Digital Fasting

TRANSCRIPT: Each family is unique and made for a purpose. At Clear View Retreat, we celebrate those distinct purposes and hope to illuminate God’s relationship principles to deepen family discipleship and biblical community. Thank you for joining us this week for our radio devotion the ‘Five Minute Family.’ How has your week progressed as you have been intentional with your loved ones? Please jump onto our website clearviewretreat.org and share your thoughts with us in the comments. Two weeks ago we touched on making a digital connection with your family members. Still thinking along the lines of digital, this week we want to inspire you to think about the biblical concept of fasting… yes, that’s right, fasting from your digital devices. Now, why would we encourage digital connection one week and digital fasting so soon after? Simple… Balance. But, first, a quick glimpse at biblical fasting. As David Mathis at DesiringGod.org states, “Fasting is voluntarily going without food — or any other regularly enjoyed, good gift from God — for the sake of some spiritual purpose.” That is why, in this age of ‘all things digital’ we need to make sure that we are keeping our focus on God at all times. So, we balance digital connection with digital fasting in order to make sure that God is preeminent in our lives. At one point in our family’s past, we would fast from all things electronic for the whole month of February, with one family movie a week. One of our sons was so resistant to the concept one year that he sat on our big recliner chair every free moment. I would suggest he go play or work on a fun project or create a song or read a book or, well, you get the picture. No matter what I said, he would just sit there and say, “I want to play xbox.” For 28 days he sat on that chair. Now, it might seem like our digital fast failed because one of our children was so resistant to it, but it didn’t. As parents and spouses, setting the example for our loved ones and following God’s example is never a failure, eve