Put down the phone, pick up the word

In a world full of constant scrolling and endless noise, it’s easy to lose sight of what truly fills us. In this episode, Put Down the Phone, Pick Up the Word, we’re talking about the struggle to stay present, the pull of distraction, and the intentional choice to turn our attention back to God. This isn’t about guilt—it’s about grace, small shifts, and creating space to hear His voice in our everyday lives. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, welcome back to the Living with Grace and Stars podcast. We are your co-hosts, Katie and Sierra. And Katie, I don't know about you, but I feel like in today's world, there's so many distractions that are pulling us left, right, forward, backwards. Um, and so I that's why we just feel led today about talking about what it looks like to be present in life and also being present in the word.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Yeah, I think that there this is such a relevant topic because we are all busy in so many different ways, and there's so many different things going on in our lives that pull us whichever direction and that fight for our attention that we often have to work really hard to be intentional and to be present in our lives because we can be participants but not actually be present, I think, if that makes sense, because I may be here and I may be doing these things, but am I actually intentionally doing these things and am I actually even devoting brain space to that thing, or am I thinking about something else I have to do? And so I think it's such a relevant topic, especially probably for women, maybe more than men. I don't know. My husband seems pretty present in everything that he's doing. Um, but I think as women we feel this weight to carry a bunch of different things, and so it's hard often to fight and to intentionally be present in the relationships that we have in our lives, and then also in the word. And I think that's why we wanted to talk about it today.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Absolutely. Um, we joked about it earlier about having different hats, especially as women. We wear different hats, and sometimes life just gets so busy that it's almost like we have to keep all the hats in our back pocket and need to be ready to switch and put a new one on because this person needs this version of me. And not necessarily that you're changing yourself. I don't want it to make sound like that, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:05

But that this our jobs pull us in different ways, like with me being an athletic trainer and your job need to be a physical therapist, and then when you come home, now you need to put the hat on of being a mom, like we really can just Yeah, I I think that's a great the hat example is such a great visual for me because I do feel like I have so many different roles that I have to play in life of the PT and then the mom and then the Bible study teacher and then the wife and all these different things. And so, how practically do I show up in every single one of those situations when people need different things from me and uh but still be present? Um, and it's not always easy, it's hard sometimes to do that, but I know that it's important to do because when we're present in our daily lives, when we're present in the relationships or the situations that we're in in that moment, we can better see what God is doing. Because if I'm thinking about what I need to do tomorrow or even what I need to do tonight whenever I get home, then I am missing out on something in the situation I'm in right there. And obviously, I'm not saying don't think about life. We know that we have to make plans, we know that there's other things going on we have to consider, but I really think if we are present in the moment, then we have a much better picture of what God's doing right there in that situation, and how do we respond in that? But so often we're thinking 15 steps ahead and not even present where we're at.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Yes, like I'm constantly thinking of my schedule because my schedule's changing weekly where I'm going for contracts and um work and the things I need to do at work. Like I can sit here right now and just be thinking of all my list of to-dos I have to get done on coming Monday. Um, but I did I joke with my mom about this, about how she has like her inner monologue. I know, I know that she is either replaying conversations she's had, or she's thinking about things at work because she's the office manager, or she's thinking about the plans coming up, or like she has all these things going in her head that I can almost see that she's in a way kind of tuned everything else out. Yeah. Um, and I'm very guilty of doing that too. I can easily get in my head and go through these lists and plans, and but I'm missing what's happening. Yeah, I'm here hanging with the kids. I can miss something funny that J.R. Grace has said.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Yeah, the I see that all the time, and it's been such a conviction to me. Like when I'm in the car with the kids and I'm driving and I'm listening to music, and I'm we're you know, we're listening to music together, but I'm thinking of a million other things, and they're talking and they're trying to tell me something, and then I'm like, uh-huh, yeah, uh-huh. And I have no clue what they said because I'm actually not present. I'm present, but I'm not mentally present. I'm not being intentional about my time or my conversations with them. Um, and you know, JR says the most awful wall things, and Grace is four, so she loves to correct and to tell them how he's wrong, or to make sure I know that he said whatever because she thinks he should be in trouble. Um, and so I miss those things if I'm not present and like actually attending to them at the time. Yeah. It's hard to do, um, but I know that it's worth it when we show up in relationships, when we show up for the people that God has put before us. Um but so what are some practical ways that you can think of that we do that? How do we practically show up in our day-to-day lives?

