By John Grant
Week Nine, 2018
DISCONNECT TO RECONNECT
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. – Romans 12:2
Are you on digital overload… Internet, email, FaceBook, Twitter and the list goes on. Social media swallows more than a quarter of time spent online and a third of all internet usage is now happening via mobile, a new global report has found.
The average person has five social media accounts and spends around 1 hour and 40 minutes browsing these networks every day, accounting for 28 percent of the total time spent on the internet.
Have you thought about doing a digital fast? This includes cutting off all access to the Internet, television, email, cell phones and even radio for a day or a few days. This kind of fasting is very hard to do but it is exceedingly rewarding because all of a sudden, you have more time to read your Bible, play with your children, talk with your spouse, take a walk and contemplate just how good God is.
no phone
A Jewish organization called Reboot promotes a nonsectarian concept they call “digital Sabbath.” It’s a day of rest in which people disconnect from technology—particularly computers, iPads, and smartphones—so that they can reconnect with the real world.
The digital Sabbath is not a punishment but rather a means through which one can lay aside the world’s cares (at least the ones communicated to us via digital technology). This is akin to the ancient Christian habit of ritual fasting, which is still observed with relative strictness by many Christians. Many faithful Christians observe Lent—the forty-day period before Holy Week—by abstaining from meat, fish, dairy, and other foods. They must also increase their prayer, repentance, and worship.
This fasting teaches us to rid ourselves of accumulated distractions that keep our eyes from seeing our faith clearly. How about you (and me)? Are we up to a digital fast in order to see our real world. Have you thought about how much you could grow spiritually if you spent as much time in the Word and we do on social media? Let’s give it a try.
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SOMETIMES TRUE STORIES
Advice from Dr. Irwin Lutzer on praying for prodigals:
These five steps can change your life and relationships with those whom you love have drifted away. It is not uncommon for children to be brought up in a Christian home and church and later, sometimes even in adulthood drift away and sink in sin. You want so badly for them to return to the fold and here are his suggested five steps:
1. Pray for God to change you more than you pray for God to change the prodigal. It is easier to repent from sin than it is from unrighteousness.
2. Surrender that person to God and let Him deal with it. Don’t just rely on your own strength.
3. Pray for God to change that person’s heart. He can and you can’t.
4. Let sin run its course. So often we want to intrude to cause deeper harm from being experienced, but God can use tragedy and difficulties in marvelous ways.
5. Always welcome them home. Only God can bring them home, but you can welcome them back. Hold no grudges. Demand no repayment. Just welcome them back with unconditional love.
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PEW FOUNDATION STUDY:
The share of U.S. adults who say they believe in God, while still remarkably high by comparison with other advanced industrial countries, has declined modestly, from approximately 92% to 89%, since Pew Research Center conducted its first Landscape Study in 2007.
The share of Americans who say they are “absolutely certain” God exists has dropped more sharply, from 71% in 2007 to 63% in 2014. And the percentages who say they pray every day, attend religious services regularly and consider religion to be very important in their lives also have ticked down by small but statistically significant margins.
The falloff in traditional religious beliefs and practices coincides with changes in the religious composition of the U.S. public. A growing share of Americans are religiously unaffiliated, including some who self-identify as atheists or agnostics as well as many who describe their religion as “nothing in particular.” Altogether, the religiously unaffiliated (also called the “nones”) now account for 23% of the adult population, up from 16% in 2007.
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QUOTES YOU CAN USE
With a rooster or without a rooster, God will still make the dawn.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. Winston Churchill
He who laughs last may laugh best, but those who can laugh together know the joy of brotherhood. Dwight Short
You don’t get to choose the life you have, but you do get to choose who you are going to be in it. —Unknown wise person
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©2018 John Grant | Florida State Senator (Ret.) | 10025 Orange Grove Drive | Tampa, FL 33618