James K. A. Smith has proposed that humans are what they worship. If this is true, I would propose that most humans, then, are nothing less than a walking smart phone. Did you know, for instance, that according to Pew Research, 80% of Americans own a smart phone and that the number rises to 96% if you are in the 18-29 age range?
The smartphone has become so common that many have identified it as an extension of the human body. After all, if an alien were to visit our planet, I think the first question he would ask himself is, “What is that body part called that is always seen protruding out of man’s right or left hand?”
Have man and machine finally collided into an inseparable bond? Wasn’t a man made to be more than a machine and a machine made to be less than a man? Yes, according to Genesis, it was this way in the beginning. It’s rather simple. God made man and man made machine. But now, man not only makes machines. He talks to his machines and his machines talk back. These conversational robots not only talk back. They perform specific actions that man commands and even allow men to talk to other men through them. “Hey Alexa, . . .” However, as time has passed, machine has demanded more from man and man has granted machine his request.
Will you put your machine down for just enough time to consider, to wonder if you might have been created for something more? You don’t have to be a walking smart phone! You don’t have to be defined by all of your social media accounts and apps that you use and that use you. You don’t have to become your avatar or avatar(s). You can choose to use the digital without worshipping it or worse, becoming it.
How?
Like the coronavirus, shut everything down. Turn off the Wi-Fi and the devices and then Seek God in that moment. Wasn’t it Jesus that said you can’t serve two masters, God and machine, I mean, money. Get alone with God in His Word and see what he might have to say to you about your machine. Oh, that’s right — your Bible is your machine because it’s on your machine. In that case, read the Bible on your machine without attending the bells and whistles of your most recent notification. In fact, turn your notifications off if you have to. Then turn off everything and enter an extended period of time in prayer about what you just read and what God would have you to do from what you just read.
You can have control of your machine, but you must first turn it off. In your solitude, put God first and let your machine fade into the background. In this way, you will see that you are more than your phone.