There is a place of quiet rest,
  Near to the heart of God,
A place where sin cannot molest,
  Near to the heart of God.

A pastor and choir leader, Cleland McAfee, wrote those words after hearing the dreadful news that his two young nieces died within twenty-four hours of each other from diphtheria. McAfee was so burdened and in such grief for himself and his brother’s family, he wrote this hymn. His congregational choir learned it and sang it in front of the darkened, quarantined house the following Sunday in 1903.

Lately, Jim and I have felt extremely busy.  It’s true we’re retired, but we seem to have more on our schedule than ever. In that hustle of things to do,  we spend more time than ever at the computer and on our phones. Too much time.  So after reading a suggestion to take a break from our devices for a twenty-four hour period, we decided to give it a try. We dubbed it a “tech sabbath.”  We were concerned it would be difficult to be separated from those screens of information, yet I was surprised I didn’t miss it much.  It’s true whenever I walked by our charging station, I wanted to stop and punch the home button on my phone to see what was new. What news had I not heard about. Who called or messaged me. But then I remembered it was off and went on my way. While away from the devices–including the computer–we read, we walked outdoors, and talked. It was peaceful. It was restful. It felt good.

Sunday morning, we turned them back on. There were no urgent messages. No compelling emails. The world got along fine with us off of the screens.

Statistics say the average child spends six hours a day on their screen–I wonder if it’s more than six, but that’s what I read. Even so, that’s 2190 hours in a year. They spend–if they attend school six hours a day–1080 hours at their desks. Twice the time on the screen not imagining. Not discovering new things. Not reading good literature. Not inventing.

I’m not suggesting everyone do this–the turning off of devices for twenty-four hours, but perhaps you could try a few hours with it off. When attempting to improve our phones connection, the tech suggested we turn them off every so often because we said we rarely did that. They must need a sabbath rest too!

So, give it a try! And message me what happened to you when you did that. But I won’t read about it tomorrow–I’ll be taking a tech sabbath! Enjoy this group–or check out other versions of this song.

 

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