Each week, after I write the main post, a few days later, I send an accompanying prayer related to the topic. I am doing in this in part for me: I always am on the hunt for more written prayers. I use written prayers often in my work to pray for larger groups, but I also love written prayers for my personal piety. Sometimes it is nice when I do not have the words to use someone else’s.
The below prayer is in response to my latest post on navigating technology with kids.
God, you are bigger and sturdier than the seemingly chaotic changes and ground swells in our world. When everything around us is shifting, you are the stabilizing force.
New innovations arrive on the scene every day: artificial intelligence, upgraded devices, more ways to be constantly connected. Help us use these inventions for good—to build our relationships and help one another—rather than to grow distant from each other and satisfy our greed.
Few things in life are all good or all bad. It is the intention we bring that makes the difference. Guide us in setting right intentions when we pick up our smartphones in the morning and head into a new day. Remind us to spend more hours looking up and out into your vast, beautiful creation rather than looking down into the bright, glowing light in our palm.
In fact, maybe less is more.
Less scrolling, more talking.
Less posting, more phone calling.
Less attachment to the phones themselves, more attachment to the people programmed into our phones.
Give us the perspective to remember that technology is just a tool, one ideally meant for connection. Equip us to give it a right-sized place in our lives. Amen.
❤️❤️❤️