A few months ago—seemingly out of nowhere—a question popped into my mind: “What if you reached for your Bible as often as you reach for your phone?”
The question came with a twinge of conviction, but also with a spark of genuine curiosity.
“Seriously,” I thought. “What might happen—in my heart and thought-patterns and life—if all the minutes I usually spent scrolling, were instead spent meditating on God’s Word?”
At the very least, I reasoned, the results would be better than the ones I was currently getting:
A distracted, frazzled mind.
A heart unsettled by the world’s ways.
Time that was irrevocably wasted.
My phone doesn’t make me feel particularly good. And yet I keep spending my minutes this way. I consume whatever the algorithm wants to feed me. I bend my head over a glowing screen and scroll my life away.
Now, maybe you think I’m being dramatic when I say that I’m “scrolling my life away,” but I’m not exaggerating at all. A quick Google search will tell you: the average person spends at least 4 hours a day on their phone. Added up over the course of a year, that’s over 60 24-hour days spent staring at a device—almost 3 entire months. And while I’ve never formally tracked my screen time, I’m fairly certain I meet or exceed this average.
So, once again, it has me thinking: “What if I reached for my Bible as often as I reach for my phone?”
What could God do if I gave Him the hours a day I normally give to my phone? What would change in me this year if those cumulative days and months were given over to meditating on God’s Word?
I’d like to find out.
This coming year, my goal is to reach for my Bible in the spare moments I’d normally reach for a device. And specifically, I’m going to spend this time meditating on the 4 gospel accounts.
If you can relate to my screen time struggle—or if my little experiment just piques your curiosity—here’s how you can join me:
+ Scroll down and sign up for my email list so you can meditate on Scripture with me in 2025: In the welcome email, you’ll receive my ‘A Year in the Gospels’ reading plan, which I’ll be using to guide what I read/meditate on daily. Even if you just replaced 1 hour of daily Screen time with these Scriptures, you would have spent 15 cumulative days meditating on Scripture by year’s end. What difference might this make for you?
+ Follow along with my journey: As I practice reaching for Scripture instead of Screens this year, I will share monthly “insider updates” with those of you on my email list. I’ll let you in on the challenges I face and what’s helping me along the way.
+ Share with a Friend: If you know anyone who wants to make changes to their screen time this coming year, would you tell them about my little experiment? I would love to have people join me on this journey!
How to Get Started:
Sign up for my email list below and this reading plan will be sent to you in your welcome email. You will also receive weekly Friday emails with links to my latest devotional posts, Scripture over Screens updates and more.
(If you’re already an email subscriber, you don’t need to do anything else to receive this plan. It will be automatically emailed to you. Thanks for being apart of my email community!)