the truth about screen time!
Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matt. 6:33)
As I picked up my phone for probably the 100000th time that day, I opened up my settings, curious of what my screen time was. I clicked on the screen time icon, and expecting to see maybe a 3-4 hour average, I watched as the bar grew higher, into the range of 6-7 hours. Mind you, this was a Tuesday and I’m at school for 7 hours a day… that's just sad. I sat there, staring at the screen, feeling shocked and disappointed. It was no wonder I didn’t have the happiness and fulfillment I thought was impossible to find.
Now, before you continue reading, I want you to do the same. Go on your phone, to your settings and find your screen time. Then, consider how much time you are busy working or at school. Is it reasonable?
Some of the time I am on my phone goes towards the bible app. But, when I looked closer I realized that my time on the bible app is nothing compared to the time on social media. Here were my screen time stats for that day:
Total time: 7 hours, 19 minutes
Productivity and Finance: 1 hour, 6 minutes
Entertainment: 55 minutes
Social media: 1 hour, 38 minutes.
My time on social media not only overpowered my time on the bible app, but it overpowered my time in my physical bible.
During this time of life, I felt like finding purpose and fulfillment was impossible. But, the only one making it impossible was me. God wanted to spend time with me, but rather, I turned my attention to the worldly lifestyle.
When I spent so much time on social media, I didn’t gain the happiness and true life that I wanted, obviously. What I gained was a lack of self confidence, anxiety and depression. All the wrong things.
I am not going to sit here and say that time on our phones and social media is horrible and that we should get rid of it all. But, when we stop letting our devices be entertainment and we start letting it be influencing and life changing, that's where it goes wrong.
Using it for entertainment is great!
But using it for a lifestyle is not so great.
If we want to find the way, the truth, and the life, we have to find Jesus. (John 14:6) The only way to find Jesus is by seeking His kingdom first. (Matt. 6:33) BOOM! 2 bible verses in one point!
We can scroll through social media all day, but we will never get back the time we could have spent growing our relationship with Jesus. Jesus is eager to hear from us. He wants us to find Him and spend time with Him. But, Jesus doesn't force us into it. It’s our decision on if we want the eternal life that He brings.
Like any other relationship, you need effort from both sides. If one side is truly engaged in the relationship and the other is sitting there, ignoring them and engaging in their social media influencers, it will never work. Jesus puts in His effort. It's up to us to do it too.
We keep feeding our souls with things of this world. With that, we begin to get mentally and physically exhausted. We need to protect our heart and watch what we let into it.
When we fill it with the life and truth of the bible, we can breathe again. We can breathe fresh, peaceful air. We can walk knowing who we are in Christ and what our purpose is through Him.
This is my challenge for you:
10 minutes.
Take 10 minutes out of your day to open the word of God or just talk to Him. Put down the distractions, let go of the world, and let God in.
I promise you, you have 10 minutes in the day to find Jesus.
And I know for a fact that when you do, it's all worth it.
