Area of life
Time and phone
How you spend your days, hours and screen time.
God might be speaking to you here if
- you reach for your phone before you pray in the morning
- you lose hours scrolling and feel empty afterwards
- you say you have no time for God but find time for shows
- the people you live with have to compete with your screen
What this is
Your time is a gift, and your days are numbered. Live wisely and make the most of every opportunity: how you spend your hours is how you spend your life.
Phones and screens are not evil, but they are designed to hold your attention. Without limits they crowd out prayer, sleep, people and rest.
Jesus was busy, yet He regularly went off to pray. You don't need more hours. Give the first and best of them to God.
My verses
Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
So teach us to number our days, that we may present a heart of wisdom.
Early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up and slipped out to a solitary place to pray.
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God, on which you must not do any work—neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant or livestock, nor the foreigner within your gates.
I will set no worthless thing before my eyes. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me.
And whatever you do, in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
“Everything is permissible for me,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me,” but I will not be mastered by anything.
Where to next
- Give God the first minutesBefore you touch your phone in the morning, pray and read a short passage, even five minutes.
- Check your screen timeCheck your phone's weekly screen time. Ask God what one change He wants.
- Delete one appDelete or hide the app that steals the most time. Try a week without it.
- Set phone free zonesKeep the phone away from meals and the bedroom. Charge it in another room.
- Plan your week with GodOn Sunday, put prayer, people and rest into the week first. Then the rest.
What grows here
Pray
Lord, my days are in Your hands. Teach me to number them and use them well. Free me from what steals my attention and fill my time with what matters to You.