I have a confession to make. I am addicted to technology. I’m so embarrassed to say, but I crave it. The newest Google app, the wittiest tweet of the hour, the upteenth way to label and organize my inbox. You name it.
It all came crashing down not long ago when I realized that three days in a row I’d woken up and immediately flipped open my computer. I’d check Twitter, Gmail, Facebook in that order. And I’d stay on Twitter. For like, an hour. Clicking random links, scrolling back to what was said after I went to bed the previous night. Almost an hour passes and I Command+Q TweetDeck, Safari and iTunes, I hop out of bed, get dressed and roll out of my apartment to get to campus in time for class.
Eh, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s like the next-gen version of reading the newspaper in the morning, right? Wrong. See, I’m a Christian. I’m a Christ follower. Ambassador. Imitator. In everything I do, I intend to know God better and become more like Christ.
Even if I’m “following” encouraging Christian community on Twitter, tweets from John Piper or the ESV Daily Bible Verse, nothing, absolutely nothing can compete with going to the Lord in the morning, confessing my dependence on him alone and being filled up by Him with the strength to face the day.
Twitter makes a really poor god. Facebook live feed is not worth worship. YouTube is not much better. When I really examine how much time I spend on the internet verses how much time I spend in the Word, it’s downright embarrassing.
I’d like to blame it on the J-school. being a journalism student, we interact with technology all. the. time. I had friends in a class once who conducted class discussions via Twitter feed projected on the screen during the lecture. For my online journalism class, we had to create a blog and find content to write and post about three times a week. In another class I had, magazine editing & production, an assignment was to check out different ways magazines were using social media online to interact with readers. So my excuse? Scripps was the gateway drug that led to my internet addiction and overdose.
But who is really to blame? Maybe J-school classes opened the door, but I latched on quickly. Something in me is fed by the internet. Maybe it’s the instant interaction that sometimes I don’t feel I get in my prayer life. Maybe it’s the good ol’ “make a name for yourself”-itis. Maybe, just maybe, it’s my hunger to know things that just keeps feeding itself uncontrollably.
Someone out there identifies with what I’m saying. I hate it. I hate that too often (ever at all is ‘too often’ by the way) it takes the place of quality time with God and my desire to slow down and spend time with Him.
Matthew 18:8 says:
“And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire.”
Jesus is talking about the woes of temptation to sin. Temptation will come. Sin is crouching at the door, says Genesis. But Jesus says make no provision for it. Don’t try to pander it. Don’t minimize it. Hack it.
So, this is what I’m motivated to do. Cut it off. I’m fasting from Twitter until I don’t desire it it anymore. I am determined to re-discover my ravishing hunger for God. I will live off of that and that alone. I’m turning my computer off at night so that it’s not the first thing I go to in the morning.
This is about creating self-discipline. If I say God is first in my life, I need to act accordingly. Ross King, in his song “Clear The Stage” says: Anything I put before my God is an idol / Anything I can’t stop thinking of is an idol. See, Twitter is not God. God is God. Now it’s time to trash the idols.
[Check out the video of the full Ross King song in my previous post!]
… You know, now that I think about it, writing a blog post about my internet addiction is a bit oxymoronic.
