What Did We Give Up?

Yesterday I was thinking about new and improved and how technology has just escalated during my lifetime. When I was in high school, calculators made their appearance.  I remember how my friends and I were in awe at this magnificent creation! No more figuring things out longhand? Finding a percentage at the click of a button? Wow this was amazing stuff.

I grew up in the country and attended a small rural school. We literally had no where to “hang out”. They built a McDonald’s my last year in school and it was the greatest thing for us to have somewhere to go and have fun!

Then as the years passed we got a bag phone in our car. I thought about high school and how much we missed out, not having phones in our cars! Then as more time passed we got a desktop computer in our home. I had no clue how to operate it, my kids taught me!

Then we got the Internet although it was dial up, and super slow. We still had access to a whole new world though. Then we got laptops and cell phones. Then the cell phones all the sudden got really smart and the world was at our fingertips.

I didn’t have a cell phone until the day my car broke down and I was 9 months pregnant and had to carry my 2 year old through snow to reach help. I decided I was ready to carry a lifeline to help in my purse!

I remember standing on the desert in Egypt, marveling at the technology that allowed me to snap a picture and send it to the States in seconds. Or when I was on a bus in  Egypt and my phone rang and the Egyptian sitting next to me recognized my ringtone, which was Hockey night in Canada. Somehow the world was getting smaller.

As I look back and think of how technology has increased so much in my lifetime it also makes me sad at what we gave up to possess it. Instead of talking to one another, we text. We text even when we’re in the same room! We have access to just about everything we want to know by looking it up on Google. We don’t even have to type it in we can just ask with our voice.

I know personally I spend too much time with my laptop and my phone! I could literally get a college education from my smartphone in my pocket!

What I really need to do is have that same dedication to my heavenly father. The old fashioned way, on my knees and to hear Him speak to me lip to ear. No amount of technology can take the place of hearing His voice whisper His desires for me.

We have given up something very precious to be able to have the world at our fingertips. Do our relationships suffer because of the time we spend on our computers? Do we avoid talking because we can text and not make eye contact?

I am guilty. I don’t even know all of my children’s phone numbers! My phone knows everything. It tells me when to pay bills, it knows everyones address and phone number. I read the news and weather, etc….

I refuse to read the Bible online. I love to turn the pages of the precious Word and draw encouragement from its life giving strength.

I want to make an effort to not be so reliant on the technology of this age but place more value on the simple treasures I once held dear.