Devotion Over Distraction

Okay, when we go out on a date, what makes you happy and what makes you sad? I'm happy when we're talking. I love that. Mad or sad is when you pull out your phone. I knew that's where you're going. Or if I have left my phone in the car and so you'll pick up your phone while we're having dinner and then I think, oh, I have nothing to do because I'm sitting here by myself. And it also makes me sad when I look around. I only ask you one.

You don't get to give multiple answers. 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. And by the way, listeners, I'm not the only one that does this. When we get in the car, this makes me sad.

We get in the car and we start driving somewhere. I look over and she's she's engrossed. You're engrossed in your phone. Because it's the only time I'm on my phone.

And I'm like, oh, we get the chance to talk and oh, she's going to her phone and doing email and doing text. That's true. So we need help.

And we've got help sitting right across the studio from us. Wendy Speake is back again with us. Right.

She wrote a book, several books, actually. But this one is the 40 day social media fast. Wendy, welcome back to Family Life Today. Thank you.

I love it here. I love what you guys are doing. And I'm really excited about talking about how this applies to our families. You're looking at us like you have worried eyes, like this couple is messed up. No, I don't.

It was just resonating. Your story, I think, is our story. And when I say our, I mean our generation of parents' story. We're so distracted. And really the subtitle of that book.

Ann, why don't you read it? Yeah. Exchange Your Online Distractions for Real Life Devotion.

Yeah. We're so distracted. We're having a hard time being devoted. Devoted in our faith lives. Devoted in our married life. Devoted in our parenting. Because we're distracted.

I don't think we're setting out to do wrong. To be maybe short tempered with each other. But we're distracted. Now, have you ever experienced what we just talked about? You're married. You've got three teenage boys. Has that ever been a struggle in your own marriage?

Sure. And when we go to a place, or let's say we're on a long drive somewhere. We just took a long drive as a family. And if we're going to be going through a beautiful mountain pass.

Okay, everybody phones down. Right? And we're intentional to say, this is a moment we don't want to miss. However, we talked last time about this. We don't want to miss moments with one another. We don't want to miss moments of engagement with neighbors. You know, when you walk out the front door and you're going to get in your car and Joe Schmoe across the street is doing the same or watering his yard or whatever.

Are you available for a hello? Or are you too busy with your online people to engage with your real life people? Oh, that's a good way to say it. I was just in an Uber last week and I've made a habit of not being on my phone in an Uber.

And it's super easy to do that. Do you notice that? In our car, she's on her phone. Oh, that's really interesting.

But in an Uber, she wants to be fully present. Oh, that's so convicting. You already know Jesus. You just set me up for that one.

Did you care? She said, you already know Jesus. Okay. This is my evangelistic time.

I'm feeling teamed up on right now. Yeah, yeah. Well, so this woman is talking. She was an amazing woman. And she started talking about her family, what she did, her upbringing, because in an Uber, sometimes you have 40 minutes to be in the car with them. And then she mentioned that today was her birthday and I'm in the Uber with two other friends. And I just started saying, oh, it's so exciting.

Today's your birthday. And I just put my hand on her shoulder and like, Jesus, thank you for. And I named her and just started praying for her. And when she turned around to look at me, she's crying.

I know. And she said, I can't thank you enough. Like, I love Jesus.

She said, I love Jesus and thank you for hearing me. Those are the moments that we can miss when we're so absorbed in our phones. As we said earlier, we have our heads down and we don't see who is in front of us and we don't have the opportunity to love those in front of us.

Absolutely. I totally agree with you. And I think we miss out on them because we miss out on Him. What do you mean by that? Yeah, I think it's hard to spend a lot of time with the Lord these days. It's not that He has stopped talking. It's that our world has gotten very loud.

And there's a chapter in the book where I talk just about the volume of it all. God's word tells us so clearly that He's singing over us with just songs of joy. But if you're not in touch with the Lord delighting in you, if you're not hearing that in your spirit, it could be that your world has just gotten too loud. That's really hard because I find that I need silence. And when I'm in silence, I hear God's voice. Sometimes when I'm worshiping, even at church, I'll sit down and I'll ask Jesus, like, Lord, speak to me.

What do you want to say to me right now? And it's that quiet moment of asking to hear Him. But then I find myself getting really mad at our kids, like, you guys are never going to hear God's voice if you're always on your device. And so then they roll their eyes.

