The New Normal

I have an iPhone which I love (with service from AT&T that I LOATHE). And I will admit, I have become dependent on my iPhone.

• It alerts me of meetings.
• It keeps me organized (TeuxDeux).
• It is my Bible (YouVersion) in my pocket.
• It is my calendar.
• It is my phone.
• It is my answer to every trivia question (google).
• It is my map (Bing).
• It is my camera (gorillacam).
• It is my almanac (Weather Channel).
• It is my iPod.
• It is my alarm clock.
• It is my flashlight.
• It is my entertainment.
• It is my social connection (text, email, Facebook, Twitter, HootSuite, WordPress, LinkedIN, YouTube).
• It buzzes when a text comes in. This keeps me connected to people that I wouldn’t be able to stay connected with if we had to make time for full sentences with words spelled correctly (thnx 4 undrstandin). My mom has even resigned to text as the primary means to reach me. I receive email on my iPhone. Work and personal email. More conversations. And, that keeps me in touch with what is going on in the world of Facebook (more conversations). And let’s don’t even talk about Twitter.

Obviously, I have a problem (ask my wife). We’re not yet sure if the actual addiction is to the physical device, or the addiction to connection and conversation..or worse yet..maybe I’ve become utterly dependent on this device for nearly every day-to-day activity. I once was able to remember phone numbers. Not anymore. I once was able to remember what I had to to tomorrow. Not anymore. And the list goes on, and on.

But, COULD I live without it? (Sure..my life would go back to B.I.–before iPhone..and I would survive.)

I hope my gross exaggeration makes my point for me. We get so comfortable with our “stuff” and our “things.” We even become dependent on them.

A.W. Tozer says, “..things..were made for man’s use, but they were meant always to be external to the man and subservient to him. In the deep heart of the man was a shrine where none but God was worthy to come. Within him was God; without, a thousand gifts which God had showered upon him. .. Things have become necessary to us, a development never originally intended. God’s gifts now take the place of God, and the whole course of nature is upset by the monstrous substitution.” (The Pursuit of God)

In the Old Testament, God commanded Abraham to give up his stuff and move to another town. Abraham complied. Then God commanded Abraham to give up more of his stuff by sacrificing the very thing that meant the most to Abraham..his song Isaac. And you know what..Abraham was prepared to do so. As the story goes, Abraham leads his son to the mountaintop, prepares the altar, binds the young Isaac and lifts his blade to carry out God’s command and at the last second God stops Abraham. It was only a test.

WOW!

I want to obey God..but at what cost?

I love my stuff..and I NEED my stuff!

Tozer continues, “So we will be brought one by one to the testing place, and we may never know when we are there. At that testing place there will be no dozen possible choices for us–just one and an alternative–but our whole future will be conditioned by the choice we make.”

Would you be so bold as to pray this prayer today:

Father, I want to know You, but my cowardly heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from You the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that You may enter and dwell there without rival. Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for You will be the light of it, and there shall be no night there. In Jesus’ name. Amen.