I first noticed the tables.
They're increasingly empty.
We have decorated homes we don't open up to others, and good dishes that only hold dust. We worry about if our houses are clean enough, when no one sees anyway. Rsvp's go Un-respected and un-answered. Or worse, invitations have ceased to come at all. To a BBQ, for a cup of coffee, or any act of personal welcome. I have worried over it, cried about it, and been completely bewildered.
See I am a people heart. I love them. The art of them, the stories of them. All these moments of Jesus waiting. Waiting to give love, to tell a soul, " you matter ".
I love to read name tags and say their own name to them...like speaking His whisper into their heart. At Walmart, Starbucks, or on a note, to my mailman, in my box on a Monday. Because Jesus has seen me. Has time for me. Holds me while I cry, uses my name, and promises me I am not a mistake. And this Friend, this God I adore, He has asked me to love as I have been loved. This extravagant, personal, presence.
But the tables... They're collecting dust like the hollow echo of the forgetting.
We are too busy. Too wrapped up in a profile picture and a selfie. Too in awe of our own navel and our insatiable crave for knowledge.
We Google sicknesses, tattoos, travel routes, and flower shops. Best restaurants and hairstyles. We spy on our "old friend" from high school, and spit nails when we find out our morning post led to loads of gossip, leaving us feeling misunderstood and quite livid. We go on family outings and each member is seen nose kissed by a different device. And should I Shazam this song I am hearing in Target? It's endless. This hope sucking, air taking, time devouring hunger. Hunger to KNOW.
I grieve this reality a lot. Because sometimes I feel like maybe I was born in the wrong era. But mostly because I believe we have been taken, and we don't even know it.
We forget that knowledge can wear Sheeps clothing, appearing a whole lot like wisdom. We forget that satan twists a tiny, and we wake up biting an apple. That this bite can still be taken, over and over again. We forget that even here, God keeps His promises.
"...if you eat of it, you will surely die."
We continually go to that tree in the garden. The one satan promises will make us know all things. The garden of Eden was long ago, but it's story has never left the core of us. We still have that choice, day in and day out. Walk with God in the cool of the day, or will we go to that fruit again and risk the dying.
Death...
Of relationships because we didn't have time.
Of our peace, because all this knowing is worry mulling.
Of simplicity, because enough is never enough.
Of focus, because all we see is noise.
Of priorities, because we are losing the knowledge of what really matters.
Someone once told me how much of a gift it is to have the world at our fingertips, and right in our pocket. Truth be told, we do. And truth be told? I believe it will be the undoing of us. Few will cling to wisdom's wall and find their way back out.
See, we aren't made to know all things. We were made to worship. To trust the One who knows all, so we don't have too. Trust always builds the intimate things, nurturing the mattering things.
Do we trust our iPhone and android more than we trust Him? Because He is the only One who can know all things, and still have time for people. Time for me...For you. Satan tells us we can know all things, carry this world of knowledge in our pocket, and still have time. For people, and well...whatever we want...right?
I feel like I am watching the enemy bind us up. And not one by one, but indeed, by the masses. And I have ached for weeks, because I can't stop it. I can know full well, in heart and skin, that Jesus tells me people are the second greatest concern He has...and that He wants me to live with that "second greatest" always warming in a ready heart. But it becomes increasingly hard when we can't reach people behind phones, laptops, television, and Internet hype.
Social media is growing increasingly toxic. Maybe not in low doses, but it takes a strength most don't have to keep it in a low ratio. Let's be honest...sadly honest...social media has become a drug. It's dumbing down our society into a delusion that they are actually being social. Social when no person is in front of them. Just a glowing screen full of self image we work hard to display to a spying world of on lookers. Why?
Because ultimately, we want to be known as much as we seek to know all things. So we put our selves out there. Snap chats, bird-less tweets, Facebook posts, and endless profile pics. It's the things of Hashtags and hunger. Always this hunger. We do it to want the scoop, and to make ourselves appear, perhaps, as we wish we were.
Now I am a blogger { *smile* }. I use the Internet, and I can text as fast as the next person. I know social media and Internet is not all bad, and that God has and will use it. But I am alarmed at its growing misuse. Our out of bound levels of addiction to it, causing people to MISS people. How is that possible... Because it's about people right? Mostly I just think it's about us. Wanting to be known and going to the wrong place to generate it. The imitation result is isolating us all, leaving us more at risk, vulnerable, and increasingly lonely.
Jesus says we are not to forsake the fellowship of the brethren... but we are. We, as a society, do more friendship time with technology then we do humans. So much so that people are becoming uncomfortable around other people. We are becoming the isolated lonely, though we stand amidst the crowd. So we pull away. We struggle with being real away from a computer, phone, or without a typed out "post".
The enemy is gaining ground the same way he did in the beginning.
Knowledge.
He whispers in a voice that sounds like our own. "Seek to know...and you will be like God... Seek to know and you will be at peace about that weird rash...about how much weight you would have to lose to become more acceptable...about if your right about so in so being the first divorced person in your class... "
On and on he spins it. And friends, we are buying it. Hook. Line. And sinker. If we are to be honest, we all believe knowledge will save us. Save us embarrassment, time, energy, money, worry, effort, and from this always encroaching hopelessness... But what about Jesus?
Jesus saving us.
Jesus saying we are His.
Jesus giving us peace through hard health days.
Jesus showing us how to spend our time.
Jesus, giving us the joy of being known, by Him.
Jesus providing for all our financial needs.
