How many apps have you downloaded over the past year? How many of your apps have saved you time and money? How many were for food and shopping? Which apps have your downloaded to help you become healthier? Which apps are for your personal entertainment that may even feed an addiction? Have you downloaded an app that has changed your relationships or has changed your spiritual life?
I wonder what would happen if your apps stopped working? What would happen if your cell phone stopped working? What if you lost your “connection” and you could no longer be networked to anyone or anything through your cell phone? How long would it take for you to become an anxious person? How long can you fast from technology? How long can you go without hearing from someone?
As I’ve studied APP (anxious people patterns), I’ve noticed that the more time that people spend on technology, the less connected they are to God, themselves, and people. People may get ticked off when I write this, but our neuropathways are being reprogrammed to be technology-dependent. Take away your device or your kid’s device and watch what happens. Anxiety can come out in a variety of different forms. Instead of focusing on apps, anxiety, or outbursts (the symptoms), today I want to write about something much dearer to my heart: your heart.
When your heart is deeply connected to the heart of God, you are fully alive. Everything matters to you because everything matters to God. When your rhythms and your pace align with the heartbeat of God, your thoughts, your feelings, your decisions, your words, and your ways reflect your Creator. God designed your life to only work well when it’s in tune and in sync with His indwelling Spirit. Your relationships only have harmony when they are operating according to God’s design for relationships. Relationships must be rooted in God’s love and be deeply connected to bear fruit.
In order to be fully present with God and with the people around us, we must learn to listen long and listen well. In order to hear the heart of God and the hearts of people nearby, we must set aside our own thoughts, feelings, words, opinions, and agendas. To deeply know, understand, love, and serve God and people in ways that make a difference, we must develop the art of being still, being fully present, and being responsive. God and people know that we really love and care for them when we stop everything and just do what they want us to do now.
Practicing solitude helps to train us to turn off our anxious brains. Fasting from food, people, talking, and technology helps us become better at holy listening. Lightening our daily to-do lists will help create margins, alter our pace, and open us up to what God and people are trying to say to us. Not being in a hurry allows us to linger in God’s presence, to linger with His Words, to write them down so that we don’t forget them, and to respond in genuine ways.
I believe 2021 will be a better year if we take to heart these words found in Proverbs 10:19, “Don’t talk too much, for it fosters sin. Be sensible and turn off the flow!” If you want people around you to grow and to find their voice and their calling, we must restrain ourselves from talking all of the time and tune into their hearts. People who lack confidence need to be drawn out. We must sit with them repeatedly until they’re convinced that we don’t have something better to do than being with them and listening to them. Once we slow down and listen and linger with them, the questions and the good stuff on the inside starts to come out. Don’t be too quick to answer their questions for them. Jesus usually responded to questions by asking questions. He made them think and work and discover the answers.
When we wait to speak until we know that God wants us to say it, we’ll be speaking less and saying more. We’ll have fewer regrets from angry and hurtful spoken words. We’ll be asking “What is Jesus doing?” and responding in cooperation with the work of the Holy Spirit in, between, and above us. Our words will be more truthful and spoken in love, and our relationships will be more connected. Technology will lose its foothold, and we will become freer to say and do what God desires and what people need.
My prayer is that our lives reflect the love of God. I pray that we stop feeding our anxious brains and replace anxious thoughts with life-changing truths found in God’s unchanging Word. I pray that we set aside distractions and eliminate preoccupations in order to develop deeply connected relationships with God and with each other. I pray that God will open doors for each of us to do what He’s designed for us to do and that we complete the work that we must do with and for Him to help His hurting people. I pray that God will be glorified as we live together as a spiritual family, always ready to open our doors and our lives to people who don’t yet have a spiritual home. This is only possible as we daily surrender the parts of our lives to be used by God according to His plan. Let’s be the change that’s needed in this world instead of being focused on the changes that are taking place in our world. Let’s live in love until the world feels God’s love as they see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven.