Stop Phubbing!

I am not sure if you have come across this word “Phubbing”. But this is such a serious issue in our present age where almost all have been impacted by the same. In fact, it is the result of a major breakdown of etiquette and ethics of all time. Let’s see, what this word means? According to Cambridge Dictionary it means, “the act of ignoring someone you are with and giving attention to your mobile phone instead.”. Researchers have found almost half of relationships are affected by phubbing.

Phubbing was first coined as a term in May 2012. An Australian advertising agency created this word to describe the growing phenomenon of people ignoring their friends and family who were right in front of them and instead scrolling through their phones. Soon after, the “Stop Phubbing” campaign was launched. One study found that more than 17 percent of people phub at least four times a day. Almost 32 percent of people being phubbed two to three times a day. Phubbing and smartphone use also can have an impact on marriages. A study found that spouses who phub each other experience higher rate of depression.

What’s the driving force behind those feelings? Phubbing is a threat to four “fundamental needs,” the study Trusted Source found. Those core needs are:

• belongingness
• self-esteem
• meaningful existence
• control

When someone phubs you, you may feel rejected, excluded, and not important. That can have a significant impact on your mental health. Research also shows that people who are phubbed are more likely to reach for their phones and try to engage with their social media network in order to fill that void. This is the start of a vicious cycle.

We seriously have lost our basic decency. Man’s egocentric nature is growing day by day. We care no more of how others feel while we exhibit such behaviour, as long as it satisfies us. The problem with ethics, etiquette, creed, and religion is that they don’t speak to each other and operate in boxes of their own. If ethics, creed and religion is not impacting our etiquette i.e., our mannerism, then they are questionable.

The Bible lays a principle which says, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.”.  You may ask, “this sounds great, but is it that easy to follow?” It is possible if you are impacted by the life of Jesus who was not just a great moral teacher and a spiritual guru, but He is God Himself who resurrected from the grave and lives. All who met Him while He was in body were healed from all diseases, raised from dead and many lives transformed too. In one incident the guards were commanded to arrest Jesus. Returning without arresting Him they make a sweeping statement, “No man spoke like this man”. When you follow Jesus the God of universe, your life is transformed with love and respect for one another.  You become kind, compassionate and honest in all your dealings.  Most importantly our lives would reflect the nature of a true God.  

 

You can follow us on Twitter

Knowing so much and knowing so little!

 

Have you notice that we are able to know everything in terms of what is happening, why it is happening and why it is not happening in the way it should be happening but on the other hand we are also clueless to things even though they look so simple and straight. We always wish we were in perfect control, at least things that fall in our sphere of influence. Every day we forget our finiteness and our inability to be in perfect control of things all times.

There are many business tycoons and billionaires whom we thought are in perfect control but are suddenly convicted and jailed, if not for longer period but least for a short time? The highest power in human terms is the possession of immense wealth, which people believe they can use it to rescue themselves from any crisis. Yet with all the abundance they are still not in perfect control. This shows the glaring distinction between God and Man. We are just human.

John Frame states, “Because we are not God, because we are finite, not infinite, we cannot know everything at a glance, and therefore our knowledge is limited to one perspective or another. God knows absolutely everything, because he planned everything, made everything, and determines what happens in the world he made. So, we describe him as omniscient. One interesting implication of God’s omniscience is that he not only knows all the facts about himself and the world; he also knows how everything appears from every possible perspective.”.

But we are different. We are finite, and our knowledge is finite. We can only know the world from the limited perspective of our own body and mind. The effects of this finitude, and even more of sin, should caution us against overconfidence in our claims to knowledge. I am not saying that we should doubt everything. Certainly, our limited perspective gives us no excuse to doubt that we have five fingers, or that 2+2 = 4, or that God exists. Our finitude does not imply that all our knowledge is wrong, or that certainty is impossible. But we do, in most situations, need to guard against mistakes.

The fact we know so much and know so little will continue to be our reality. We need to understand things from God’s perspective and ask God to help us. He understands our broken human condition. Jesus’ awareness of the finiteness of human beings is stated in the Bible as, “No one needed to tell him about human nature, for he knew what was in each person’s heart.”. Jesus was God incarnate. The problem is that we look to the infinite God only when we want things. Especially, to gratify our selfish desires. Your soul matters as it never dies. It is also never recreated to a new creature as told through the stories. We shall all live eternally.  Jesus stated, “… I came that you may have life and life in abundance.”. Experiencing the forgiveness of sins and living according to His will allows us to know our path and live a life in abundance.

You can follow us on Twitter

A busy Mind!

 

Photo Courtesy Elizabeth Drain

Most of us are familiar with this proverb which says, “an idle mind is a devil’s workshop,” it teaches us those evil thoughts enter our mind easily when we are lazy and idle. But in this blog, I intend to talk about the opposite, a busy mind. A busy mind can be a constant distraction. Some people can’t even sleep well at night because of all the thoughts running through their heads. They’re thinking about all that happened during the day; thinking about their plans for tomorrow; thinking about children, finances, past mistakes, future. Some even have imaginary conversations with people, picturing what they’ll say if this happens or if that happens. Sometimes they even rehearse conversations of the day, thinking about what they should have said. Thinking and thinking!

Cognitive psychologist says, on an average at any given day we have anything between 40,000 to 70,000 thoughts going through our walking mind. That is overwhelming, right! And that tells us how busy, human mind can be. It is indeed a challenge to calm this mind especially when it is agitated. Psychologist comment that more than 60 % of our thoughts are usually negative. No doubt, we have so many therapies that are intended to soothe human mind. I am not sure the effectiveness part of it, but at least this is a profitable deal today.