You have three teenagers. How do you address that or even seeing their world? Like, do you give them warnings? Well, you know, usually when I'm interviewed, the last question is always something like, so what about some boundaries? Like, before you hit day 41, how do you set boundaries so it's not just a digital detox, but you go right back to it?

Same with sugar or whatever it is you're giving up for 40 days. So I usually go through some of what our family boundaries are. And I like the term boundaries. I prefer the term guardrails. Like, you know, when you're on a mountain pass, you're thankful there are guardrails. They're there to keep you safe.

If you go on a roller coaster, it's going to do a loop-de-loop, you're glad that there's something going over your shoulders and strapping you in. And so that's really what those guardrails do, those boundaries do, is they hold us in place not to be a killjoy, not to make it so we're not having fun, but to free us up so we can have fun. So I like having some boundaries, and I share them with the boys.

And when they're young, they are more like rules, right? But I like to say these are life skills. I'm not trying to be a killjoy. I want you to have a good life. And if you honor me in this, I think that God's promise to give you a good life is a lot easier.

So one of my phrases that I use, I love, you know, catchy phrases because they're just so easy to remember. And that's the word before the world, the word before the world. So open yourself up to the word and the one who made the world before you open yourself up to everyone in the world and on the world wide web. And when I do that first and when I teach my children to do that, and they don't always, and I try to not make it so it's like, I told you to, because I mean, like, that's really going to rule them to love God's word. But hey, I see that you're on your phone.

Can you put that down? Because I don't think you cracked a Bible this morning, have you? Oh yeah, Mom, I'm reading through Lamentations right now. I read chapters two and three, and I said, well, that's great. I'm glad you had time with the Lord. That's impressive, Lamentations.

Well, I should not have used that as the example. My 17-year-old's in Lamentations right now because he's tried to get through it multiple times. But the word before the world has been a really good one for our family, for the boys. And then, of course, if you have children, having those boundaries about that's something we do once schoolwork is done and once these couple of chores are each day.

If your bed's not made and you haven't done your homework, there's no need to be on Minecraft right now. So those are some of the things that I've done as the boys have been growing up. Now that they're older, I really want to focus on life skills rather than rules because they're not going to be in my home much longer.

I see that as soon as it's off of my phone, I had mentioned before to you that when they get social media, it's on Mom's phone. And it's actually something we do together because it's my privilege to walk them through how to have interactions with people in a healthy way online. And then once I feel that they're making good choices, then they get a chance.

And if they make poor choices, and I pray, God, if they're making poor choices, please let them get caught. So I have the privilege again to walk them through making right choices. And one of my children made some poor choices. That's his story, not mine to share. But my husband said, oh, just delete it. And I said, but this is a life skill he has to have with the way I get emotional just thinking about it.

This is how our life works in the world is we are online. So I would rather disciple him through that than say, you've lost that privilege. Let me help you learn to handle that privilege. So what does that look like? Because like you're saying, in a few years, he's going to be off on his own and you won't be there to disciple him.

So how did that go? Well, in that situation, we were talking about not being influenced. But what does it mean to be an influencer? And I mean, parents that are listening, how often are you sitting down having these intentional conversations about social media? So we know that we're off with our own choices.

So let's do a 40-day fast. And during that time, intercede for your kids in their relationship with social media. And then during that time, ask the Lord, how can I get involved in their relationship with social media?

Because I know a lot of parents are like hands off and they feel hands off. They feel like they have no control. So how can we—and we don't have them control. We only have self-control.

But how can we get involved so we can train them in having a little more self-control? Well, it was interesting for me when COVID hit over a year ago, I was living what you just said, word before world. You know, I was like, I didn't have that phrase, but that's what I wanted to do. I think we both did. Probably a lot of us are like, I want to make sure my life is being—the input in my life is the word.

Not that the world isn't important. There'll be both. And I found myself, I don't know, a month in, six weeks in, when I'd wake up in the morning and grab my phone, which is a bad move, but there it is. I was thinking, I'm going to the Bible app.

I'm going to do my Devo plan. And the New York Times notification would come up. And I found myself, more than I even want to admit right here, clicking on that notification thinking, I want to know what the numbers are. I want to know what the pandemic's doing.

You know, they're going to give me info about the crisis our world's in right now. And the next thing I know, I've read the whole article. I've clicked on other articles that are similar. And you never opened up Lamentations. Yeah, I never got the Lamentations. I am lamenting, but I'm not reading it.

