MY CHRISTMAS GIFT TO MYSELF!

I REALIZE THIS SEEMS A LITTLE SELFISH, but I am getting myself a Christmas gift this year. The reason is that I deserve this gift, dare I say I need this gift and I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that no one is going to give me this gift, not this year, not ever. If I expect to get this gift my only hope in receiving it is to give it to myself!

     The gift I desire so greatly is the gift of uninterrupted time to study God’s Word, be available to others and to spend extended time in communion with the triune God.

    Again I have discovered the great need I have for this uninterrupted time. This gift is one that comes specially wrapped. It is wrapped in the turning off of the television and other extraneous media input, it is tied up with the ribbon of disconnecting myself from my computer for an extended period (maybe even one or two days a week).  It is going to require that I limit my access to the glut of information that bombards me moment by moment. It means I am going to have to purposefully create space for uninterrupted time with God. And it means I am going to have to refuse to run my life at the speed of light that our present internet-driven culture demands.

     Does this mean I am going to miss out on some of the hottest new sites on the world-wide-web? Yes it does. Does this mean I am not going to answer your emails, and voice messages within a 15-minute window? Yes it does. You see, I really am developing a taste for deep knowledge rather than superficial information. I am hungering for a relationship with people that allows me to be present with them, without feeling my cell phone vibrating in my pocket, or worse to answer it in mid-conversation (which has been done to me more and more lately).

     Yes, this year I am going to give myself the gifts of simplicity, contemplation, and order, rather than the world’s gifts of complication, distraction, and chaos. I can’t wait to begin to unwrap this wonderful, multifaceted gift. The neat thing is that it is a gift that you too can enjoy, but it has to start with you. I want to say thanks to John Dyer for his encouraging and empowering book, Fromthe Garden to the City: The Redeeming and Corrupting Power of Technology, for challenging me to go out and give myself this gift. Thanks John, your words hit home, thanks for the gift!