of Many Hands

I forgot my computer at church on Sunday night, and it only took being home fifteen minutes for me to realize that my laptop has become an idol.  This morning as I shook off the cobwebs and had breakfast I began to count how many times I thought, "oh, I'll just hop on the computer," and was up to a baker's dozen before I left the house. Not everything was useless time-wasting; I wanted to compare some bible verses, and write to you. But most of it was absolutely extraneous nonsense, and any one of those things would have shredded my morning routine.  Like they have been doing every day for the past few weeks.  Without my computer I 1) was more productive last night and this morning than I have been in quite a while, 2) felt really great and 3) missed out on absolutely nothing of real importance.  I'm here at the church, typing this on it now. But when I go home, soon, I'm leaving it here.  Not forever.  But probably all this week.
An idol is something that takes the place of God in one's life.  I haven't been worshiping my computer, but it has been devouring my time mercilessly.  In that sense, I have indeed been sacrificing to it. I get out of bed in the morning and check facebook; I come home from work and read livejournal while I eat my lunch.  I check my email before going to bed.  There's nothing wrong or evil about any of these things, but combined they and my other surfing / whatever represent an incredible amount of time, and almost anything else would have been more worthwhile.  When I have made sure to doublecheck my inbox but have somehow run out of time to read the bible in the morning, claxons should be sounding in my head. I am grateful that God is sovereign over my memory.  I probably could have gone a lot longer fooling myself if I hadn't been forced to face it so directly.  
Earlier on Sunday morning my friend Josh was telling me about quitting smoking.  He would hop into his truck and reflexively reach for a phantom pack of cigarettes he used to keep there.  On the drive home, as he got off the freeway he would reach for them again. Every day he was confronted with patterns built by addiction.  I felt like that.  It was humbling, and made me very grateful to God for His patience with me, and grace.
Last night I told you I wanted to wait one more date to get my head straight.  I didn't know exactly what I meant by that, except that I could feel that something in my life wasn't quite worthy of bringing you into it yet.  This was it.
So I've confessed to God, and to one of my Christian brothers (Tobias Klauder, my old CG leader) so as to be held accountable, and this week I'm going to leave my laptop in the office.  I'll be in on Wednesday for sure.  Don't know when else. You are welcome to call me, I'll still have my phone.  I'd like it; an effect of no longer having instant email / facebook access any time my fancy strikes is that I can't stop thinking about you.

-J