I never get the Lamentations or any book. And I'm like, I'll do it later. And again, here we are. So here's a question for you.

Am I addicted? How do you know when somebody sort of, it's a problem? I mean, we joked before. I would say if it's a problem, it's a problem. If it's a problem, it's a problem. Oh, it is a problem.

Yeah. And so, you know, that's funny. I get asked that, but I really don't think people need me to tell them how they know it's a problem. I think we know in our spirits that we're doing, it's just not the best for us.

And really, I mean, we joke about it, but if your wife or your husband has said something to you, it's probably a problem. And Anne has. Even my kids have. Have you thought, whoa, I just logged four hours on my phone today. What if I spent four hours with God today? What would I be like? Who would I look like? You know, it would be absolutely life-changing. And what's happening is we're being discipled by our culture instead of being discipled by the Word of God.

And it's staggering, those results, because we just slowly drift into it. And you just said, what would I look like? And I was reminded of, oh, my word, Moses, 40 days face to face. What did he look like? The Shekinah glory.

The Shekinah glory. His face was so radiant, it was frightening. And yet, you know, the pixelated glow of our screens does not make us shine.

Even with our filters. No, he says, you walk with me and you will be the light of the world. You walk with me face to face, not face to Facebook. Like you referred to Moses, there'll be an impact that will be seen in some sense. And I think you hinted at it earlier, there's also an impact internally in our soul. My one son, who is a co-pastor with me, was preaching a couple years ago and he made this statement. He said, whatever we look at out there, sort of gaze upon out there, will determine how we feel in here.

And what you said word before word, it's like, what are you looking at? What is your gaze about is going to determine your feelings, your emotions, your soul. And I don't think we always make that connection.

Absolutely. And, you know, there's a phrase called what you behold, you become. Or what you are, what you eat. Like what you're ingesting, what you're consuming.

And I love how the 40-day sugar fast and the 40-day social media fast, both of them are what we're consuming. Consuming with your mouth, consuming with your eyes. Also, while you were talking, of course, listeners, you can't see him, but he kept holding up his hand about, oh, I don't know, nine inches in front of his face.

And his eyes kept going to his fingers. And maybe I'm making a bit of a jump here, but I'm reminded of the invitation for us to cast down what's causing us to sin. And it says, if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it down. It's better to lose a hand than for your whole body to go into the fire.

Some listeners are just saying, I'm out. Right, there's my hand. And then it says, but if your right eye causes you to sin. And as you were doing that, I was thinking, what are the two body parts that are most involved in scrolling? Okay, maybe not your thumb, but that's part of your hand.

Right. Your hand and your eyes, your hand and your eyes. And it's so consuming, nine inches in front of your face, you can't see past it. You have no peripheral vision, can't see your kids, can't see your grandkids, can't see your spouse.

It can cause a lot, I think I've said it to you before, devices are divisive. So let's just take a break for 40 days. And now I would like to put some words in the host's mouth for them.

How good. I often get asked, but we're so connected. We can't do this. This is how we do our work. I run social media for this ministry and I answer all my emails here and I do this and I do that.

It's not even possible. Well, Dave and I have a book coming out. No, I understand it. Oh, we have to be on social media. We had that conversation. Our book already came out.

Yeah, it did come out. So what do you say to those people that say, I can't? Right, I would say, well, for a couple people in a couple situations, I would say, well, you can't fast from everything. But if you need to, because you run your church's social media for them, I would say, you know, you could schedule those.

Later.com is one app you can use to schedule all of your posts for the next 40 days. If you need to engage, well, do you need more than 15 minutes? If you do, what do you need, 30, 40, once a day? Do you need to be twice a day? If it's work, I mean, I'm not going to tell you to stop working.

Though I have had people say, I shut down my business for 40 days because I run an Etsy store. So if the Lord calls you to something, this isn't Wendy's to do list or to don't list, to eat list or to not eat, to scroll that or to not scroll this. This is a detailed fast that you take the details to the Lord of the fast and say, what should this look like? But we are in this season when a lot of people still are doing their Bible studies online. Kids are doing their distance learning. So you are spending hours perhaps online. But what are those virtual rabbit holes that you fall down that are taking your time? Is it YouTube? Is it Netflix? Is it Facebook?

Is it Instagram? What is it beyond the things you have to do for work or finding your child's soccer schedule in a Facebook group? Do you need to hop on and do that?

