Is Media King?

So you've done a lot of fasting over the years, Dave. Food fast? Food fast. What has been your longest food fast? 21 days. And I'm not always the nicest during the food fast.

I should be better. Okay, so what if it was a social media fast? Do you think? Nope. What?

Nope. Why? I don't think I could do it.

Definitely couldn't do 21 days. I mean, you got to be connected to the world. Oh, interesting.

Sounds like it could be a little idle. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson. And I'm Dave Wilson and you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. So it sounds like we need help.

It does. And we've got help. She's sitting right here today.

Wendy Speake has been here before, author of this 40-day sugar fast, which I should read. And you were here with Triggers. Yeah, that's right. I was here with Triggers with Amber Lea talking about all of our parenting triggers. And I know we'll share lots of stories coming up, but in a roundabout way, all of these fasting books have come out of really the Triggers ministry.

Have they really? Yeah. Yeah. And we haven't even mentioned, but you wrote a social media fasting book, right?

That's right. The 40-Day Social Media Fast, which is why Ann brings this up. Because when I even see that title, I'm like, honestly, I can do a food fast. I'm not saying it's easy, but when I think of doing a social media fast, that's why she asked it. She knew. She knew. Here was the conversation. We had a conversation.

I said, let's do this 40-day social media fast. He goes, no. Yeah, right. Automatically. You didn't even get the whole sentence out of your mouth, right? Exactly.

And people can feel that as well. And let's go back. You're married. You have three sons. Three teenage sons. Teenagers, that's right. We've been there. It's awesome. 13. You're my heroes. You made it through. 13, 15, and 17.

That's right. What do they think of this book? You know, we haven't done lots of social media for them. We've set some boundaries when they hit junior high. If they would like to have an Instagram account, it's on my phone. They can check in with their friends, or if we're out doing something fun and they want to post something, they can post something.

And there's not a lot of arguing over what their time limit is and stuff, because it's on my phone and they just check in. And then once they show that they are making wise choices about who they follow, who follows them, how they communicate online. And I think, for goodness sakes, we're parents. We taught them how you say yes, ma'am, at the grocery store. We can kind of be involved in how they learn to communicate in another realm.

So that was my thinking when I put that together. But as soon as it gets on their phone, wow, it's so hard to not get swept away in the cultural norm for kids in how social media is being used. And we think that we have an addiction. We just fall down virtual rabbit holes and watch too many YouTube videos.

Like there is a whole nother world and other pressures that our kids are facing. Wendy, do you remember when you started using social media? I remember before I had a smartphone.

I was very smart. I'm thinking now smartphones aren't always smart. But I do remember the first time someone came over for dinner and she had a first-generation iPhone. And she was using this term smartphone.

I was like, I don't even know what that means. Yeah. Didn't you feel like, is mine a dumb phone?

Right. I had a flip phone. And I remember I had a toddler and a baby and I was pregnant. And I would put that flip phone down into the diaper bag and take them to the park. And if my husband had tried to get ahold of me that day, I didn't even hear it.

And he wouldn't even hear it. And I would come home, what's the point of even having a phone? Well, maybe if I get in an emergency, I can use it, right?

No, so I can get ahold of you. But I didn't have any empty hands. And I had always made the commitment that I would never talk on the phone when I was with my family. Unless we were going somewhere and I needed to make a reservation. But to chat with someone when I'm already with someone else, I had just set boundaries early on. And I'm glad that I did. But man, as soon as I got my smartphone, it was easy to forget those boundaries and pick up a phone.

And use it as a form of escapism when life is stressful, which life is stressful. But I remember this friend coming over and she and her husband even joked about her phone that it was her boyfriend. They used that term. And I thought, oh, these two just gave each other a look. You can't see it.

But they did. They gave each other a look. That's what I have called his phone. Oh, are you on the phone with your girlfriend? Yeah, well, and it's not another person. It's the phone itself. Yeah, because it can get a little adult, both idolatrous and adulteress in that, you know, something is pulling us away from our first love. And isn't really that what we want to talk about? Is it possible that a phone does become an idol?