SPEAKER_00 6:02

I think one big one um that my mom has installed in me is putting your phones down at the table when you're having whether it's breakfast, lunch, dinner, a snack, yeah, at the if you're at the table, your phones are not even on you. Like they're in your bag or they're in your bedroom. Um because even to me personally, if your phone is even flipped over like screen face down on the table, it still tells me that that phone is carrying some importance. And it if I'm trying to have a conversation with you, yeah, I feel like I can't have that true vulnerability talk. Yeah. Because I know that your mind is thinking about some text that you're expecting, an email. I don't know. Yeah. Um, but I'm really happy that she taught us to do that because it's really just made me more mindful of just being present at the table.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yeah, I think I told you the story of a week or two ago when we were sitting down for dinner and we tried to always sit down at the table together to eat our meals as a family, and Grace had her toy phone, and I was like, hey, we don't have our phones at the table. I'm gonna put my phone up and you're gonna put your phone up. And it blew up into this huge thing. She was so mad at me because I wouldn't let her have her phone at the table. And I just thought, what is she seeing modeled? Is she seeing me have my phone and splitting my attention by putting it on the phone or putting it with them, being present at dinner time, talking about what we're grateful for in the day, what what's something bad that happened today, or what's something that wasn't great that you didn't like, or whatever it is. Um, we have great conversation when we are there with each other. And we have created this culture where we think we have to have our phones all the time. Um, I always laugh because when I was growing up, we still had a corded phone at home. We also had a hands-free phone, but my parents did not have cell phones whenever I was younger. And then when they did, we certainly didn't think we could constantly get a hold of them. Um, but now that everybody carries a phone all the time, we think we have to know where everybody is all the time. And if my husband doesn't answer, then you know, me, my interest of thoughts take over, and I'm like, yeah, he's probably dead somewhere, you know, and I I laugh because I'm like, why, Katie, are you being so ridiculous about this? But it's like it's created this false sense of presence when I I'm not really there, I don't really know what's going on, you know, and we don't need to know every single thing from every single person 24 hours a day, 365, right? But we do need to be there and actually be there for the people that are with us, and so I love that. I think putting the phones down and not having them at the table is such a good just precedent to set. And you know, I've said this before being a Bible study teacher, that it is hard sometimes to teach whenever you see people with their phones. And I know that we often look at our Bibles on our phones. I do that too. I have a lot of apps that I use, but it's hard to to know as a Bible study teacher, too, if you're actually engaging with people or are they scrolling on social media, are they looking at whatever? Are they answering emails? Um, and so it has made me so much more aware of that so that I work really hard not to do that whenever I'm sitting under other people.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Whether it's in Sunday school or in um the service or whatever it is, when someone's talking, I really try to make sure I put my phone down so that they feel like I'm engaged or know that I'm engaged.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

It's even not to a point for me where because we have these these smart watches that right now as we're talking, someone's calling me and I'm trying so hard to listen to you. But this my watch is vibrating. It's it's getting close to where I'm about to go back to the the air quote old school watching. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's hard.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

You don't need that much connection, right? We don't. What we need is face-to-face interaction and to be present in the relationships and the situations we're in at that moment, um, and not this like outside connection, like you just said.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

And I know that um we've mentioned this before about those friends that don't live so close. Um, just about yes, it is harder to keep those friendships when a lot of times it's through the phone. Yeah. I mean, I'm guilty of you can ask my friend Kelsey. I'm so guilty about not texting back just because I don't like having texting conversations. Like a quick question or something, that's fine. But I just personally don't like because it doesn't feel genuine to me of having those because one, you can misread a conversation easily through words, and two, I'm doing so many other things that I'm just am I just quickly responding, or am I being genuine in that message?