Could you let someone know, hey, would you give me a text? Because I'd like to be off it for the next, you know, these 40 days. There are things you can do. So if you say I can't because I'm so connected, I would challenge you. Are you so connected that you're disconnected?

And if you are, then disconnect so you can reconnect. Let's go back to that word fast, because Jesus talked about it, talks about it in the Bible a lot. What is a fast and why are we asked or commanded or suggested to fast?

What is that? Right. Fasting is setting down something that is temporary and ordinary in order to feast on the one who is eternally extraordinary.

That's good. So we run to something that's not eternal and it distracts us from the one who is. It doesn't actually get us through.

It doesn't fuel us. I mean, I think that going back to the sugar fast is a great example of, yes, in that moment, all we want is that sweet tea, that leftover brownie, the handful of chocolate chips. But does it give us what we need to get through our day and be more Christ-like? If it doesn't, then that's a great opportunity to practice fasting.

Let's set down something that doesn't really get the job done in our lives to return, to turn and return to the one who does. Joel 2, 12, I believe it is, says, return to me with fasting and mourning. And I remember the last time we talked about fasting, you said, Dave, that when you would do like the whole 30 or something like that, you would get grumpy.

Yeah, you get grumpy. And so when we do the fast, the sugar fast, and certainly for the first few days, we kind of go through this grumpy season. And the first time I did the fast, I was really upset about being upset because I'm like, Lord, your word says clearly that in your presence there's fullness of joy. Where's the joy?

That's the verse, that Joel 2 verse about return to me with fasting and mourning and weeping. Why do those two things go hand in hand? And we can talk about physiologically what's going on.

You're crashing because you've grown dependent for the dopamine release of having sugar and caffeine or even the rings and the dings and the notifications on your phone have caused dopamine releases. So you've grown addicted to it and you have to go through a detox and you're going to feel down for a few days as you find your joy now in the Lord and in a healthier way to get those dopamine releases. So there's that, but there's also when it says return to me, if we need to return to him, shouldn't we get in touch with a little bit of weeping and mourning that we had turned from him in the first place? And so I encourage people when they're fasting, if you feel a little lousy, camp out there.

That's okay. I don't mean condemnation. I mean, allow yourself back to lamentations, to lament a bit. You can feel bad that you have been turning to what you're eating and what you're looking at and what you're scrolling through instead of turning to him. So if you return and you feel a little crummy because you're not eating and binge watching on things, let yourself feel bad, but let it feel bad in a way that, Lord, this is conviction.

And I'm so sorry. I repent of that. And that's exactly what turning and returning is about. It's literally physically repenting.

It is doing a 180. I was going to my phone. Now I'm coming to you.

I was going to the pantry. Now I'm feasting on your word. Oh, that's so good because I was just talking to someone a few weeks ago and she said, my life has been so busy, chasing my career, then having babies, then again, trying to being a mom and working. She said, my soul hasn't had any time to slow down.

And suddenly she's faced with a little bit more time on her hands and she's realized I'm really hurting and I haven't slowed down enough to even let myself feel that. And I think we do that in our culture. I've done that. You're numb. And so we don't listen to our soul and our spirit because we're hiding in our social media and I can hide on Netflix all night.

There's some great stuff on there. And yet that time when we allow, when we're fasting and we feel it, that can be so healing. It's God coming like, oh, finally I have your attention and I want to love you and I want to heal you and I want you to be able to hear me in ways you haven't in such a long time. And I would just say, I don't know if anybody's thinking this, that seems so much harder.

It's true. Honestly, it's like, oh, man, to connect with God or to connect with somebody in front of me, kids, wife, spouse, friend, it's going to be work. You know, we've got something we got to talk through. Do you feel that? Because I'm like, oh, yeah, we're going to work at this.

I just think there's a lot of people that they open the phone like, this is easy. It's a form of escapism. Or I would even say you're escaping the most important part of your life. Yes. But I would say it's self-medicating.

Yeah, exactly. And I like that you just brought up pain. And I just want to take a moment to if you're if you're listening and you know that you're masking pain with what you're eating or what you're looking at. I just want to remind you that Jesus was so kind to invite you to come to him. He says, if you're hurting, if you're weary, if you're heavy laden, come to me. I will give you peace. I will be your peace. I will be your prince of peace. I will give you the healing. You don't need to self-medicate.