If so, how? If so, what should I do about it? And I get asked all the time, but is it bad, Wendy? Come on.

Is it bad? And I would say, well, it's not good at being God. And I'm reminded of Isaiah 55 tells us the story about the man who chops down a tree and he uses some of that wood to make a fire. And by that fire, he warms himself. And I would say, hey, wood is really good at being wood. And with that same fire, he warms up some food. And I would say, okay, wood is really good at doing that too. And then he takes some of the wood and with it, he carves an idol. And I would say, oh, but wood is not good at being a God.

We need God to be God. So is social media bad? No, it's great for social media. Is YouTube bad? No, it's great for YouTube. And is LinkedIn good or bad? Well, it's very good at that. But if your identity is wrapped up with it and if you're always focused on who's seeing you and who you're seeing, or I would say even your online apps for news sources, if the news has gotten in the way of the good news and you're opening yourself up to the news before you open yourself up to the good news, I would say it's not good at being the good news.

So is it bad? No, but it's not good at being God. So if the phone is on the throne and the throne is his, then that's what we're talking about. I think the question is, how would we know that? And Dave, I wanted you to do this because he came up with a questionnaire at church. I came up with my digital test.

Okay, bring it. As you listen to these, comment. Go to our Instagram page or Facebook page, Family Life, and comment and tell us how many.

But I just wrote them randomly. Question is, do you answer yes to any of these? A loved one has told you that you have a problem with your phone or device. What would you answer? I would have to say yes. She's sitting right here.

Second one, you regularly do email, text, Facebook while sitting on the toilet. Did you just say that? I can't believe you just said that.

If people are honest, they are going busted, which is sad. Do you think more men do that than women? I bet it's both. I don't think. I don't know.

I've only seen one man come out of the door with it open and he's not sitting with us like your husband is sitting here. That leads you to understand who I'm talking about. I mean, what else are you going to do in there?

You've got time. So anyway, third one, it's the last thing you look at before you go to sleep, first thing you look at when you wake up. That's it.

And that's sad. You talked about that in your book, how 10 years ago, what was the first thing you did? I would do that. I mean, if you could see me, I'd do that stretch, that yawn, and I'd reach over and off the side table, or sometimes if I was really in a desperate state, I had my thin little Bible under my pillow. And I would wake up and I'd reach in and I'd grab it and I would just start reading from where I'd left off the day before. And that was my morning routine of spending good time with the Lord. And even once I had children, I remember people said, oh, even in that season, you have to give God the first fruits of your life, of your day.

And I would wake up and there'd be a little kid like in my face. And I learned early, I made the choice, those aren't my first fruits. They don't belong to me because someone needs me in that moment. And God has given me the privilege of being a mom and a wife.

And when they need me, I'm available to them. So as soon as I have my first fruits, I will give that to the Lord. And so I would say, until I've spent time in His Word, I don't want to do other things. Of course, I didn't have a smartphone. So I spent time in the Word in the mornings as soon as I had time to spend. And now we say, but I don't have time for that, but we get to the end of our days and we can look at our phones and say, but I spent three hours and 26 minutes on my phone. I guess I did have some time today. So, yeah, a time came where I reached over and I would pick up my phone and not my Bible and I would open up the Bible app, accept all these pings and rings and dings, notifying me that, you know, I had a comment from that thing I posted late last night and this and that.

But I'm going to get to the, you know, Bible app and open it up and read it online. So, yeah. And you didn't just pick up a number out of the air three hours and 26 minutes, did you? That's pretty close to the average. That's pretty close to the average. Which is just scary to think. I think this year it's supposed to hit about four hours a day.

