Love: No Phone While Waiting (Week of Dec 20)

What?
Refrain from pulling out your phone any time you are waiting this week. Instead, engage those around you or silently pray.

Why?
We were created to live in loving relationships — with God and our fellow man. We find that our phones, however, often split our attention and distract us from truly engaging others in love. In this Advent season, in which we celebrate Christ’s first coming and long for his return when his love will fully heal all things, let us practice the love he has already shown us (1 John 4:10, 19) by consciously setting our phones down as we wait. This resists the distracted, me-centered world we live in and prepares our hearts to receive our King.

How?
For many of us, pulling out our phone has become habit, something we do without thinking. For that reason, we might need a visible reminder to set it aside, like changing the background on the lock screen or home screen to a picture of a stop sign, a note that reads “wait in His love,” or something that reminds us to set our phones back down. 

Use these moments of waiting to practice praying “without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17), and recite a breath prayer, a short prayer that one offers while taking slow breaths. For example,

• “Father, [inhale] fill me with your love [exhale].”

• “Jesus, [inhale] let me know the love of the cross [exhale].”

• “Holy Spirit, [inhale] comfort me with your love [exhale].”

Or, pray in your own words.

• Ask the Lord for the grace to know and experience his overwhelming love which he has revealed in Christ (Ephesians 3:14-10; Romans 5:6-11; 8:31-39). 

• Pray also for the strength to return his love with your whole heart, soul, and strength (Deuteronomy 6:5). 

• Pray that the Spirit would give you eyes to see those in need around you and the ability to extend Christ’s love to them (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 25:31-40).

If you have not prepared in advance how you are to pray in your times of waiting or prepared yourself to act on the Spirit’s leading in demonstrating love to others, more than likely you’ll just be more bored than you typically would be if you had distracted yourself with your phone. Be purposeful in the waiting, and invite the Holy Spirit to grow you in love.