Jesus being our hope, peace, joy, dare I say...happiness?
Jesus promising us a future and a hope.
And people? The ones he said we are to love the most, after Him... We are leaving them behind. We are too busy to see the hurting, the lonely, the raw and real of humanity right in front of our "self" worshipping faces.
There is a man near our home who lost his wife about a year ago. When we first moved in he had two beautiful white rocking chairs on their front porch. He put them away for winter and I couldn't help but feel an ache when this spring he only put out one on his porch. This man is in his late seventies. Neighbors have told me he and his wife were so in love. The cancer that took her, was long and hard. And with his kids living in California, the loneliness is stark. These first few days of spring, with each walk I take, I am taken aback by that lone rocking chair. Why at night it just sits there, glowing sharp. And I am grieved at how this Spring, this man believed he only need put out one chair... Because no one would come, and his beloved was gone.
I wonder if our society's "way" grieves Jesus. How technology has become a large stumbling block keeping us from the greatest two. How people sit on white rockers alone, in their greatest times of need, because we're just going too fast.
satan, in his vile brilliance, just wants us to forget. Forget to seek FIRST God's kingdom. To forget to love others as Jesus loved us.
" ...You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. ON THESE TWO COMMANDMENTS DEPEND THE WHOLE law and the prophets."
~Matt. 22:37-40
On these two, depend the whole.
I wonder if John would have loved Jesus as much as he did if Jesus never had supper with him, walked with him? What if Jesus only connected with people through the technology He knew was coming anyway... Would John have grown to love Jesus as deeply if they just texted? Or if Jesus occasionally "liked" his Instagram post... Surely John could build love for a Savior on that right?
Or the leper Jesus dared touch ( Matt 8:1-3). Jesus broke a religious law to be personal with him, using close proximity and touch. What if Jesus would have just sent a healing prayer text... The power of personal risk would have been lost. Deep personal risk. Jesus let go of his reputation and risked his ministry... Because he knew the untouchable man, needed to know he was worth it. Jesus looked into people's eyes. He saw them. Perhaps this idea of what if seems extreme... And yet it's exactly what we do. We don't relate personally to 367 people in a friend list. We allow 367 people to spy on us... But what about a cup of coffee when one of them is hurting? What about mowing her lawn because her husband died last year? What about looking them in the eye when they risk telling you their raw? Even if it makes YOU uncomfortable...
Why do we hide and pose as the caring?
I know that prayer texts and technology can be helpful, but not if it's hiding. Not if its side skirting personal touch. It just isn't the example Jesus gave. Technology rarely makes us go out of our way to be personal. Usually it makes it easier for us to get around having too. We even "fight" with friends and family over text. We seek forgiveness without looking people in the eye, when looking them in the face calls out the holy in things. It tells more than we know. Saying full faced, "you matter. To Jesus, and to me."
I was at Village Inn this week. I love these sort of places. The ones the elderly generation adopts. They come together in these spots, and they do it often. And when I come, I find myself watching them, smiling quietly to myself. What they do is captivating. Amidst coffee cups and laughter, they meet. Week after week after week. Trouble is, I have had the reoccurring thought lately, that when their generation dies, so will the art they have mastered. This meeting each other for the joy of it. For coffee, a bite to eat, catching up, and being there for one another. I feel like bravely walking up and asking them if there is something I can learn so I can help save it. That my generation has been lazy and lax. And that the beauty they do so well will be lost forever... I feel like asking them if I can sit with them too. Can this 35 sit amongst their 70? Because I don't want the art to disappear, I want to be apart of it.
The past couple of weeks, I have wanted to put my iPhone in a drawer. I have thought more and more about how wonderful it would be to live off the technology grid. To live slower, look longer, and be fully present in each moment. To make changes that nurture Jesus idea of personal. He said in Hebrews, not to forsake fellowship. But here we are, doing just that.
" and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; all the more, as you see the day is drawing near."
~ Hebrews 10:24-25
I don't want to be included in the "habit of some." I want to live brave. Brave enough to look into people's eyes, so they know Jesus sees them too. I want to not check my phone every couple of minutes, while I am with someone else. Because I want to be one who stimulates love and good deeds. And I can't do that well, if I am lost in social technology.
My prayer is that you won't roll your eyes at this post, before you ask yourself some questions. Before you allow God a moment to talk with you on a very important topic...people. The ones He asked you to love, the same way He personally has loved you. Can you do that inside your current habits? If you had your phone and computer taken away, would your relationships function? Do you help others with physical presence?
Unchecked, and imbalanced technology use, can lose people. It can take love instead of give it. People feel rushed, overlooked, and frustrated on a regular basis. When we check our phone while with them. When we choose to discuss serious things behind the protection of a screen, instead of in person. When we don't have time to look up, to see their eyes. Our habits can feel like weight. Weight others have to carry because we have become more and more impersonal and careless. When we become antisocial because of our high tech obsession.
I read this verse that was describing Pharisaism, but oddly, it described a bit of our society too. This being all talk, and perhaps some pictures, but little to no effort. And of the effect this can have on other people's souls.
"And they tie up heavy loads, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men...
But the greatest among you shall be a servant" ~ Matt. 23:4-5a, 11.
I am not pointing fingers. I am convicted and grieved, as I hope you are too. Because Jesus way with others was present. In words, deeds, and effort. And He is our example.
Friend. Would you be willing to ask yourself the hard questions too? Please? There is a fading art at stake. And it matters.
Much love,
Liz
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