Avoiding Smartphone iDolatry
00:00:00.000 | [music]
00:00:07.000 | This is the track I Love off Trip Lee's previous album, The Good Life, which is about to turn
00:00:21.400 | three years old.
00:00:23.120 | We're back with Trip Lee.
00:00:24.440 | Trip, I Love is a tongue-in-cheek song about your iPhone.
00:00:28.400 | Over these years since, what habits have you put in place to ensure that your phone doesn't
00:00:32.560 | take up too much of your life or distract you from your family or distract you from
00:00:37.800 | God and the spiritual disciplines?
00:00:40.720 | This is an area ... Well, I wrote that song, I Love, because this was an area that I found
00:00:45.720 | is a struggle for me.
00:00:47.600 | I wrote it as if my iPhone was my girlfriend and she was constantly grabbing for my attention.
00:00:54.800 | That was just a very real testimony for me and the way that I was feeling and the kind
00:00:59.400 | of fight I had to put up in order to focus.
00:01:02.880 | It can be hard for me, especially when I'm on the road a lot, which requires lots of
00:01:06.960 | sitting around and waiting.
00:01:09.240 | I've found that I've trained myself in any kind of free time to just grab my phone.
00:01:13.280 | So I really do have to fight about it.
00:01:15.760 | As far as my family life and spiritual disciplines, I don't have really any kind of magic things.
00:01:22.560 | When I read the word and when I pray, I have to either leave my phone in another room or
00:01:27.620 | put it on do not disturb.
00:01:28.920 | I absolutely have to, because I found that I definitely will get distracted.
00:01:34.160 | It'll vibrate and then I'll kind of run to it.
00:01:37.080 | Or even, the reason why I have to leave it out of the room sometimes or turn the signal
00:01:42.000 | off is because I get rabbit trails in my brain too.
00:01:46.040 | I'll convince myself I need to look something up.
00:01:47.720 | This is the power of Google on me, is that I never have to wonder anything.
00:01:51.160 | I can find out right now.
00:01:53.040 | Any rabbit trail that pops up in my mind, I can pop right to.
00:01:56.680 | I think at the end of the day, I have to know myself and know myself well enough to know
00:02:00.520 | how it distracts me.
00:02:02.120 | I have to either have my phone off or out of the room when I'm spending time in prayer
00:02:06.040 | and in the word, because it will grab me.
00:02:08.520 | When it comes to spending time with my family, I have to do the same thing.
00:02:11.960 | I will admit there have been times when I've looked up and realized I was looking down
00:02:15.760 | at my phone for 15 minutes and my son's playing right in front of me, or realized that I'm
00:02:20.520 | not paying the amount of attention to my wife I should be.
00:02:23.920 | It's easy to get distracted.
00:02:24.920 | It really just takes intentionality and knowing myself and knowing when to leave it out.
00:02:31.760 | It's an ongoing fight for me, something I'm not always great at.
00:02:36.400 | Are you more disciplined with your phone now than you were three years ago?
00:02:39.960 | Absolutely.
00:02:40.960 | I'm absolutely more disciplined now than I was three years ago.
00:02:43.400 | Me and my wife always have conversations about it.
00:02:46.920 | We've opened up in our life the perfect freedom to at any time rebuke each other when phones
00:02:52.840 | grab too much with no hesitancy.
00:02:55.640 | I think that's been really good for us, because it's helped us to keep a good check on each
00:02:58.680 | other, one of the many ways I'm grateful for my wife.
00:03:02.000 | I have noticed that even outside of time that I spend in the word, the more time I spend
00:03:07.440 | reading 10-second tweets and skimming random articles and reading pointless posts, it does
00:03:14.580 | affect my attention span when I then go to scripture and try to read for long distances.
00:03:19.520 | I've really tried to more and more train myself to have more disciplined use of my phone and
00:03:24.480 | not just at all times, because I think it does weaken some other muscles that I need
00:03:30.320 | for other good things in my life.
00:03:32.520 | I'm always just increasingly trying to think really carefully about how I'm using my phone
00:03:36.600 | and praying God will help me to grow.
00:03:38.880 | Very good.
00:03:39.880 | Thank you, Tripp.
00:03:40.880 | The next song we have is a track off Tripp Lee's previous album, The Good Life.
00:03:44.720 | Tripp's latest album and his new book are both titled Rise.
00:03:47.920 | You can get all of those resources at Amazon right now.
00:03:52.400 | How should we respond when the world doesn't like us?
00:03:55.400 | I'll ask Tripp that tomorrow.
00:03:57.040 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:03:58.440 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with guest Tripp Lee.
00:04:02.120 | [music]
00:04:03.120 | [music]
00:04:04.120 | [music]
00:04:05.120 | [music]
00:04:10.120 | [BLANK_AUDIO]