The Wilderness Day 3

We do the math on modern life and realize how little non-distracted time we may have left each day after work, sleep, and screens. We challenge ourselves to reclaim silence, get outside, and treat attention like the spiritual issue it really is. 
• the time audit that shows how screens consume the day 
• why constant input fuels anxiety and scattered thinking 
• the case for wilderness and boredom as spiritual practices 
• the WALL E picture of screen-driven disconnection 
• Mission Sent Outdoors and what changes when phones go down 
• the warning that distraction can become idolatry 
Check the screen time setting on your phone. What is the number? And then commit to cutting it down by at least 30 minutes today. Spend those extra 30 minutes outside. Leave the phone inside and look at the world God created. 

Transcript

Day Three Wilderness Challenge

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, it's Pastor Josh, and welcome to day three of the wilderness devotion. And this one is gonna be hard for you. It's gonna make me sound like a hypocrite because I know you're listening to this on a phone or a computer, and I'm recording this on a phone and computer, but let's look at the numbers here. The CDC or Centers for Disease Control says that the average American spends about nine hours a day either driving to, driving home, or working. So your commute plus the time you're at work is about nine hours every day, and seven and a half hours sleeping. So if you add those up, that's 16.5 hours out of your 24 hours that are already gone with your drive to work, home from work, or sleeping. That leaves about seven and a half hours left in your day, which I mean that's a pretty good chunk of time. But here's the crazy part. On average, Americans spend seven of those remaining seven and a half hours in front of a screen. Whether it's scrolling on your phone, gaming, or watching TV, if you do the math, that only leaves you with about 30 minutes of non-distracted time in a day. 30 minutes to eat, go to the bathroom, decompress, and actually connect with Jesus. We wonder why we are so anxious and scattered and stressed and miserable. It's because we have completely erased silence from the human experience. See, our brain isn't meant to function with that much input coming in. Your brain cannot properly function, let alone connect with the Holy Spirit, with 23 and a half hours of constant input. This is exactly why getting into the wilderness is vital. We look at it as a punishment, but we have to learn how to silence all of the things trying to gain our attention every day. We have to learn how to put the screens down. We have to be okay, like you heard on Sunday, with being bored. The worst thing that happened to humanity is the supercomputer we travel around because its main focus is to keep us from being bored, to keep us engaged so that it can sell us more things. You know it's bad when you have to rush to you grab your phone before you can even hit the bathroom because you can't be in there for five minutes without having some kind of input coming in. The illustration we gave was we become like the people in Wally, just riding around on scooters, staring at screens, totally disconnected from reality. See, part of Mission Sent is Mission Sent Outdoors, and one of the things we do is we get people out into the wilderness. We become spirit-led and nature fed. So last week we took some teenagers out fishing and we didn't even catch a single fish all day. All we did was pull weeds off of lines, but they were out in the wilderness and they put their phones down. And guess what? They actually talk to each other. They actually get to relax, they actually get to see that God designed us to function in a rhythm of rest and silence. If your electronics are commanding more of your time and devotion than your creator, you don't just have a distraction problem, you have an idolatry problem. So our action step today is this check the screen time setting on your phone. What is the number? And then commit to cutting it down by at least 30 minutes today. Spend those extra 30 minutes outside. Leave the phone inside and look at the world God created. Let your brain defrag. Get off of the screens and get into creation. And when you can accomplish that next time, up it by another 30 minutes. Spend time in nature with people you love. Spend time in nature by yourself, just you and Jesus. So stay spirit led and nature fed. We'll see you tomorrow.