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Yeah, that's that's such a good point. Because if you go to coffee with someone and you're sitting down and and having a drink, or you go to a meal, you're sharing a meal together, you are not doing 15 other things. But when we do communicate through text message or whatever, email, whatever, um, we're doing a million other things while we're having that conversation. So we're actually not present in that conversation. Exactly. We like to think that we are, but I don't think we are. I'm not. I don't think I am. It's hard, and I think that's why again we're talking about this today is being it being intentional and being present. And one of the things you and I talked about, and how do we practically do that is planning intentionally, of making sure we're setting aside time to be present with the people that we need to be present with, of not filling our schedule so full that we can't step away to actually give attention to this thing. Um, you know, I I will talk about this more kind of later on in the season, but I often think about this when I think about our neighbor Mavani. And you know, we helped her a lot. She didn't have anyone to help her. And one of the things there is that I always I never felt like I had enough time. I always felt like I was giving her leftovers. And now that she's passed away, that's something that I have had to kind of deal with and think through, and I hope has made me better in other relationships because my schedule felt so full, and I felt like I was being stretched in a million different ways that I didn't feel like I could actually be intentional and be there as much as she actually needed me to be. Um, and that has been hard to kind of reconcile because I feel like in some ways I've let her down. I let her down by not being there more. And I remember Nathan telling me one time, we have to decide to be all in or not here at all. But people don't need us to be like tiptoeing a line and half in, half out. They need us to be all in. If we're gonna be in their lives and we're gonna be intentional, then we have to show up, even when it's inconvenient, even when it's hard. And that takes intentional planning to put other things aside to do that for people.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Definitely, especially like the plan intentionally has been a bit of a challenge for me because I am definitely guilty of making my schedule so busy with work-related stuff. It's not a lot of personal functions. Um and it's almost become a joke with our friends about hey, can you put me on your schedule? And it's really been bothering me that that's how my friends see they can only that's the only way that they can get time with me. Right. And I hate that. It's really made me open my eyes. And do I really need to plan these four events in one week? Right. Can I not figure out a better spacing? So one, I'm not so tired because it's been exhausting, but two, so I can have more of that free time that I can go have coffee or go spend the night with my friend who lives in Arlington, like those kind of things.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Yeah. Yeah. And and I want to model those things for my kids too. I want my kids to live lives where they feel like they are fully present. They don't feel like they're overscheduled so much either that they can't, you know, have a sporadic, like, oh, Graham invited you over for a sleepover, but you have all these other things to do, so you can't go. You know, I don't want them to feel like that. I want there to be flexibility in our schedules. For us, that looks like our kids are involved in one extra, like one extra activity at a time. Um, we don't do four or five different things, we're not doing a bunch of different sports. And for a long time, you know, that was just church. Like church on Wednesday was their extra activity. Yeah. Um, besides our regular church attendance, they didn't do anything else. And I would feel a little guilty about that at times, but the longer we've gone, the less guilty I feel about that because I don't want them to grow up to be people that have schedules that are so full that they don't have time to come see me, you know, when they've moved and they don't live at home, or that they don't have time to go see each other or their cousins or whoever it is. Um, we don't have to do everything that we do. And I think that we, for whatever reason, have created lives, a lot of us in culture that we do a million things because we feel like we have to when really what we have to do is show up for people. Yeah. Okay, so as we have been talking about this Sierra Um and thinking through this topic and this episode for the podcast over the last several weeks, I have just been reminded, obviously, from the Lord, that life changes so quickly. I named to you yesterday, I think, like three or four different situations where life changed for people in an instant. You know, in one instance, it was almost an entire family dying in a car crash. In another instance, it was our neighbor's daughter dying suddenly. Um, in another instance, it was a medical diagnosis that changed everything literally in a moment. And I don't know if it's just that realization that we're all going to die at some point that has just made me realize or just remember, just focus on this week that everything can change so quickly. We are not guaranteed tomorrow. We are not guaranteed even five minutes from now. Um, and anything can happen. It doesn't have to be someone dying. You and I talked earlier in the car that it could be a job change, it could be a diagnosis, it could be the loss of a job, a need to move for a job, whatever it is, whatever life event happens, we all know that life changes so quickly. And it has been so heavy on my heart, that's why we have to be present. Um, for us, you know, Nathan, you know, and I've said it here before, uh, Nathan has a brain injury. JR also has a brain injury. So I have to be present for my family because my husband often needs me in ways that maybe he wouldn't if he didn't have a brain injury. My child always needs me one because he's my child uh and he's 10, but also because he has some issues too that he has to work through at times, whether at school or whatever. And so I have to be present for them. I have to be available and willing to help, even when it's inconvenient, even when it's not necessarily what I want to do, or how I would write the story. Right? There's a lot of times that I get put in a situation and I think this is not what I want to do right now. I would much rather deal with whatever than deal with what I'm dealing with. And it has been so convicting to me of this, of be present. The Lord saying, I have put you here for a reason, I have put you in life with these people for a reason and be present. Show up for them and stop trying to go this way or that way. And the only way that I can do that consistently is to be present in the word. If I am not consistently feeding myself with God's word, then I cannot be what they need me to be, and I can't be present in the way that I need to be present.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

Yeah, my mom definitely time to time will say she notices that I haven't been in the word, um, just because my attitude will just get more and more negative. Um and so it definitely being in the word definitely keeps me grounded, but then reminds me of the Lord's provision, the Lord's love. Um it helps me continue to strive to love his other children. Um that's hard sometimes. And and so yeah, it definitely it it renews our soul. Oh, for sure. What is that in Psalms? Yeah. How it renews our soul. Yeah. And so why would we not try to continue to be in his word? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

