Cannot Perform Software Update: No Internet Connection

Living in Africa, you learn about the concept of load shedding, the few times in a day where your electricity, gas and water stop working in order to lessen the load on the power plants. At night, it’s obvious: Lights suddenly go out? Check the clock and set a timer for two hours. In the mornings, it’s not so obvious. Replying to a friend but your text won’t seem to send? Flip the lights. If the wi-fi symbol isn’t on your phone bar, you’ve hit load shedding. Sure, it’s an inconvenience, but you learn to live with it. 

The other morning, I decided that during my devotion, I’d let my phone sit and prepare for the newest iOS 16 update. However, during said time, load shedding occurred and I realized that, since there was no connection for my phone to cling to, the update was going to pause until it could find its beloved network again. (There’s a point to this, stay with me.)

We are (at the time of beginning this blog) five days into November, the last month of our Race. (How we’re at the end is beyond me.) While there are things that I definitely miss about my beloved Knoxville (my gym communities, my dogs and singing loudly), I don’t think I would mind just visiting and then coming back out to South Africa. Naturally, there are always lows, but the highs here at Global Leadership Academy are pretty grand, and I’m thrilled that this is the place where I get to wrap up my Race. 

It seems like home here. There’s a nice gym within walking distance, we cook our own food, there’s a piano in the house (praise Him), we live on a school campus (a place I dream of attending)… it feels enough like an American beach town to feel at home. It legitimately is the best scenario for coming home: adjusting to culture shock before becoming overwhelmed with returning home, getting in shape a little bit, setting up routines to hopefully carry into the States, etc… all great things, but it’s also brought the bad from home too: primarily, screen time. 

In all sincerity, I don’t want to write that. It sounds silly: being on the mission field for a year and building my faith, learning what it means to be a zealous Christian, a radical follower, a submissive disciple… all these fancy terms… and as soon as I was given unlimited wi-fi, it’s as if all my commitments and convictions about my faith evaporated. My hours in the morning spent in the Word have now become usurped by the latest media trends. How in the world does a small little app suddenly take over all of my time? This great routine suddenly crumbled under the opportunity to giggle at my phone screen. It’s made me worry: what’ll happen to me when I get home, reminded of old temptations and old habits? Will I turn to them just as quickly as a dog would to its own vomit? 

But this is something to speak about. Because it felt like home, I know that this is something that you all relate to. We always talk about it in small groups. Why does our phone have such a heavy hold on us? Why do we scramble for wifi? Why do we lose approximately nine years of our lives to staring at our phones? What about the capabilities of this blue lit block and its third parties is so delicious to us? We’ve heard this much screen time is bad for us. We knock the parents that allow their kids to occupy an iPad at three months. We know it’s not great, so why do we keep coming back for more?

Well, if you know your catechisms, you know the answer. “What is the chief end of man? The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” 

We were made to worship. We were created to have something that we rely on, love, praise and enjoy. And when it’s not God, something else will take His place. We are addictive creatures, getting a taste for something we enjoy and coming back for more. When our addictions fall outside the realm of the things that are “good, true, just, praise worthy, and excellent,” which, is God Himself, we hoard our idols in hopes that the more we have, the more we’ll be. But we can’t become a real boy by eating holographic food. We drink the Living Water and there receive our sustenance. 

For a lot of us, we munch on entertainment in hopes for a full meal. For some, we crave good grades, sports performance, parental approval or excelling at our job. For others, we satiate our appetite with our girlfriend, boyfriend, crush, wife, husband, children, friendships, parents, even. It could be our fashion, strength, athleticism, aesthetic, physique, likability, intelligence, creativity, personality, humor. It could be our church or our pastor. Our schedules, our time, our politics. Missing the past, clinging to the present, or dreaming about the future. Of course, there are blatantly abusive addictions. We rattle them off all the time: sex, drugs, money, smoking, porn– you get it. My point, however, doesn’t differentiate between “good habits” and “bad addictions.” Idols are idols, addictions are addictions. We can love all of these things, but, as C.S. Lewis said, “Love, having become a god, becomes a demon.” 

At this point, I’m preaching to the choir. (Rejoice!, if you’re reading this, I miss you.) But as much as our boyfriend or the girl we’re interested in or our job’s duties or the well-being of our children takes up our mind, thinking of Christ should be what saturates us. Sounds worthless while reading on a blog– but you and I have had crushes. We know how much they take up our thoughts. I’ve had a job, I’ve been to school– I know how overwhelming the stress can get. 

These are all real things. We like to dismiss them because it sounds immature, but it’s true. This life may simply be a shadow of the one to come but it feels pretty dang tangible.  

But what are we going to do about it? Passion without action is worthless.

Realize your need for dependence on the Lord. 

This step is incredibly tricky, because in America, we don’t ever realize this. We are completely self-sufficient, and when something bad happens we blame it on something other than ourselves. It took a low point right before the Race and the first two months in the jungles of Honduras to realize this for myself. ‘I, when not in connection with the Lord, am failing.’ And you are, too. 

Jesus wasn’t joking when He said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing.” (Did you skip over the verse because you know it? Too bad, go read John 15.) We’ve watered that verse down so much that we forget the truth in it. We’ve overwatered it. And yet, for us, we’ve deprived ourselves and become barren land, unable to produce fruit. Because we’re not a tree planted by the river, able to stretch our roots into the nutritious soil. We’re a phone– waiting until someone else plugs us in because we can’t do it ourselves.

Where are we getting our charge? Is it from the Everlasting Vine? The Living Water? Our Heavenly Father who made everything we see, hear and experience? No? Then we’re in the wrong place. And we find this out soon enough. We become plagued with fatigue, sloth, strained eyes and misplaced hearts. And yet, we come back to it. Another long night with another long morning. We check the clock as we shift in bed, shocked at how fast the numbers changed.

If we declare to ourselves that “this year, I’m going to grow my relationship with God!” and find yourself writing 365 days later that there wasn’t really any visible change… why is that? 

I’m not writing this from a place of “oh, I figured it out!” Unfortunately, I don’t think many have. It’s a war– we just don’t often participate enough in the battles to realize it’s quite the fight. But I’m writing this to you, someone who claims relationship with God, as someone who realizes we both might be in the same boat: idolatry. God said, “thou shalt not have any other gods before me,’ and frankly, we’re doing terribly at abiding. We know we’re supposed to spend time with the Lord, but it doesn’t quite feel like we need to oftentimes, yeah? However, when not just our mindset but our being realizes that we truly must depend on Christ, the whole game changes. The convictions become tangible. The habits become healthier. It’s because we’re putting our whole selves into something comfier than a hologram. He’s stronger than the dreams creatine offers. He’s a better comfort than the arms of our loved ones. He’s healthier than any bowl of quinoa. When we know this— and I mean know it, we’re reminded that there’s something better to do. 

In order to better ourselves, we must build up a connection with God. The internet, truly, is faulty (and flaky as heck when you live with load shedding), and so is everything else we experience, even the strongest Christian (Paul the Apostle says so in Romans 7 if you don’t believe me). And if we have to get real cheesy and tie the title into the message: we can never update when we’re not connected to our source. And when the times occur that the power does go out, don’t worry, because when it comes back on, you’ll automatically connect to The Source.