[Apologetics] I don't know about ya'll but I REALLY needed to read this article

[Dianne Dawson]

Unplugging the Info-Tech God 

Sep 1, 2010 
Joe Carter 
I never find the time to be alone with God during the week, so I’ve dedicated 
this Sunday afternoon to prayer. But before I do I should check my e-mail so I 
won’t be distracted. It won’t take long before. . . Thirty-two new messages, 
including one from the boss? I better reply right now. They might be important. 


Some invitations from Facebook. Those are easy to clear out so let me accept 
them and I’m . . . hmm, I didn’t realize I had more notifications. Looks like 
Stacy finally launched a blog; I’ll just click through really quickly to check 
it out. Some great stuff. I really should add her blog to my RSS reader before I 
forget. What, “More than 100+ items”? Didn’t I just check this yesterday? I 
should really whittle these down a bit before it gets worse.

Wow, here I was about to focus on prayer and Bible study and my favorite 
theology-blogger has an excellent post on spiritual disciples. I have to share 
that with my own blog readers. That’s a topic that’s really on my heart today, 
and it won’t take long.

Hmm, looks like some comments are hung up in our spam filter again. Better fix 
that, or people will be discouraged from commenting. Oh man, does this guy 
misrepresent what I wrote. I can’t let that go unchallenged. Readers might be 
led astray. It won’t take long.

OK, now I need to buckle down and pray. Let me check the time on my iPhone—no 
way, it’s been four hours?—and who are these voicemails from?

I better check them in case my boss is calling to see why I didn’t answer that 
email, which would be really rude of him since this is Sunday, and I told 
everyone that I now devote Sunday to church and prayer and Bible Study and—no, 
not him, it’s my buddy asking if I got his e-mail. All right, that’s it. I 
really need to spend some quality time with the Lord.

But before I get started I should check my e-mail. It’s been four hours . . . 

We consider it peculiar that Muslims stop five times a day to offer prayers to 
Allah, yet we stop what we do five times an hour to pay homage to our e-mail. 
“One of the most basic biblical insights,” says theologian J.I. Packer, “is that 
whatever controls and shapes one’s life is in effect the god one worships.” For 
many of us, the one true god to whom we give our devotion is the deity known as 
IT: information technology.

My work (my career revolves around the web), my schedule (everything carefully 
structured on my Google Calendar), my habits (checking my e-mail is both the 
first and last thing I do every day), are all defined by my relationship with 
the god of IT. Am I alone? Am I the only one who has sung a hymn about spending 
eternity worshipping God and secretly believed that heaven must be an incredible 
bore? (No e-mail? No YouTube? No First Things Online?)

When I look at how I spend my time it becomes obvious where my true devotion 
lies. And like Jehovah, Technology is a jealous god. 

But an ancient practice has helped me dethrone this idol: Sabbath-keeping. In 
Surviving Information Overload, Keith Miller recommends taking an “info-techno 
Sabbath,” a 24-hour period when we turn off the cell phone, leave the iPad in 
the drawer, and stay away from the computer.

The Sabbath . . . had two purposes: rest and remembrance of God. An info-techno 
Sabbath, as I dub it, has the same goals: rest for our minds and over stimulated 
senses and remembrance that life is bigger than the news stories, stock quotes, 
and sports scores. It’s bigger than our selves. There is, in fact, a God. And we 
are not it.

After putting Miller’s idea into practice for several months I quickly came to 
two realizations: Sabbath-keeping is very difficult, and it pays dividends I 
could never have imagined.

The benefits everyone has to discover for himself. I don’t have the words to 
describe how God filled this new quiet space in my life. And unexpectedly, this 
rest from information has also helped me understand and process all the 
information I receive. Reflection and rest is the only way to sift through the 
huge stockpiles of data to find the kernels of wisdom.

As for the difficulty, though, I’ve learned certain lessons worth passing along 
to those willing to give this a try:

• Choose your own Sabbath. An info-techno Sabbath does not have to overlap with 
normal Sabbath observance. Choose a 24-hour period that works best for you. 
Following the example of Judaism, where the day runs from sunset to sunset, I’ve 
found that sundown on Saturday to sundown on Sunday works best for me. The break 
allows me time to rest before preparing for the week ahead.

• Begin and end with prayer. Take time to pray and dedicate the time to God. End 
it with a spiritual discipline of solitude, Bible study, and more prayer.

• Let people know you are unplugging. Friends and family know that they won’t be 
able to reach me on my cell phone during my Sabbath, since it is dedicated to 
personal, face-to-face connections. Once people know that you are “off the info 
grid” they’ll be less likely to bother you with minor interruptions.

• Avoid legalism. A few weeks into the experiment I found myself lost on the way 
to a friend’s house. I had my cell phone (turned off) but didn’t want to “break 
my Sabbath” by using it to get direction. After stressing over what to do, I 
realized that I was developing legalistic rules that negated the purpose of my 
Sabbath. As Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” 
(Mark 2:27). 


Why not take an info-techno Sabbath this weekend? It won't be pleasant for your 
synapses will scream from the perceived dehydration. After drinking from the 
firehose of information, a day without info tech will seem like a year-long 
drought. But by unplugging the God of Technology you might just find something 
new: a still small voice sharing the information that truly matters.

Joe Carter is web editor of First Things.
 
source: 
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/09/unplugging-the-info-tech-god 


      
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