Screens & SoulsSample

Lose the messiah complex

You will never be able to set wise boundaries with technology until you reject your messiah complex. Ever heard that term? A messiah complex believes that the people in your life need you. They can’t live without you. If you aren’t like God—omnipresent, always available, 24/7 there to help them...will their universe will fall apart?

If you don’t have your phone on all the time, if you don’t sleep next to it and eat next to it and work next to it and worship with it, something tragic will happen. Your mom will have a stroke, and you won’t be there to save her. Your son will be caught in the cold, and you will be responsible for his chilly death. A friend will need you, and your voicemail won’t be able to help her. How else do you explain the dings, rings, beeps, and buzzes in church, in meetings, at movies, at dinner, everywhere? For some reason, we think we have to be as available as God.

Isaiah reminds us, “I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God” (Isaiah 45:5). It’s good to be a good friend, a good kid, or a good parent. It’s bad to think that you have to be like God. Let him be the all-powerful, ever-present, there-in-your-time-of-need Savior.

That will allow you to put down your phone, recharge your soul, and find the rest you need to truly serve the people you love.