But there have been days where it's been seven. You know, because honestly, we can do a lot of our work there and we can stream our church video if you're not back at, you know, a gathering on Sunday mornings and you're watching church services online. You can zoom from your phone. And it's not just, you know, this isn't a phone fast. It's not a social media fast. Really, I would call it a screen fast. If you're using all of, you know, your screens.

I like the word devices and I like root words and I think that devices can be divisive. We can be divided from the real life people who matter most. God first, but our spouse, our children, our neighbors, the people in line with us at the grocery store. And I don't know, we'll talk about all of this maybe one by one. We'll take it by the numbers.

If it's not the most important thing in your life, but you're spending more time with those online people than you are your real life people, I would say your priorities are probably not what you would want them to be. And so what's the difference between a digital detox and a spiritual fast? Why is this a spiritual fast? And if we were talking about food fasting, then we're not just doing a diet, right? We are going to fast from food and feast on our time with the Lord.

We'll grow hungry for Him. And so the same is true with social media. We're going to fast from being social so that we can get social with the Lord. And that's why it's different than just a digital detox or a food detox. And talk about your 40-day sugar fast because you saw some incredible results from that.

Did that spur you on then? Oh, goodness. These things go hand in hand.

They really do. And just even a little backstory before that because we've sat around this table before and had a conversation, and that was for triggers. And even the sugar fast came out of that conversation because I was ministering to a group of moms online who struggle with just overwhelmed, exasperated, even angry parenting, go to bed feeling crummy about it every night. And one day on social media, ironically enough, I said, what would happen if we fasted from sugar for 40 days?

I mean, we see what happens to our kids when they're all jacked up on Mountain Dew or fruit snacks or whatever it is. Why that? What made you think that? Well, I can see my kids, and I knew as soon as my kids went down for naps, I would go in my pantry and I'd grab a handful of chocolate chips to get me through 3 o'clock and make me stinking feel better for a hot minute. Yeah, it's the bewitching hour.

It is, seriously. So I would do that, but then they would wake up and I wasn't more calm. I wasn't more kind. I wasn't more consistent.

I would say I wasn't more Christ-like. But I know that when I turned to the Lord in my parenting angst, in my marital angst, in my angst in life, He actually gives me what I need for life and godliness. But those chocolate chips weren't. And for other people, it's the fourth cup of coffee that's highly sugared with the sweet Italian cream or the extra couple pumps of the vanilla syrup.

It's sugar and it's caffeine. And Christ has said such a loving invitation. He said, come to me when you're weary and heavy laden. He didn't say run to your pantry, run through Starbucks, or run to social media. But come to me and I'll give you what you need.

I'll give you rest. And I found that when I was running to the pantry, I wasn't sweeter, so sugar doesn't make a mom sweet, right? And when I was running to my phone, because I couldn't cope with the stress of my little children, so I'd run into the bathroom with my phone and just stay there for 15 minutes, it didn't actually help me cope with real life stress better when I came back. But when I would go to the Lord and I'd turn on my worship or I'd read a psalm, I just take a moment and say, Lord, you know where I'm struggling. God, here are my consistent struggles. This is how I'm responding. You know it.

How can I respond in a long suffering way that's more like you and how you parent me than how I'm parenting them? And when I come to him, he gives my soul rest. He gives me perspective. But social media doesn't do that and my chocolate chips don't do it either. And so that's really where it started. I didn't know I was starting a movement.

I just said, what would happen? I mean, it was really off the cuff and hundreds of people at first and then thousands started signing up. So by the second year, I think we had eight thousand people sign up for the 40 day sugar fast.

And over a hundred thousand people have done this fast with me now. But you asked, so how did it come out of that? During the fast, I say, God never asked us for a sugar sacrifice. He asked us for a living sacrifice. So what else are you living for?

What else is getting in the way of living for him? What else are you running to in lieu of running to him? And in mass, the response was, well, for goodness sakes, it's my phone. It's my phone. I turned to my phone instead of turning to him all the live long day. And so I'd say, OK, as soon as we're done with this online sugar fast that we do every January online, let's all log off. Let's go dark in order to experience the light of the world. Let's, you know, fast from social media and get social with the Lord.

