It’s handy, having the world at our fingertips. Even though I lived it, it is hard to imagine there once was a time when we had to wonder about things; in the stone ages of the late 20th Century there were questions that the average person would have and had no way of getting an instantaneous answer. The horrors. Now we carry a computer around in our pocket with more processing power than those that once filled entire rooms.

These little computers contain our calendars, our rolodex, our literary and musical library, and most anything else we want to put on it. 

Most days I am very thankful for smartphones. In fact, there are few times I am not thankful for them. The experienced reader might assume this piece will be an indictment of the modern use of smartphones, but it’s not. Have they hindered our abilities to some capacity? Sure. My Uncle Mark and I were on a road trip once using google maps and the discussion of our cultures slipping navigational skills came up. “Used to be,” Mark began, “we knew how to get places without a phone. Of course, we drove around the block a lot more back then too, so I guess it wasn’t perfect.” 

The point being, we weren’t as good at those things as we like to think we were anyway.

There is one thing I miss, however, since the advent of the smartphone. I was listening to a sermon recently and the preacher told his congregation to turn to 1 Timothy 1:12-15. Having completed his request, I heard a sound that I had long forgotten. I heard a room full of bibles flipping to the same text; I heard the melody of those thin slivers of paper rustling as the gathered saints searched the depths of God’s word. 

There’s nothing wrong with bible apps and the convenience there in, but from time to time, I wish we could just set them aside and listen to the world that once was. And as I flipped through my Papa’s tattered Bible along with the sermon, it occurred to me that it seems pointless to pass down an iphone.