I've used this example before in teaching that if I don't spend time with Nathan, then I don't know him really well, right? I know him better today than I did when I met him almost nine years ago because we spend time together, because we spend every day together. I made the joke the other day, like, I know what he's gonna order at a restaurant, I know what he's gonna get here, I know that he's always gonna have a late night snack, you know. I know all these things. I know what his answer is gonna be to a question before anyone even asks him the question, but it's because I spend all my time with him. I spend my days with him and I know him better. So why would we think that we can know God better if we don't spend time in his word? That is a primary avenue that us as believers now know the Lord more. It's spending time in his word. It's literally, he literally wrote a book for us to know him. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I'm always gonna be like, go to church, sit under biblical teaching, be in Bible study, but those things also can't replace your own daily personal study. No, we have to have our own, our own time in the word, our own time in prayer where we're asking the Lord to speak to us, to reveal himself to us, because that's how we know him better, and that's how we can reflect him and follow him. We can't do that well if we're not spending any time with him.

SPEAKER_00 21:51

It's your own personal relationship with him, and that's what he wants. He wants that that relationship. Between y'all to grow for you to know him more and love him more because I mean he gave us his one and only son to die for our sins. There's no doubt he doesn't love us. Exactly. Exactly. He wants us to choose him, and each day we need to choose him. And some practical ways that you can do that is being intentional about scheduling that time with him. And I don't want to say like, oh, you need to have it on the books between 1 and 1.30. I'm reading my Bible. No, because each day is different. Right. You're not repeating the same schedule daily. Yeah. Um, if you are, that's cool. But that's not our life. Definitely not. And so there are times that um I can read in the morning, or if I know I'm gonna have a early morning, but an earlier evening, like I'm not getting home so late. Right, yeah. Then my time may be in the evening after dinner or something, but still getting that time with him daily, even if it's just 20 minutes, yeah. You're still building that relationship because eventually, I don't know about you, but eventually, like it just makes me just want more. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Yeah, I agree. The more I am studying, the more time I spend in God's word, the more I want to spend time in God's word. Whenever I'm making that a priority, I'm making that a habit, my and it's I feel funny saying it, but like it's that soul longing, like it's that longing inside of me to know him more, to read more of his word, to to study the more I do it. And you mentioned the thing about how our schedules change different from day to day. And you know, if I got home earlier, maybe it's I do it in the evening. For me, we have to be intentional and realistic in planning our schedules because my schedule does change. I work two and a half days a week outside the home. Um, and I know on those mornings that I have to get up and I have to get everybody ready and out the door. I'm not gonna get up early enough to spend time reading my Bible like I want to before everyone else is up and we're going. And so what I've tried to do is take time on my lunch break to sit in my car and do my Bible study. That gives me an hour of time uninterrupted. No one's calling for me, no one's asking me to fill up a cup or get them a snack. Um, but I have time to spend in the word. So on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, that's what I do. Now on Tuesday, Friday, when I'm home, it looks different because we have much slower mornings. I don't have a million things I have to do or somewhere I have to be by eight o'clock. So I can get up and do my my Bible study those days. And so it's helped me to kind of take the pressure off instead of saying I have to get up at five o'clock every morning and I have to do this for 30 minutes, being realistic about the schedule that I have right now and and working it, not working it in, like as in as an afterthought. Yeah, but setting that intentional time during the day. Yeah, exactly. What are some other ways here that you think or you feel like is beneficial to help us be present in the word?

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Um, I think even like really for me personally, it's taking advantage of the commentary that we have around us. Yes, we have this book that the Lord has written for us, but we've had multiple people over the thousands of years be able to decipher in a way that people can understand that can break it down in ways that me just reading that passage, my brain not may not process it that way. And so having that commentary or at the bottom of like your study Bibles where it has like, oh, go look at this chapter in this book. I mean, that also shows me the red line, too. Exactly. Because I can sometimes I can miss that. Yeah. And so using all those outside resources, those trusted outside resources, because yeah, there are also unqualified information. Yeah. Let's just say it. Yeah. Um, so make sure what you're reaching for is biblical truth still, but use those wholeheartedly. I mean, sometimes I'm flipping through different versions of the Bible. I go from ESV to NIV to what's CSV. So even just the passage can be re-worded in a different way, in a new age way. Yeah. That just helps me understand it more.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Yeah. And it's not like we're rewriting scripture. It's not like we're using commentary even as like the end all be all. We still know it's written by humans, but it it's another tool. It's another resource that the Lord has given us graciously from these scholars. It's another tool, it's another resource the Lord has graciously given us to utilize. Commentary is something I've only started using in the last few years. Um, but it has been such an eye-opener and such a game changer, I feel like in my own personal study time, where I'm not just reading, I'm actually studying now. I'm actually digging deeper into the text and starting to understand things more versus just reading, like I would pick up a novel on the bookshelf and read through it.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

