Ok, so I don’t go back and read what I have written in the past on this blog, because I’m a bit terrified to think that I am still struggling with the same issues I was ready to tackle then. I know anger still causes me harm and that I still struggle with intimacy with my husband (kids, dude), and I first started talking about fasting over a year ago. But honestly I know, I am not the same person I was 3 years ago, and I am most definitely not the same person I was a decade ago. Happy New Year, a bit late, but par for the course.
So, back in the last few days of December, I had several moments of conviction about technology and the future of humans, and really felt like God had something to say to me in that place, though most of what He told me sounds too crazy to write about here. However, as I considered the new year, He really laid it on me that my phone was becoming a problem. Here is what I had planned to post on the subject back on December 28th, full of conviction and the Holy Spirit.
Our church is doing a thing in January (probably a pretty common thing for churches to do, maybe?) called “21 Days of Fasting and Prayer”. And I am fasting from the first world problems of cell phones. Isn’t it wild how the cell phone promised freedom and now it holds all of us in bondage? The freedom of having a phone away from home, of being able to call someone no matter the situation, or knowing you are only a call away if your family needs you…. I get the picture of a hiker in The Sound of Music mountainsides taking a call and rushing home to save the day. Or looking back on mobile phones as they came out and became mainstream during my lifetime. I remember it as a way for teens to be “safe” and adults to feel “secure”. How over the last generation, it became a source of anxiety, information, comfort, necessity, pride, shame, and a weapon in our hands. I am going to give up my cell phone for the first three weeks of January, with some caveats to navigate the reality of the world I live in. It will be my house phone for those days. Set down on the kitchen counter and left there. Welcome to 1996. It’s time I looked at how this little link to technology is influencing my heart, and distracting me from God’s work for me. When I find myself reaching for the phone, I need to pause and consider what my feelings are in the moment, and investigate with the Holy Spirit what He would have me do in the moment instead. It’s time to reach for Jesus instead of an Instagram reel, to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal Truth to me instead of what Facebook posts would have me believe. And more than that, it’s time to stop obsessively clutching that stupid object like a tiny prized idol, a tangible piece of the prison of technology in my life.
Turns out, I use my phone. A lot. This tiny social media technology prison of mine is also my music speaker, my camera, my alarm clock, my flashlight…. I wasn’t prepared to give up my phone entirely. So I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s only been about a week and I have already had to reevaluate both my capability to live tech-free, and find Godly ways to use my phone. I decided to use my desire to scroll and direct it toward positive things. I logged into my email and unsubscribed from probably 100 junk mail lists. But as I cleaned out my inbox (Unread messages: 8739), I remembered that I find health and medicine to be fascinating. So I chose to turn my desire to scroll into a consistent check of medical articles and various journal publications. Better to use my time to learn rather than scroll Facebook, right? Well, yes and no. Some crazy stuff happening in that area, too. Quantum technology and neuropsychiatric effects of montelukast and the true costs of white-bagging oncology drugs…
The entire editorial staff for Journal of Human Evolution (JHE) just quit because they have ethical concerns with Elsevier’s use of AI technology as a replacement for humans in their scholarly publication. This ought to be big news, but it isn’t. Also, can I just say how wild it is to me that people who edit peer-reviewed papers that directly dispute Creation theory are the same ones refusing to compromise the integrity of their journal or submit to what they believe are unethical practices by a giant company? Money-driven companies, human evolution versus Artificial Intelligence, staff walkouts amidst ethical concerns- this story has it all.
Oh, and Facebook is definitely out to get me. I don’t know how else to describe the increasingly desperate attempts to get my attention, except as spiritual warfare. Subtle, repetitive attempts to remind me that I should return to the realm of false realities, of distraction and distortion. Facebook started emailing me 24hrs after I last logged in. And it became a daily email that someone I know posted something for a week, and now after one week, it became this.
Seriously, that’s the best you have? Two friend confirmations and a note from a garage sale page…not exactly the most stimulating list of missed notifications. I feel strong in my battle against opening Facebook for the next two weeks. But I also know it’s easier to battle when you know the end is in sight, and quitting anything for a short time can be done on my own power. The question is what does this look like on January 22, when this agreed upon fast is over? Am I going to continue to live free from social media? Facebook is the place I keep up with missionaries I know who are in Africa, and I definitely missed out on the local police scanner gossip and news. But since I am being honest here, the thing I have missed the most about Facebook is checking our pastor’s personal page to see what’s on the menu for Wednesday Night Live. I almost broke the fast absentmindedly Wednesday afternoon reaching to find out what we were having for church supper.
But isn’t that the point? I am still working on those very real areas of bondage that hold my heart (whether that looks like social media, healthcare industry, cryptocurrency and stock markets, AI, war, news and politics, any distraction) and yet, I am certainly not the same person who penned those first pages on this blog. I am not the same Jesus follower I was then, and I certainly wouldn’t have been comfortable questioning if the Facebook algorithm was part of a spiritual attack on me for my decision to fast and seek God? I mean, really… who says something like that in earnest? Apparently, I do.
Fasting is a way of reminding me of and declaring my frailty as a human.
Tim Mackie, The Bible Project
Thank you, Jesus, for what you have been revealing to me during this fast, for showing me the places I have work to do, and the places you are blessing my life. Your power works best in weakness, and I will boast of my weakness so that Christ may work through me (2 Cor 12:9).
Chelsea Finds Jesus 
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