Come to the great physician. And it could be on your phone. You open the word, you feast. It isn't a bad device. It can lead to bad things. But man, open the phone for the right thing. You know, open that app and let his word wash over you.

Because the harder thing often is the best thing. Right. OK, so what are we going to do? Like, should we do a sugar fast? Should we do a meat? Let's do it together. I honestly think the food part is easier for me than the social media part. Yeah, it's not as hard for me.

He needs the social. Yes, and I'll do the sugar fast. And do people that are doing the fast communicate back and forth? OK, during the sugar fast, it is tens of thousands of people all doing it together.

And I have had people say that I've been in so many Bible studies and I have never experienced community like this. It is radical. It's radical. That's a really good plan to do it with some other people. Yeah, I say reach out to your friends and do your own. And this is going to blow your socks off. If you say, hey, I'm doing a sugar fast, and you just send it out to your girlfriends or your, OK, I'm not looking at you right now, Dave.

He's like, I am not sending it out to my girlfriends. Or the people that you walk with around the neighborhood and you pray for your kids together. If you do it with your Mops group, you are going to be blown away by how many people say, yes, I'll do it. Wow. And then say, and then we're going to roll right into a social media fast and you're going to see how many people start backpedaling.

They're like, but, but, but, but, but, but. Yeah. And maybe you start out with just one thing like, I'm not going to get on Instagram. Yeah. You know, like if it's too hard to just ditch everything, let's take baby steps. Take the details to the Lord and He'll give you clarity.

Even better. I don't know if the issue for you is sugar or social media or whatever it might be. All of us have appetites and when we control our appetites, that's okay. When our appetites control us, that's when we're in trouble. And that's really what Wendy Speak has been addressing in this conversation about social media and about sugar fasts.

We're making Wendy's book, The 40-Day Social Media Fast, available this week to those of you who are saying, I'm ready to step in and take this journey, take this adventure. Maybe you've looked at your own experience with social media and you recognize it's not having a good spiritual impact on you. It's a distraction. It's affecting your emotions. It's affecting your relationships. Go on the journey.

Take the 40-Day Social Media Fast that Wendy has talked about. We are making her book available, as I said, to those of you who can partner with us and extend the reach of family life. Our mission at Family Life is to effectively develop godly marriages and families. We believe godly marriages and families can change the world. And so as you support this ministry, you're actually supporting stronger, healthier marriages and families, not just here in the United States, but all around the world.

We are entirely donor dependent. Your donations make all of what we do possible. So we want to ask you to consider a donation today when you go to our website, familylifetoday.com, or call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate. Be sure to ask for your copy of Wendy Speaks' book, The 40-Day Social Media Fast, exchanging your online distractions for real life devotion.

That's our thank you gift to you for your donation, and we are grateful for our partnership together. You know, we've been talking about this subject of screen time and social media and the online experience a whole lot this month. David Robbins, who's the president of Family Life, is here with us. And one of the reasons we're talking about this is because this is where folks are living. These are the kinds of issues that our listeners tell us they need help with. And that's our goal here at Family Life is to provide our listeners with practical, biblical, relevant help and hope.

That's right. One of our strategic priorities is how do we continue to learn the felt needs and pain points of today's families? And it should not be surprising. This is loud and clear. This is a discipleship, borderline crisis of how do parents who didn't grow up in a social media-infused world not only respond to it themselves, because I've got to look myself in the mirror, but also how do they help and disciple and engage their kids who are being infused with it?

And a lot of times the parents don't even know how it's happening. And I think this month has been a time of us hearing from you as listeners and us wanting to respond and bring to you a variety of perspectives to help you biblically and practically navigate the issues of our day. And, of course, everything you're hearing on Family Life Today continues to be available online at familylifetoday.com. We have literally thousands of hours of conversations, interviews, like what you've heard today on a variety of subjects. If you miss a program, you can always go back and listen to it later.

You can search for topics that are of interest to you. If you've downloaded the Family Life Today app, then you have in your pocket access to all kinds of biblical help on marriage and family-related issues. And we hope you'll take advantage of what's available to you at familylifetoday.com. And we hope you'll join us again tomorrow when we're going to talk with a couple of parents who have walked through the almost unbearable, unspeakable grief of losing a child. Ron and Nan Diehl, Brad and Jill Sullivan join us tomorrow. We'll hear their stories and we'll hear about how God brings comfort in the midst of grief. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapeen. We will see you back tomorrow 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.