And what kind of stories have come out of either of those fast? Like, are people responding? Yeah.

Great question. Let me first tell you sugar fast, because those responses, the Lord is just moving big time. I feel like God has given me this this front row seat to watch him move in people's lives.

Do any people say this to you? Because this is my thing. Even with food, like I deserve something. You know, my kids or I call it a win. I just need a win. Yes.

All right. I've been giving of myself all day, even in work. I deserve a little something for myself. I get that latte at Starbucks or I get that sweet tea.

It's my reward. Chick-fil-A when I'm out running errands for the whole family or that bowl of ice cream as I binge watch TV. I mean, you'll hear me bring up other things like coffee and Netflix. It's not just sugar and it's not just social media. Just start thinking broader about what it is you turn to.

And this is where the testimonies come in. When you start turning to Christ, instead of turning to whatever that is, things start to change. You say, yes, God, I'd like you to change my my weight or what I'm eating. But he says, I want to change your life. You'll lose weight if you don't eat sugar for 40 days.

You will. But you're going to gain faith. And so that's what the testimonies often are are oftentimes women and men who have been in a deep, deep, intimate relationship with Christ for the majority of their lives have said to me, I have never experienced more intimacy with the Lord than during these 40 days. Or I remember there was one year where marriages were restored. Thousands of people, I think like maybe that year's 15 to 20 thousand people were doing it in this one group on Facebook together, the 40 day sugar fast on Facebook.

It must have been four or five marriages that had split, but were not yet divorced, got back together during those 40 days. A lot of healing for children. We talk a lot about how fasting is a time of intercession for others. So we start interceding. There's a time where we go beyond even our own family and we start interceding for the world and we see God move in powerful ways.

I don't even know. We could do a whole hour on testimonies. I had one woman reach out and she sent me a message. And she said, Wendy, I've been deaf for 10 years. And during these 40 days, I got my hearing back.

Whoa. And I remember thinking, because, you know, hi, I'm me. And I was thinking, OK, God, but what happened?

Like, really, what happened? Was there inflammation in the inner ear? Because, you know, sugar can lead to inflammation. That's why we have a lot of neck and back and joint pain.

This wasn't an analogy. She was physically deaf. No, she was healed from deafness during this.

Wow. And I remember thinking, OK, she lost her hearing 10 years ago. Was she there praying for her hearing to come back or was she just fasting to know the Lord? And during that time, the Lord said, and I've got this. I've got me. I am the reward of fasting. Intimacy with me is what this is about.

But also, I want to heal you. And so people come thinking they have a sugar problem. But what they learn is that they actually had a God problem. They had stopped turning to God. They started turning to food. They stopped turning to God. They started turning to affirmation from this world online.

Well, I love you use one of the verses we use in our book, Vertical Marriage, Jeremiah 2-13. That's it. Which says, My people have committed two sins. They have forsaken me. And who am I?

The spring of living water and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. Yes, that's what they are. Yeah. That's what they are. Yeah. And so you saw that come to life.

Absolutely. When you are turning to your news sources and binge watching Netflix and even your morning cup of coffee or your afternoon glass of wine, man, couldn't we camp out there? If you are turning to that to get you through hard days, you're turning to the wrong thing.

They are broken cisterns that can't hold water. And so we need to turn to the living water. And Jeremiah, he's asking us to go vertical, you know, get your eyes back on where the real source of life is. But you said earlier that there's also people around us.

If you love God and love others, you know, the great commandment. I remember it saying in a sermon that I did years ago about digital deadly sins, we called it. And it wasn't like, let's talk about porn. It was like this. It was like digital is awesome.

It's a wonderful gift. Think of all the amazing things we have. But if we let it. If it gets in our way.

