We’re all enslaved in some way to some degree. By facing up to that enslavement, by naming the forces, pressures and factors that enslave us, we can begin the journey toward freedom, toward living life more abundantly, as God would want us to do.
Former Apple and Microsoft executive Linda Stone in her research discovered a phenomenon known as email apnea.* Stone found that 80% of people in her study unconsciously held their breath or breathed shallowly while emailing or texting. How stressed and tense we are in our high-octane, high-speed society!
Another study found that, on average, Americans check their phones some 262 times a day, or once every five minutes!** I know how obsessively attached I can get over my phone. I’m just as enslaved as everyone else, mired in a false sense of urgency, all to our un-health.
We need to stop, breathe deeply, and remember that God is near, that Christ Jesus still and unfailingly embraces us and the world with a love that will never let us go.
* Ashley Neese, Permission to Rest (Penguin Random House NY, 2023) *p. 40, **p. 66.
Steadying God, you keep loving us no matter what. Free us from a false sense of urgency. Slow us down so we may live more abundantly. Amen. —