Waste Not

My small group has been reading the book by John Piper "Don't Waste Your Life". I recommend this book to anyone, but I am not going to talk so much about the book but more about a decision I made because of reading the book and feeling a tugging at my heart. I decided to give up television and facebook for a week. Not so hard, you might say. Well, it honestly wasn't. But I've had quite a few people ask me "Why?" so I thought I'd explain. First, I read this from Piper's book:

"Television is one of the greatest life wasters of the modern age....The main problem with TV is not how much smut is available, though that is a problem. Just the ads are enough to sow fertile seeds of greed and lust, no matter what program you're watching. The greater problem is banality. A mind fed daily on TV diminishes. Your mind was made to know and love God. Its facility for this is ruined by excessive TV. The content is so trivial and so shallow that the capacity of the mind to think worthy thoughts withers, and the capacit of the heart to feel deep emotions shrivels. Neil Postman shows why.

What is happening in America is that television is transforming all serious public business into junk....Television disdains exposition, which is serious, sequential, rational, and complex. It offers instead a mode of discourse in which everything is accessible, simplistic, concrete, and above all, entertaining. As a result, America is the world's first culture in jeopardy of amusing itself to death."

-John Piper Don't Waste Your Life
It got me to thinking about the reasons I watch tv and get on Facebook. I couldn't really come up with any GOOD answers. I guess the biggest reason is to literally waste time. Most shows I watch are not quality, informative programming. They don't do much more than to provide a background for whatever else it is I'm doing. Or not doing. Sometimes I turn on the tv when I'm bored. Because it's there. It beckons "turn me on, I'll help keep you mildly entertained for a while". The same is true, for the most part, for Facebook (oh sure, I keep up with friends and family far away, but mostly, I just got on because I was wanting to waste some time). Thinking all this over I came to the conclusion that I have so much more LIFE to be living and that I am called to live it, not waste it. So for a week I watched no tv and did not get on Facebook. Oh, I fretted "What if I miss something?", "What if someone tries to contact me and thinks I am rude for not replying?". Well, those are silly reasons. Guess what? A tornado hit the city I live in, people tried to contact me, and I didn't get on FB or turn on the TV. And I'm still here. My friends still like me. The tornado would have come whether or not I knew about it. The destruction would have been there whether or not I turned on the tv to gawk at it like a rubber necker at an accident. So, I gave up Facebook and tv to start living life a little more. What did I do? How did things differ from before? Now that it is over, have things changed? Well, I spent more quality time with my daughter, dog, and husband, spent more quality time in the Word, and was able to find time to do more things for others, even silly things just to say "thinking about you". Today was day one of being back to 'normal'. I turned on the morning news for a little while, checked Facebook, even uploaded a video! But my attitude about it was different. It wasn't something I was doing just to waste time, I had a purpose, I fulfilled that purpose, and I moved on. Do I think I had some sort of "problem" with TV or FB? No. No more than any of you reading this. Do I think I am better than anyone for having given it up? Of course not. I do think I am a better ME, though. So, if you ask "why?" there you go. My life is being shaped and changed so that I live each day in an effort to glorify God and use this life wisely! And by the way, the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon (By Bill Watterson) has always made me laugh and is so appropriate I had to include it!