Acedia Is Timeless

Cell phones are today's challenge

Why did I bring up acedia and distractions in the last post? I want us to ever be mindful of the unseen battlefield and God’s role for us as Tsunami Surfers. More importantly, because the task of helping victims of the Sexual Tsunami requires us to walk closely with Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit, distractions are our greatest hindrance.

I want to take aim at some common addictions most of us have: social media, YouTube, doomscrolling, and other forms of obsession, all accessible from our cell phones. But before you flee your vices by destroying your devices, let’s just step back a moment.

Distractions have been with us from the beginning of time.

Eve and Adam were the first to be distracted from God’s goodness and their appointed tasks in the Garden. The serpent drew their attention to the unusual fruit and began to create curiosity.

Last week we considered the wisdom of a monk from the fourth century, miffed that his brothers in the monastery would leave their prayer cells because of their distractions.

Fast forward to the 1600’s, and Blaise Pascal, the French Christian and mathematician, was also urging believers to avoid distractions. He believed our distasted for boredom was at the root. Instead of welcoming stillness and solitude as a setting for contemplation, the temptation of his time was to think of international wars or international pilgrimages. In his book 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You, Tony Reinke quotes him as saying,

I have discovered that all unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber . . . Hence it comes that men so much love noise and stir; hence it comes that the prison is so horrible a punishment; hence it comes that the pleasure of solitude is a thing incomprehensible.

What follows is Reinke’s thoughts interspersed with quotes from Pascal. See how very relevant the quotes from Pascal still are for us today:

[We are] clicking, scrolling, tapping, liking, sharing . . . anything. “We think we want peace and silence and freedom and leisure, but deep down we know that this would be unendurable to us.” In fact, “we want to complexify our lives. We don’t have to, we want to. We want to be harried and hassled and busy. Unconsciously, we want the very thing we complain about. For if we had leisure, we would look at ourselves and listen to our hearts and see the great gaping hole in our hearts and be terrified, because that hole is so big that nothing but God can fill it.” (Italics in original.)¹

Once again, acedia is timeless. Distractions did not assault humankind with the invention of the internet. Far from it. Acedia has been in the Evil One’s playbook since Eden. Cell phones are not inherently evil (most days, anyway). And very few people who cry out against smart phones are actually ready to throw them away. But it is indeed a device that needs to come under the reign of Christ and his Kingdom!

And for us as Tsunami Surfers, there are very clear reasons we need to rein in our own smart phone usage. Paul adapted a common saying of his day, “‘All things are permitted for me,’ but I will not be dominated by anything” (1 For. 6:12b NRSV). Smartphones are permissible, but they should not dominate and control us. As we bring these devices under Christ’s reign, it will speak volumes to those under our care.

People who are addicted to online porn are absolutely dominated by their cells. If you are trying to advise them to ditch their phones while constantly looking at your own, that is not very inspiring.

And as I’ve mentioned from the beginning of this blog, Dr. Patrick Carnes has said that frequent use of iPhones and iPads by children has rewired their young brains toward addiction unlike ever before. How can we as parents insist on them abstaining if we can’t keep our own fingers from stroking the glass faces of those very same things? We need to lead by example.

On a personal note, I have been able to use my phone less and less, but it has taken a LONG time. My greatest temptation is “doomscrolling” news headlines and checking on sports news. The recent practice of meditating on scripture has helped tremendously with maintaining freedom from these distracting devices. When tempted, I meditate on a scripture I’ve memorized.

A Compelling Vision

Forty-six years ago, I had a tremendous conversation with a pastor named Travis Hutchinson. He had such a heart for God, I just felt drawn to him. Unfortunately, he suffered with a disease that would flare up and sap his strength. (Maybe Parkinson’s? Don’t remember.)

The subject of apathy and sloth came up. I asked him, especially in light of his illness, what kept him motivated. His answer? Vision. When God gives us a vision for the work he wants us to do along with a hunger to please him, we don’t count the cost. We don’t clock in and clock out. A God-given vision compels us.

For me, it is ministry to the sexually broken—the very victims of this Sexual Tsunami. I want to be the best I can be for God’s purposes at this time in history.

If you’ve read this blog for very long and you have reached this point in the article, likely this vision draws you forward as well.

As it says so plainly in Hebrews 12, “ . . . let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us . . . “ (Heb. 12:1b NRSV).

God help us lay aside this acedia, gain control over our phones which “cling so closely,” and be driven by a vision of the healing hands of Jesus reaching out to the victims of the Tsunami.

1. Reinke takes the Pascal quotes from Peter Kreeft, Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal’s Pensees Edited, Outlined, and Explained (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1993), 168-169.