It becomes an idol and it becomes almost sinful. And I remember saying, what's in front of you is more important than what's in your hand. Right. And I know that I've missed moments. I remember one time, CJ, our oldest, was having a birthday party and I missed half of it because someone was going on at work and there were emails and texts and I kept looking down instead of over or up. And I remember I missed the party. I sort of missed the party.

And I remember thinking after it was over, I thought, I think we're missing life. Yes. And that's it. The first maybe 10 chapters really focus on looking up. Actually, Anne, you have the book in front of you. Would you open up the scripture at the very, very beginning? It's such a beautiful tie in here. This one?

Okay. I love this because it says this book is dedicated to those of us who want to want God most, but grab our phones more. And then you have Colossians 3, 1 and 2 from the message that says, pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorb with the things right in front of you. Look up and be alert to what is going on around Christ. That's where the action is.

See things from His perspective. That's where the action is. And I love that so much. There's a chapter in the book and one day I got to come back and talk to you guys because I want to write a whole book called Grocery Stories.

Because moms live in the grocery store. We do. We do. But I think of the Good Samaritan and tripping over the wounded man on the side of the road because our noses are in our phones. Would we even see the needs around us? So the first time I fasted from social media, I made a very specific intention to keep my phone in my purse or in my pocket.

And if I needed to write out my list on an actual piece of paper rather than on a note page on my phone, then I would do that. But I kept my phone away when I was grocery shopping. I started having gospel interactions in the store. I remember there was one, there was a woman, it was actually outside of the store, I was unloading my things in the car. And there was a woman who was bent over her steering wheel and her shoulders were shaking. There was an older woman and she was crying and I knocked on the window and asked if I could come in and pray for her.

Pre-COVID, of course. And she let me in and she said that her husband had died within the year. And going to the grocery store is one of her biggest triggers because she's cooking for one person. And that's just the heartache of it. And I was able to just show love.

Another woman was aggressive with me at the grocery store. One of my children, he had bonked her or something. And I just looked with compassion.

I wasn't multitasking. I was available and I was checking out with flowers. And after I checked out, she was walking out the door and I gave him to my son. And I said, run after her and just give her those flowers. And he did that. And she came back and she just, in tears, hugged me.

She just needed some tenderness. But I wasn't multitasking. I was on task. You know, my eyes were up.

My eyes were lifted. It's another time I invited someone to church with us at Christmas time because it became, even after my fast, I'm not going to be on my phone when I'm at the grocery store. It's another guy, he was in a wheelchair. He couldn't reach the taco seasoning and I got it. And it was just an exchange of availability, a smile. It was another time it was someone behind the counter helping cut meat for me. And I had had a really hard day and I had been crying.

And he didn't really look at me. He said, how was your day? And I said, it was hard, but it's okay.

Hard days. God's given us another opportunity to trust Him more. And he started crying. I know more people I cry with at the grocery store now. And he said, do you think that's what the hard days are for? That we would trust God more? I said, I do.

I do. And these are just the top of my ones because I'm looking up because that's where the action is. And we live in a culture that looking down is commonplace. I mean, when you're saying that, I was literally thinking, picture a 21-year-old college kid, man, who just got on his knees and surrenders his life to Jesus. And in that prayer, literally says, bump me into this woman who I know is on fire. I need to grow.

I don't know anybody else that could help me grow. The next day, he's walking by a tennis court where she's playing tennis, but he doesn't see her because he's looking down at his phone and he misses it. Yeah. I think we're missing out a lot. I say in the book, we miss much when we share much.

Yeah. Because we're very, there was a time after the first community-wide where I invited others after the sugar fast to then go dark. You shut down social media and just be present with our kids and in God's Word.

Let's feast on the real-life people, not the online people. And she wrote back and she said, Wendy, I saw my kids' faces more. And they saw my face.

My face was up. And what's more, she said, is they were more enjoyable. I really believe it.

And I wrote back and I said, Sarah, I guarantee it. They were more enjoyable because our children have learned that they want our attention. And so they've learned negative ways to get our attention. But when they have your intentions, they don't have to get your attention.

