Last time we looked at the fact that
the way we use technology often interferes with the personal
relationships and communication that God wants us to have.
Let's look at some relevant scripture
passages:
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands love your wives
as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. (Emphasis
mine.)
Philippians 2:3 In
lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.
Romans 12:10 In
honor giving preference to one another
Galatians 5:13
Through love serve one another.
Deuteronomy 6:7 You
shall teach them (God's words) diligently to your children, and shall
talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way,
when you lie down, and when you rise up.
Romans 15:1-2 Let
each of us please his
neighbor for his
good, leading to edification.
After reading
passages such as these, I learn that my role as husband and father is
one that is supposed to be other focused. I am to be attentive to the
needs of my wife, not only giving preference to her, but making sure
that she is built up spiritually and emotionally. I am to esteem her
as better than myself when it comes to preferences in the use of
time, money and activities. I am not to be focused on pleasing myself
but on her good so she can be built up in her faith and character.
In addition, I am to spend time at all
times of the day in order to instill in my children the words and
commandments of God. My focus personally and for my family is one
that is to have a God-ward direction. I'm to make sure that I am
teaching my children to be focused on the needs and interests of
others rather than the natural tendency to focus on self.
However, when I make arrangements for
each of my children to have his/her own electronic entertainment, I
am teaching them that they don't have to learn to cater to the
desires and preferences of others. I am teaching them that each of us
can have what we want. Some may argue that such arrangements are not
taking away from the preferences of others because they too get to
listen to or watch what they want. But the issue is in learning to
communicate and submitting to one another. It's difficult to let
another person have the choice of the music I have to listen to or
the movie we're going to watch. My selfish self rebels against this.
If we all have to watch the same movie or listen to the same music
and share the same space, we learn to put others first and to share.
This doesn't come naturally, but it is what God wants from us. And as
parents we need to make our daily instruction an integral part of our
dialogue throughout the day's activities. Our decisions about how we
use technology impact that daily instruction.
It takes time to build and nurture
relationships. It takes time for me to nurture the relationship with
my wife and children, and it takes a lot of practice for children to
learn to relate with each other in the way I'm describing. The fact
that our technology has become ubiquitous and personal has worked
against us in the area of personal relationships. In fact just this
week as I was working on this, (January 2012), CNN had an article on
how multitasking hinders young people's social skills.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/25/tech/social-media/multitasking-kids/index.html)
We need to take steps to reverse the
trend and nurture the personal relationships in our lives the way God
intended. As parents we need to make sure we are fulfilling God's
desire for us to train up our children in the way they should go. As
spouses we need to fulfill God's design for marriage by being all
there for our spouse throughout the moments of every day.
...To Be Continued... Part 14 available after it is published here.
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