Power Down

On the bulletin board over the desk in our room, there is a blue piece of cardstock with a 7-point list written in black sharpie. It is a list of the resolutions BJ and I have made together for 2012. Each point on the list represents an important change that we would like to see in our hearts and habits throughout this year. The first point is one of the hardest for us to do and one of the most important in our world right now – “power down.”

The age of constant access to entertainment, instant information and social networking has brought with it both wonderful advancements and dark unintentional side effects.

On the one hand, I know when an old friend from high school has something significant happen in their life. I can see pictures of family and friends in other states while getting a sense of how they’re doing and what’s happening in their world. If one of my professors emails me or a customer places an order on my website, I know it almost immediately. As soon as I open up the internet, I can read headlines from all over the world.

On the other hand, how much more intentional would I be at making time to see and talk to people if I wasn’t getting a quick blurb about them every time I got online? How much more reading would I do if I wasn't able to so quickly pull up a soundbite of information about world news?

One of my darkest personal struggles with all of this instant and surface level information is the same problem I had when I was in middle school and was trying to come up with an AIM screen name (let’s hear it for the 90’s!). Nothing I could think of seemed very “cool” compared to everyone else’s ideas. Something as dumb as a screen name made me feel less than. While the in-flow of pictures and status updates lets me see people I otherwise I wouldn’t, it also provides a continuous opportunity to feel less than when I look at these snapshots of other people’s lives. I find it interesting that I am actually more concerned with putting on a good face online than I am in person. If we run into each other at the store, more often than not you will find me without make up, unshowered, and wearing the same thing I wore the day before. But rarely will you see me post a picture of myself looking like this. If I know that this temptation is there for me – the temptation to compare myself to other people and to present my best face for everyone to see in my snapshot moment – then distancing myself from the triggers of those temptations is going to be important.

Perhaps the most dangerous side effect of "too much power" in our lives is the risk that it poses to our tangible world outside of the virtual realm. What does it do to the time we have with Ian when emails are automatically pushed through and interrupt the game we were playing? How does it change the relationships we have people when we think we know what their lives are like because of something we saw online? How does it change the way I view our marriage if I spend too much time watching TV romance or looking at pictures of other people’s relationships? What happens to our time with the LORD when the first thought of the day is about checking email or facebook? I believe that there is an enemy and that one of his biggest strategies is distraction. So at the end of it all, I have to ask – what is it that he wants to distracts us from? What doesn’t he want us to see? What life does he not want us to experience?

So we are powering down in 2012. We are going to learn to return to the silence we were once ok with and we are going to learn to rest there. One month into the year and we aren’t doing as well as we would have liked to, but we’re going to keep working on it. If it’s hard to do, then the fight must be worth it.