I was over at my friend's house yesterday and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was playing in the background. If you've ever seen the show you know that the clubhouse has "Handy Helpers" which are basically a bunch of mechanical butlers shaped like Mickey's glove (which kinda sounds weird so here's a picture).
So in the episode the doorbell rings and the handy helper gets stuck and is unable to open the door. This throws Mickey into a mini whirlwind because he fears his friends can't get inside without the handy helper opening the door! Eeek! Then good ol' Pluto comes to the rescue and points with his ear to the doorknob which Mickey realizes he must open himself in order for his friends to join him. Once inside, the friends join Mickey in figuring out what's wrong the machines and how to fix it. But it was the beinning of the episode that grabbed my attention....
We are so dependent on technology these days that even Mickey Mouse doesn't know how to function without it - in turn teaching our young ones that they too will have a hard time without technology. I have a friend with a 5 year old boy who can search youtube.com all by himself and knows how to use the laptop. My other friend has a 3 year old girl who can open up the dvd player and get the movie she wants to watch all set up to play. And younger and younger kids are exposed to cell phones and laptops.
Its like we're set up from infancy to be dependent on technology. You wouldn't even be reading this and I wouldn't be writing this without technology. I noticed that once I got a smart phone I couldn't put it down and even today, 6 weeks later, I have a difficult time stepping away from email, twitter, facebook, games and text messages. We can follow what celebrities are up to, checking out the pictures and videos they post and the websites they recommend. We can follow blogs about food, animals, organizations, politics and any other topic under the sun. We live with the whole wide world at our fingertips.
I shut down my facebook account on August 31st and while I've had time without facebook before this time it is different. I've noticed my friends are going through difficult times and they just assume I've read their recent status and so they don't reach out to me any other way. I notice that I miss the statuses of friends who post encouraging Scriptures or quotes. I've felt much more out of the loop with the people that I'm around daily this time around than before - not to mention all of my friends that are at a major distance from me.
I think I (and possibly the majority of Americans) have become dependent on feeling connected to the world and this false sense of connection takes me away from the only true connection that can fill the whole in my soul. As hard as I strive to feel connected to the celebrities I follow on twitter, I should be striving twice as hard to feel connected to my Abba Father.
The sense of belonging that we're looking for in facebook and twitter and blogs won't be filled there. The desire to be connected was placed in our souls when God created us. He knew that we would need to have strong, intimate connections with Him and the people He's placed in our life. He knew that it would be good for us to have strong bonds with some of His other creations so that our souls would be whole and not lacking. The heart strings that we form with people help us know that we are not alone in the world - even when it feels like we are. And the most important connection we can develop is the one with have with Christ.
I am committing my lunchtime at work to spend in God's Word - because I know that mornings are busy and evenings I'm tired. I am going to turn my facebook account back on and use it for sharing information (like this blog, articles I come across and what not) and for touching base with a few people. I will not check my facebook before 8am and refuse to be ruled by it! My goal is to take the excess time that was filled with facebook, twitter, games and surfing the web and put it into forming my connection with God and strengthening my friendships. I'll keep you updated!
No comments:
Post a Comment