Or reading to understand him. Yeah. Um, who is it, Jane Wilkins, that talks about knowing what the Lord is saying to those people at that time. Yeah. What it's saying to us and what it says about him. Yeah. Um, that to me has yeah again changed my way of just reading because now I'm I'm not only ready to understand what he's saying, but I'm ready to understand what he's saying then, what he's saying now, and what it can be used for in the future. Yeah. Um, but I think there also needs to be a warning and being careful of reading to validate. Yeah, for sure. Because it is very easy to take a verse out of context. And so if you're just reading one verse, you can miss a whole story if you're not reading that whole passage. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

And I think as we thought through this idea of being present in God's word, that is such a a point we thought about of everybody posts stuff on social media, right? Everyone's posting verses or this snippet or that snippet. But what is the context? Are we actually reading it in context? Or are we just picking and choosing because it sounds good, it like makes us feel good in the moment. And we like give ourselves this like false sense of being present in God's word whenever we're reading verses, you know, on social media. Well, I read this verse today, and tomorrow that she'll post this verse, and I'll read that. We're not actually present in God's word when we're doing that. We're on social media and we're just getting bits and pieces and not actually digging into the meat of of scripture, which is really what we need to be focused on and like what actually sustains us. Absolutely. And I think we'll talk more about that too this season. Um, coming up in several weeks, we have the topic of biblical literacy and why that matters. That's something you and I have talked extensively about and we'll continue to talk about, and is a topic that I think is important to both of us because we do want to know God's word better, especially in today's world. Um, and it's easy to get pushed around and shifted this way or that if we're not careful. And so that's a topic we'll definitely talk about more as we go through the season. But it's important to be present, and I hope that that has come across today, not in like, oh, we're giving you a list of things that you have to do, um, but just some practical ways that you and I both feel like have helped us have helped us to be present in our day-to-day lives and present in God's word because we need to be, right? We are here, we are now, we are living in today, we are living in this age. So that's another thing that I've been hearing people say that God's word has been good through all ages, right? It's been good to feed the people at every point in time. But God has put us in this age today, and we need to take his word as it was written, right? Not changing it to be something new, but taking it and applying it to today and living in the age and the time that God has put us in. Um, because he has us here for a reason. We have to be intentional on that. We have to stop making excuses about not being not having time or resources or whatever it is. We make a lot of excuses for reasons to not be in God's word, and just bluntly we just have to stop making excuses.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Absolutely. It's so it's so easy to do. I mean, I'm guilty of it. We're human. Yeah. Um, but at some point, I think having that realization that the Lord is good and the Lord has given us free will. And I mean, I've witnessed it with my personal life of straying from his word does not bring me any form of joy. I'm constantly chasing some kind of high of happiness. Yeah. When I just surrender myself to him and stop with the excuses, be for be so for real, as people would say nowadays. Be so for real and intentional in studying his word. Um, because there have been times lately where something's going on outside in the world, and it's scary, but because I know I serve a sovereign God, yeah, it gives me an internal peace about this isn't my home forever.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

Nathan and I had that conversation, I mean, two days ago. This is not our home. It's never going to be alright here. There's always going to be something that isn't okay because we live in a fallen simple world. But but God, right? We know that it will be okay someday because we have the promise of eternity with him. We know that God is sovereign, we know that he is in control, and we continually renew our minds, renew our souls, like you said earlier, by feeding his feeding ourselves his word and remembering that he is good, he is faithful, he and he is coming again. And so we do live in that peace and that hope of the future, uh, of a future hope, but also present peace and present hope, knowing that he's the one that sustains us to face whatever trial we're facing. But we have to be present, we have to know him and we have to continue to spend time with him. Or we can't, we don't take full advantage of the hope and the peace that he gives us now if we're not spending time with him in his word and in prayer. Absolutely. Okay, so as we wrap up today's episode, we want to leave you again with another verse of scripture, which I hope you can tell, we feel like is very important to our lives as believers. And this passage comes out of John chapter 15, verses 6 through 8. It says, If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered and thrown into the fire and burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. So I think this is a good reminder to us that as we spend time in God's word, as we abide in him, then we live faithfully like he has called us to do. We bear fruit, we reflect him, and others will know that we are his disciples. Amen. So this has been another episode of the Living with Grace and Sass podcast where faith meets real life and best friend banter. Come join our next conversation, Bestie. Bye.