones have a big role to play in our own personal entertainment hunger. Christians are not spared from the battle of attention. Truth to be told, this would land on one of the top spots if there were to be a ranking of the top struggles in the daily Christian life. Deep seated in our sinful nature, our response to the person of God is an unapologetic yawn that seeks to justify itself by self-righteous coping mechanisms - either by making a small deal of our boredom with God or the excessive focus on oneself for being an entertainment hippie who has given himself/herself up to their own objects of enslavement. Unless God does His gracious work in us to replace our sinful hearts with new hearts that can see and taste His glory, we would be left without hope to be set free from our own enslavement to the countless unreliable idols we count on for satisfaction.
Sugar rush aside, our smartphones are great partners with our self-centric esteem. It is not a presumptuous statement to say that in this age we have developed a certain sense of loneliness where we’re not being engaged in the digital space. In us is a hunger to be talked to, to be remembered and to be spoken with; yet our utmost concern has turned into how we look like to others. Our lost taste for God’s supreme worth and beauty distorts what we believe about our identity and what our self-worth is based on and determined by. Hence we are met with an age of superficiality; to play it safe is the way to protect oneself from being put in a position to potentially suffer the haunting effects of a jilted ego. No wonder only the best sides of us are publicised, and the deepest secrets of oneself continue to be a ticking time bomb in friendships. We need God to help us recover our love in His person. For if Love created us to bring us into relationship with Him, we need to take God at His word that He made us with worth and purpose to be all about Him.
Has our smartphones become the newest legal drug for our restlessness? Thanks be to God that He is doing a great act of mercy in many of us today by growing affections for Him stronger than that of our sinful self is capable of in its affair with our mistresses, promising freedom from our bondage to countless idols for those who would believe in Him as Saviour. For the glory of all gods will dim in the face of the glory of Him whose love is a breath of life everlasting, whose justice cannot be fairer, whose grace cannot be more generous and whose power cannot be compared to any other. Let us then by faith in Him and by the enabling of the Holy Spirit resist the influence of prince of the air and restore these idols to their rightful place - to serve God and not man.
No comments:
Post a Comment