Contributed by Abbey Thangiah • Sep 5, 2023
Your phone time might get you a PhD
Before I start, switch on your phone. Do the following:
- Open the Settings app.
- Select Digital Wellbeing & parental controls.
- Hit Dashboard.
- Check the time under Screen Time.
What is your daily screen time? Monthly? Yearly? If you had used your phone hours on studying, could you have upgraded yourself? Maybe earned yourself a PhD?
David had the most undesirable job. He was a shepherd. He was in the fields too long until his own father did not even consider him to be anointed by Samuel.
Let’s say David spent 20 years as a shepherd boy. If he spent 10 hours a day on the field, he probably would have had 8 idle hours where he rested and looked at the fields while his sheep were grazing. In these 20 years, I can say David made good use of his time. He became a good shepherd. He also protected his sheep by using the slingshot professionally to kill predators. He became closer to the Lord. He must have had a built shape because he was strong and brave fighting with wolves and bears. He learned to play the harp just by watching “Jewtube ” on his phone. We see how these attributes actually became useful on his journey becoming King. He wrote most of the Psalms. When Saul wanted to kill him, he actually played the harp and put Saul to sleep. His most epic battle with Goliath is one of our fond Bible stories of all time. Lastly from, shepherding herds of sheep, he shepherded a nation as King,
Fast forward today, if David’s herd was a modern farm with CCTV and drones to oversee the sheep. David would be in an air conditioned room monitoring his thousands of sheep on monitors. This would make him have more idle time to browse the internet. At 10 hours a day and 6 days a week, he would have more than 50,000 hours of free time to use his phone. How would he use it? Would it have made him the man after God’s heart? Would he be strong enough to fight the bears and wolves? Let alone Goliath. Would he play the harp or be a “Garage Band” expert on his Ipad?
The whole world was in a standstill for 2 years during the pandemic. Due to technology, we were still able to live it decently with no interruption to food supply and the internet. Like David, at 8 hours a day, 6 days a week, we had about 5000 hours of effective idle time. How did we use these 5000 hours? I will be the first to confess here. I didn’t use it wisely. Until today, the thought of “What if i used the time to get closer to god (my quiet time wasn’t great), get fit (I paid for an online fitness membership that I didn’t use), played an instrument (I still have the ukulele I bought during the pandemic). Praise God we could attend church online. It was the only solace I had during the pandemic. As I was renting a house by myself, He has allowed me to host 8 foreigners who have lost their visa , finances and couldn’t return during the pandemic. Despite having nothing, I was able to bless a few with what I have.
People like David, Joseph, Mary, Elizabeth and even Samuel were only blessed by God after many many years of hardship and pruning to be the person God intended them to be. Once they became ready, we can see how God blessed them abundantly and we still talk of them 2000+ years later.
Time is always more valuable than money. Let us always glorify God with the 24 hours he has given us. In return, we will be glad we did because we can then see how God has blessed us in our journey.