Better Than Scrolling Your Phone in the Morning

00:00:00.000 | [music]

00:00:05.360 | We jolt awake, grab our phone, silence the alarm, and there, laying in bed, phone in

00:00:13.840 | hand, we face our first decision of the new day.

00:00:19.100 | Do we shut off the screen?

00:00:21.580 | Or do we start scrolling?

00:00:24.320 | I wanted to know how common this dilemma was among Christians.

00:00:27.880 | So back in April of 2015, I conducted an online survey of 8,000 readers of DesiringGod.org.

00:00:34.960 | My survey focused on smartphones and social media habits.

00:00:38.600 | I asked a bunch of questions and received a lot of revealing results in return, a few

00:00:43.160 | of which made it into my smartphone book.

00:00:46.440 | But here were three stats that immediately stood out to me.

00:00:51.200 | Of the 8,000 respondents, half admitted to scrolling through their phones within the

00:00:55.840 | first minutes of waking up in the morning.

00:00:59.760 | And this figure rose to over 60% among those aged 18 to 29.

00:01:04.960 | And when asked whether they were more likely to scroll through texts and email and social

00:01:09.160 | media before or after their morning devotions, a staggering 73% admitted to me that they

00:01:17.520 | normally did so before spending time with God in the morning.

00:01:24.640 | 73%.

00:01:27.600 | And while scrolling social media may seem like a harmless indulgence, I think we all

00:01:31.440 | know it's an unhealthy way to start the day.

00:01:34.280 | It's like eating chocolate for breakfast.

00:01:36.840 | So I want to ask you, Pastor John, in light of these stats, what's a better approach in

00:01:41.760 | these moments just after we wake up in the morning?

00:01:47.600 | I think there is a better course.

00:01:50.440 | But to help everybody understand why I think that and what that better course is, it might

00:01:57.520 | be helpful to start by analyzing why we are so prone to click on our phones before we

00:02:06.240 | do almost anything else.

00:02:07.880 | So I thought of six possible reasons why we do this.

00:02:12.640 | And I got these reasons out of my head by analyzing John Piper's soul and his temptations.

00:02:19.200 | I haven't done any surveys, so if people think this is narrow, they say, "Well, yeah, it

00:02:24.000 | is.

00:02:25.000 | It comes out of me, and if people are like me, then they might get help."

00:02:29.160 | It seems to me that all of these six things, I'm going to say, are rooted in sin rather

00:02:34.660 | than rooted in the desire to serve others and savor God.

00:02:39.880 | And I put it like that because I do think the great commandment does set the agenda

00:02:47.560 | for our mornings and our midday and our evening.

00:02:51.240 | We are to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, strength when we wake up in the

00:02:56.320 | morning.

00:02:57.760 | And we are to prepare ourselves to love our neighbor, serve our neighbor as ourselves.

00:03:04.120 | And given how sinful John Piper is, and I presume others are like me, very few of us

00:03:11.960 | wake up with our whole soul spring-loaded to love God and love people.

00:03:18.480 | This takes some refocusing, to put it mildly.

00:03:22.140 | This takes some focusing of our souls by means of the Word of God and prayer.

00:03:29.480 | We have to remind ourselves about reality in the morning in order to begin to love God

00:03:35.960 | and love people the way we ought.

00:03:37.820 | So here are my six guesses for why so many of us are drawn almost addictively to consult

00:03:46.040 | with our phones or devices when we wake up in the morning.

00:03:51.080 | And the first three I call candy motives, and the second three I call avoidance motives.

00:03:59.240 | So first, I think we love to immediately take a bite of candy from our phones for our novelty

00:04:06.760 | hunger.

00:04:07.880 | Call this novelty candy.

00:04:09.880 | We simply love to hear what's new in the world or among our friends.

00:04:16.280 | What has happened since the last time we glanced at the world?

00:04:20.020 | Most of us like to be the first one to know something, and then we don't have to assume

00:04:24.920 | the humble posture of being told something that's smart and savvy and on-the-ball people

00:04:31.100 | already know, unlike us who didn't know.

00:04:34.640 | And so we want to be quick and have knowledge of what's new in the world, and maybe we can

00:04:39.920 | assume the role of being the informer rather than the poor, benighted people that need

00:04:45.540 | to be informed about what happened.

00:04:47.620 | And if they were smart enough, they would have been on their social media earlier.

00:04:51.060 | So there's a big ego trip, I think, in our novelty hunger.