Is your mind extremely busy, overthinking and refusing to calm down? It is time that it seeks God the Almighty and finds rest. Jesus more than one occasion told His disciples, “take therefore no thought for the morrow…”. And then He referred to the birds of the sky as an example and said, “Consider the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they?” It is just the matter of faith that takes to trust Him and lay the burden on Him. While it may not be possible for you to silence thoughts that sometimes flood your mind, you can consciously submit the thoughts to God the Father.

Nothing drives away our sense of peace more than overthinking things. An overactive mind can keep you awake at night, leaving you tired during the day. It can prevent you from being able to stay focused on things that need your attention. It can cause you to wonder about your relationships with people, the security of your circumstances, the stability of your future and it can certainly negatively affect how you perceive your relationship with God. The Bible says, “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you”. The key to managing a barrage of thoughts is to set your mind on God. Learn to trust in Him to experience your busy and tired mind, calming down with rest and hope.

As you grow in His understanding and develop the habit of submitting a hyperactive mind to Him, He will bring growth in you. You will find rest while you learn more and more about continuously giving the details of your life to Him. No number of religious rituals can help you though it may give a momentary satisfaction but never a permanent state of calmness. Just learn to put your faith on Jesus and ask Him to relax you. And most importantly invite Him into your life for a transformed state of mind. You will never be disappointed. He is the savior and a living God who indwells human heart.

 

You can follow us on Twitter

Letting Go!

When a baby holds a sharp object, parents immediately reach out to protect the baby from doing any harm to itself, with it. The baby being ignorant to the danger, begins to cry. It is overwhelmed with anger, confusion, and regret for taking away what it wants. The baby screams and kicks in protest as it’s losing control of the thing it loves and wants to hold on to it. It fails to understand what the parent is doing, but the parent is fully aware of doing what is necessary.

We can all act like babies at times. The urge to be in control of our own lives is something that rises in every individual’s life. When it comes to life matters, we don’t realize our calculations are subject to failing us. We may assume that things were working for us in the past because we were in control of things, which is not actually true. We overlook the worries and pain that came along with it.

The irony of it is that we weren’t created to be in control, at least not all by ourselves. The divine purpose is that we live our lives under God’s control and that we take charge of the things that affect us in this life by depending on Him as our life source. You may feel like there are circumstances in your life that are out of control, but they aren’t. They are simply out of your control. Your life is in God’s hands, and everything is under His control.

Just because we have enough information and capacity to decide things for us does not mean we are in control and can make things work for us in our terms. Things may work in favor based on our expectations. But how it will hold up isn’t in our control at all. What is it in your life that you need to release? It might be control over your finances, your reputation, your relationship, your livelihood among countless other things. When we try to hold onto something and refuse to surrender it in God’s hands, we are depriving ourselves of His best plan for our lives.

Maybe your loving Father wants to bless you in a greater way—a new way—but the only way He may be able to do that is if you are willing to release your grip on what you’re trying to hold right now. We are His unique creation. When we put our lives in His hands, we are sure to find direction, rest, and peace. Jesus said that “the thief comes to steal and destroy”, But His plans are to give an abundant life when we surrender our lives to Him. We do this by faith in prayer and not by any religious obligations. He is not one among the many ways nor a religious leader. He is the only resurrected God who claimed, “I am the way, the truth and the life”. He is in perfect control of our lives. Your decision to let go of things that are causing pain, will alter your life for ever.

   

You can follow us on Twitter

What are you seeing lately?

 

What we see has a tremendous effect on how we adjust our action based on what we see. My heart goes to the many, who are visually challenged. Yet they are blessed with their other senses which are highly sensitive and respond to stimuli at a much higher rate. This helps them to manage their existence like any normal person. What people see has a higher impact on a person than what they hear. Therefore, it is important what we see. It is said that the eyes are the window to the soul which defines that looking into a person’s eyes you can tell what the person thinks and feel.

Jesus when commented about the eyes said this, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.”. What are you seeing lately? Well, you may say, “I see many things”. And you are true. Our eyes catch up millions of things. But certainly, our eyes see what our hearts long to see. It is said that visual stimuli are measured in frames per second. In other words, when you are looking around, your eyes are viewing visual cues that move at a certain rate, and that rate is called frames per second.

In an article written by Jennifer Larson medically reviewed by Ann Marie Griff says that a human eye can see between 30 to 60 frames per second. She further adds to the research by stating that we may not consciously register all the frames that we see but our eyes and brain may be aware of them. What you see therefore matters especially what you see intentionally. The world we live in is so filled with many negative things that it surpasses all the positive good acts. News is filled with so much of negative happenings every day. Every frame converts to a thought that is processed in us and it comes out in all our deliberations and action in some form.

The eye is indeed the lamp of the body. To keep it healthy you need to take help of your heart to perceive good things. And that good would depend upon the god you see. I am not referring to a picture or an idol of a god that comes with a price. I am referring to the god of truth and life who has not just passed away as a mere story but had a tremendous effect on human history.

You should refer to the event of Jesus to see what He did and how He transforms human lives. Jesus of Nazareth is widely acknowledged as the most important and most famous figure in history, regardless of beliefs about God, religion, the Bible, Christianity, or the Church. Even before researching, analysing, and evaluating the prolific archaeological and historical material connected to Jesus and the Gospels, one must realize that the effect Jesus had on history over the last 2000 years has been immense. Since the dawn of civilization until the present, no other person has had a more significant impact. Let your eyes see the facts of Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins. You can perceive Him with your eyes of faith and invite Him to your life to have a renewed, transformed and a victorious life. Click the link to know more.

 

You can follow us on Twitter