I recently took a night away to be with my family since our children were out of school on Monday. We drove into Amish country and stayed a night at a beautiful hotel with an indoor pool (a definite plus in Northeast Ohio!) and a game room. No, not the kind of game room with electronic games, but an old fashioned room with board games that help families spend time together. I knew my kids would be excited to get away, but I was very surprised at what they were most excited about--not the pool, not Amish country. They were excited about a promise Laura and I made them--we promised to turn off our phones, email and web browsing (I even left my phone at home). Their excitement came from the commitment to give our total attention to them, even for a short period of time. In essence, we disconnected (from the world) so that we could reconnect (with our kids). I was amazed that our teenage children, who sometimes answer us with one-word answers or grunts, actually talked to us and showed more affection than they had in a long time. Don't get me wrong, we have a strong family bond but the bond was made even stronger through a brief intentionality to disconnect in order to reconnect.
In ancient times, when a person decided to disconnect from the world to reconnect with God, it was called solitude. I think we've lost the art of solitude. In much the same way, when we disconnect from the world and spend some focused time with God, He begins to seem and feel so much nearer than He has before. As we reconnect with God, our doubts about the nearness of God diminish as we push into the love and affection we seek from Him. It took us one act of disconnecting and our children responded with a reconnection I treasure. What if we decided to disconnect from the world in order to reconnect with our Creator? How much more real would He seem to us? How much more would we realize the love of our Heavenly Father?
Why not disconnect in order to reconnect?
No comments:
Post a Comment