00:04:55.320 | Second, I think we love to immediately take a bite out of our candy for ego hunger.

00:05:04.300 | Candy phone for ego hunger.

00:05:07.160 | What have people said about us since the last time we checked?

00:05:12.320 | Who has taken note of us?

00:05:14.680 | Who has retweeted us or mentioned us or liked us or followed us?

00:05:21.960 | In our fallen sinful condition, there is an inordinate enjoyment of the human ego being

00:05:31.080 | attended to.

00:05:33.320 | Some of us are weak enough, wounded enough, fragile enough, insecure enough that any little

00:05:40.460 | mention of us just feels so good.

00:05:42.760 | It's like somebody kissed us.

00:05:45.760 | Third, I think we love to immediately take a bite out of our candy for our entertainment

00:05:52.760 | hunger.

00:05:54.180 | So this is entertainment candy.

00:05:56.320 | There is on the internet, as we've all come to know, an endless stream of fascinating,

00:06:02.880 | weird, strange, wonderful, shocking, spellbinding, cute pictures and quotes and videos and stories

00:06:12.140 | and links.

00:06:13.600 | And many of us have gotten to the point where we're almost addicted to the need of something

00:06:18.700 | striking and bizarre and extraordinary and amazing.

00:06:23.080 | So at least those three candy motives, I think, are at work as we wake up in the morning and

00:06:30.960 | have these cravings that we satisfy with our phones.

00:06:36.520 | Then there are these three avoidance motives.

00:06:38.720 | In other words, these aren't positive desires for something.

00:06:42.760 | These are facing things in life that we simply want to avoid for another five minutes.

00:06:49.240 | First, I would call it the boredom avoidance.

00:06:52.560 | We wake up in the morning, we find that the day in front of us simply looks boring.

00:06:56.000 | It feels boring.

00:06:57.200 | There's nothing exciting about coming in our day and little incentive to get out of bed.

00:07:03.480 | And of course, the human soul hates a vacuum.

00:07:07.440 | And if there's nothing significant and positive and hopeful in front of us to fill the hope-shaped

00:07:14.720 | place in our souls, then we're going to use our phones perhaps quickly to fill that hole

00:07:21.840 | and avoid having to step into all that boredom.

00:07:25.240 | Second, there is the responsibility avoidance.

00:07:28.960 | We have a role, father, mother, boss, whatever.

00:07:33.280 | There are burdens that are coming to us in the day that are fairly weighty.

00:07:37.760 | The buck stops with us.

00:07:39.520 | Many decisions have to be made about our children, house, the car, the finances, dozens of other

00:07:46.880 | things.

00:07:47.880 | Our life is full of weighty responsibilities and we feel inadequate for them.

00:07:53.400 | And we're lying there in bed feeling fearful, maybe even resentful that people put so much

00:07:58.120 | pressure on us.

00:07:59.800 | And we just are not attracted to this day at all.

00:08:03.040 | And we would very happily avoid it for another five or ten minutes.

00:08:06.560 | And there's the phone to help us do it.

00:08:09.760 | And the third avoidance incentive is hardship avoidance.

00:08:14.700 | You may be in a season of life where what you meet when you get out of bed is not just

00:08:20.780 | boredom and not just responsibility, but you meet mega relational conflict or issues of

00:08:31.700 | disease or disability in the home or friends who are against you or pain in your own body

00:08:38.840 | and your joints that you can barely get out of bed because it hurts so bad in the morning

00:08:43.800 | and it's just easier to lie there a little longer and the phone adds to the escape.

00:08:50.400 | So those, Tony, are at least six of the things I thought of that are functioning probably

00:08:55.360 | in my incentive when I'm inclined to go there first before something else.

00:09:00.600 | And there are pretty strong things that are keeping us in bed and keeping us on our devices.

00:09:08.620 | But there is a better way.

00:09:10.440 | And here's what points to the need for it.

00:09:14.160 | What if you are the first one to the news and it is horrible news?

00:09:20.740 | Or what if your search for some ego candy finds ego acid and people have hated you overnight?

00:09:31.340 | And what if you spend five minutes getting yourself happily entertained in the morning

00:09:37.420 | rather than facing the responsibilities of the day immediately and you find at the end

00:09:42.200 | of those five minutes that they have drug you down into silly, demeaning, small-minded,

00:09:50.220 | hollow, immature frame of mind?

00:09:54.060 | Was it worth it?

