During the last week, as a family we went to a little island in Scotland. It was a beautiful little place and we were the only people on the island for a whole week.
We got there on a tiny little boat, and we have to heat our water with a fire and we could only get electricity when we started a generator at the back of the house.
We also had no signal, no way of contacting the outside world and no communication with anyone who wasn’t on the island.
It was one of the best weeks of my life.
It was so good because we had to be exactly where we were.
There was no escape, there was no running away. We couldn’t retreat into ourselves, or disappear into an Instagram or Tik Tok hole. We couldn’t go shopping when we felt sad, we couldn’t watch a movie when we got bored or post something on instagram and get likes or followers. We just spent time together and lived in the moment.
We spent the week swimming and paddling in the sea, playing board games, reading books and having conversations over cups of coffee and I honestly loved every minute.
So often we try and run away from life. After a difficult day we spend 2 hours on instagram trying to make ourselves feel better. Maybe you do something else. But the point is that we rarely live in the moment today, we rarely stop, have nothing else to do other than living.
Normally there is something to distract us, to take us to another place. But what if we get rid of those things. I am not saying throw your phone in the bin (although most of my family have actually come off all social media now.) But I’m saying maybe just turn it off for a few minutes, leave it at home when you go out, leave it downstairs when you go to sleep.
Because when we live in the moment today, we are able to explore all that this life has for us.
Our phones don’t have the answers we are searching, but spending time in the world, talking to people and living in the moment will help us get further along that journey.
So let’s get on with living, let’s stop escaping and begin living each day.
Today, why don’t you turn your phone off for 10 minutes, maybe go on a walk and see what you find.
And if you feel comfortable, why not say “God, if you are there, speak to me today” and just see what happens.