Boxes in our hands
I am in an unprecedented time.
I am not alone in this. Many are voyaging into the so-called “real world” (like we haven’t been living in it already?) alongside me, battling in tandem the aches of aging and responsibility and the mundane. In a different vein, adults and adolescents alike are living in an unprecedentedly stressed world, self-inflicted stress and stress stumbled upon. We also have more access to more knowledge and more stuff and more opinions and more news and more pleasure and more assets than ever before. This does not come without a cost.
We pay for our insatiable desire to never be more than a foot away from the entire world: which has conveniently been housed in a box we can carry with us everywhere and prop up on our pinky.
I can’t shake the heaviness of that… it’s been a lingering thought of mine for the last few days. We are an exasperated people, and we will do whatever it takes to relieve that exasperation. Yet anything found to be relieving is chased by an unstoppable reliving: reliving of comparison, loneliness, boredom, desire, anxiety, or dissatisfaction. We find ourselves back in that familiar ditch, and what do we do? Run up the side just to jump back in it again.
The heaviness, I think, can be boiled down to one feeling.
Our devices are sucking the life out of our bones.
And this is coming from an avid Pinterest board maker, a ChatGPT daily user, an Instagram addict. I can say these things because I feel them creeping in on me, too. Studies are being released every single day about the negative effects of AI on our cognitive capacity and general critical thinking skills. It' is dumbing us down, just as we suspected it might. And we are no stranger to the boatloads of connections between social media usage and anxiety. Another discussion for another time.
So here is the crossroads we, particularly as followers of Christ, find ourselves at:
If we are called into creativity, why are we okay with losing touch with our individual capability to compose?
If we are called to not worry about tomorrow, for it has enough worries for itself, how can we justify being imprisoned by a world that always asks us what’s next?
If we are called to walk worthy of the vocation into which we were called, then I simply ask: what are we doing?
As I write this, my mind is being blown. The Spirit speaks. I have the same decision to make as anyone who happens upon this little blog of mine: will we listen?
Will we be okay with failing at things, knowing there is value in our effort when we do everything in word or deed for Christ? When we create for worship and do all of our work to honor Him?
Will we heed His advice to be anxious about nothing, to instead abide, pray, and petition Him that our desires might become like His desires?
Will we ask Him to show us His will for our life?
The conviction of the Lord is a beautiful thing. It bears no resemblance to fear or shame or guilt, it is an altogether unique feeling: one that brings us back to the feet of Jesus and walks us with boldness to the throne of grace. To be convicted is to be reminded of God’s love for us. So when we wind up in places like this, that may feel dark and muddy, turning our eyes up just might reveal a light even brighter than we remembered it.
That’s what we ought to do, in every sense of the phrase: turn our eyes up. Look up. Stand up. Think up. Because we will always long for something more than the most glorious thing this earth can give us. And that something is far more glorious than our wildest, purest, most comforting, beautiful dreams.
Put down that box in your hand. Set your mind on things above. Take a walk. Store up treasures in heaven. Read an encouraging book (there’s one that trumps all the others). Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly.
The temporal and the eternal reside together on Earth. But only the eternal will remain. And what a gift to be given so much guidance in collecting things of the latter while we reside in things of the former.
From one student to another,
Mary Grace Rowell