00:09:56.060 | And what if you take five minutes to avoid the boredom and responsibility and hardship

00:10:03.020 | of the day only to find at the end of those five minutes of avoidance you are spiritually,

00:10:10.220 | morally, emotionally less able to cope with reality in the day than you were before?

00:10:18.060 | Was it worth it?

00:10:19.400 | So I think there is a better way to begin the day.

00:10:24.100 | And it will require some decisions before the morning.

00:10:30.540 | It never works to make last-minute efforts to decide to do something different.

00:10:35.540 | You need to decide 12 hours earlier what this crisis moment is going to look like.

00:10:40.780 | It will take some planning.

00:10:42.500 | It will take some alarm clock thinking and setting.

00:10:47.660 | What we want in the morning routine is to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

00:10:53.460 | We want something that gives us a zeal for the glory of Christ for the day's work.

00:10:59.080 | We want to be strengthened to face whatever the day may bring.

00:11:05.280 | We want something that gives us joyful courage to resolve, to count others better than ourselves,

00:11:12.420 | and pursue true greatness, like Jesus said, by becoming the servant of all.

00:11:18.460 | That's the real agenda in the morning.

00:11:21.400 | Very few of us wake up strengthened to do all those glorious things that we get to join

00:11:27.640 | Jesus in doing.

00:11:29.560 | So the new course for the morning, I think, is laid out in the Psalms.

00:11:34.920 | And here's a key verse, Psalm 5.3.

00:11:38.640 | "O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice.

00:11:45.200 | In the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you, and I watch."

00:11:53.160 | So let the first thing out of your mouth in the morning, while you're still on the pillow,

00:11:59.880 | let the first thing be a cry to God.

00:12:03.640 | "I love you, Lord.

00:12:05.200 | I need you, Lord.

00:12:07.440 | Help me, Lord."

00:12:08.920 | That is the first cry out of my mouth in the morning.

00:12:11.520 | "I need you again today."

00:12:16.380 | Then prepare a sacrifice and watch.

00:12:19.280 | I think that sacrifice is my body and my attention devoted to him.

00:12:27.560 | I watch for the Lord to show up and do what?

00:12:32.360 | What am I watching for?

00:12:34.280 | And Psalm 143 puts it like this, verse 8.

00:12:37.080 | "Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust.

00:12:44.480 | Let me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul."

00:12:50.180 | So I'm looking, I'm on the lookout for the steadfast love of God, and I'm on the lookout

00:12:56.800 | for it in his Word.

00:12:59.000 | And then Psalm 90, verse 14 tells me how to think about praying for it when it comes.

00:13:07.040 | Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love.

00:13:10.040 | And just look for it and see it, and here it comes, but ask the Lord, "Oh, satisfy me

00:13:17.640 | with this steadfast love that I may rejoice and be glad in you all our days."

00:13:23.240 | So we watch in God's inspired Word for revelations of his steadfast love and his guidance for

00:13:32.520 | our lives and a profound sense of satisfaction in our souls that he is beautiful and that

00:13:41.600 | he cares for us.

00:13:44.000 | Psalm 119, "My eyes are awake before the watches of the night that I may meditate on

00:13:50.980 | your promise."

00:13:52.160 | Psalm 139, 17, "How precious to me are your thoughts, O God.

00:13:57.800 | I awake and I am still with you."

00:14:02.180 | So I suggest that before you go to bed tonight, you make some choices and some plans and that

00:14:12.640 | you free yourself from the candy addictions and the habits of avoidance that have been

00:14:22.840 | ruining the strengthening potential for the beginning of the day.

00:14:29.200 | Amen.

00:14:30.320 | Let the first words out of our mouth while still on our pillow be a cry to God, "I need

00:14:34.860 | you again today, Lord."

00:14:37.220 | Thank you, Pastor John, for this reminder for this Better Way Forward.

00:14:41.880 | And Pastor John is back with us next time as we look at Isaiah 65, 17.

00:14:46.720 | Curious text about the new creation.

00:14:48.440 | "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth," declares the Lord, "and the former

00:14:54.100 | things shall not be remembered or come to mind."

00:14:57.120 | Interesting.

00:14:58.120 | "The former things shall not be remembered or come to mind."

00:15:01.280 | So are we mind wiped in the new creation?

00:15:04.740 | Is the hard drive of our recollections of this life erased?

00:15:09.400 | Thursday we'll ask Pastor John.

00:15:11.240 | I'm your host, Tony Reike.

00:15:12.520 | We'll see you then.

00:15:13.280 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

00:15:21.480 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Better Than Scrolling Your Phone in the Morning

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