They already have that. So I bet your children's behavioral issues were less of a problem because they weren't fighting for your attention. And so one of the times I remember during one of the early fasts, I was sitting at the kitchen table. Ironically, I was making a grocery list, I think, because I couldn't keep it on my phone. And my kids were in the pool outside and they started yelling, Mom, Mom, Mom, come here. And I looked up and I saw outside the window that there was this massive butterfly migration.

I had never seen anything like it. I don't mean lots of butterflies. I mean, you can't see through the butterflies swarming around my children. And I got up to run out there and thought, oh, my phone's in my room because that's where I would leave it when I was with my family. And so I pivot to go get the phone and then I pivot back because I remember, nope, I'm not going to put a Facebook Live. I'm going to live this moment with my children. And I ran out there and they're all climbing out of the pool, putting their cold, wet arms around my middle and just clapping hands and so excited.

And we start counting one, two, three, four, five. We got to multiple hundreds together. I would not have counted to multiple hundreds of butterflies if I was also trying to videotape it. And I'm sure many other people in San Diego, California, had it videotaped. I could probably do a search on YouTube right now and find it and relive it there. But I lived it.

I lived it. And I remember at one point my oldest, who was, oh, he was probably about 13 at the time, he yelled, good job, God. And I remembered we locked eyes and shared this moment because when he was itty bitty, that's what I told my kids praise was, is telling someone, hey, you did a really great job in that basketball game. I gave him praise, right? Well, why don't we give praise to God when we see him do something phenomenal in our relationships or in a sunset? We yell, good job, God.

So all these years later, he yelled, good job, God. And I was fully present. I was not recording it.

I wasn't wondering how many people were liking it. I was just there. So yes to the eyes up living.

Yeah. And I would, you know, I would say to our listener, boy, if there's anything you do today as a result of listening to this broadcast, get your eyes up. Get your eyes up. Really, you're, you're going to see that everything you've just said, Wendy, you're going to see life. Life's happening.

Are you missing it? Looking down because 21 year old college kid who walked by the tennis court and didn't see the girl that he had just prayed to me was me. And I didn't have a phone then. And I saw Ann and here we are. And I'm just thinking there's not three kids. There's not a church started. We're not family life hosts.

We may not ever date. If I missed that moment. There she is. There's the answer to my prayer. And so much of us miss right in front of us.

Real life. And we know and we miss hearing God when we're so absorbed in different things. We miss hearing God's voice.

I don't know who said it first, but we've all heard it. Wherever you are, be all there. That's part of what Wendy Speak has been encouraging us to do today as she challenges us to consider a fast from social media. A fast from anything that is removing us from the real life that's happening all around us.

Our relationships with our spouse, with our kids, with our friends, and our relationship with God, as Ann Wilson mentioned at the end. Wendy has mapped out for us a way to engage in a 40-day social media fast. She's subtitled her book, Exchange Your Online Distractions for Real Life Devotion.

And that's a great challenge. We would love to send you a copy of Wendy's book. In fact, we're making this book available this week to those of you who can partner with us in helping to provide practical, biblical help and hope for marriages and families all around the world. Your support of the Ministry of Family Life today does just that. Every day we are reaching hundreds of thousands of moms and dads, husbands and wives who are coming to us asking for biblical guidance in their marriage and in their family.

And that's what we're committed to providing. You make all that possible when you donate so that this radio program, this podcast, our website, our resources, our events, all of it happens because of your generosity. And again, if you can make a donation today, we'd love to say thank you by sending you Wendy Speaks' book, The 40-Day Social Media Fast. Go online at familylifetoday.com to donate or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to make your donation. Again, the website familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-358-6329. That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Now, tomorrow we're going to hear from Wendy Speak about how our interaction with social media is having an impact not just on our relationships with one another, but on our relationship with God as well. I hope you can tune in for that. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We will see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.