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Not to us,\xa0Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness. (Psalm 115:1)

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One of the problems with idolatry is that it pulls our attention, desires, and ambitions away from the One they are supposed to be pointed at: God, and points them at the idol, or ourselves instead.

If our devices, these creations of our own hands\u2014along with the images and words they bring us\u2014if they have become idols in our lives\u2014demanding our attention, claiming our desires, and fueling our ambitions through ever increasing amounts of screen time\u2014then we need to hear these words of the Psalm again.

\u201cNot to us, Lord.\xa0 Not to us.\xa0 But to your name be the glory!\u201d\xa0 It is in your presence we wish to dwell, not our own.\xa0

There are elements of our current technological idolatries that are quite ancient, in that we form our idols, and then they form us.

Adam and Eve believed the serpent\u2019s lie, that they could become like God if only they would reach for the fruit of disobedience.\xa0 The builders of the Tower of Babel also reached for the heavens, the place of God, to make it their own.\xa0 Likewise, in our pursuits of technology, we continue to reach for things that perhaps are not ours to grasp.\xa0

We reach for omnipresence, that ability to be \u201call/everywhere-present.\u201d\xa0 Through the eyes and ears of our technological idols, we can be present anywhere and everywhere in the world at once.\xa0 Time and space no longer limit us. \xa0Digitally, we are free of them.

We reach for omniscience, that ability to be \u201call knowing.\u201d\xa0 Through those same means of digital omnipresence, we drink in the news of markets, politics, opinions and happenings.\xa0 We gobble up the images of intimate pornographic content as well.\xa0 We want to see, hear, and know everything.\xa0 And digitally, we are promised that we can.\xa0 Just keep scrolling.\xa0 Our hunger and thirst for more information becomes insatiable\u2014for what eye has it\u2019s fill of seeing?\xa0 And what ear it\u2019s fill of hearing?

We reach for omnipotence, that ability to be \u201call powerful.\u201d\xa0 With the tap of a finger from the comfort of home, the world answers our call: groceries are delivered to our door, meetings are conducted, our desires are satisfied.\xa0 Not only that, but we are able to shape the powers of government and bring corporations to their knees through our activist tweets and posts.\xa0 We are inferior to no one.\xa0 The power is quite literally in the palm of our hands.

And yet, these devices that we have created in our image (with eyes, ears, voice, etc.) to make us all present, all knowing, and all powerful\u2014that is, to make us like God\u2014have in fact, far from setting us free unto divinity, have enslaved us.\xa0 The serpent\u2019s lie has again turned out to be just that: a lie.

We form our idols and our technology, and then they form us.\xa0

Becoming digitally present everywhere, we have actually become uprooted, disconnected, and lonely from the present embodied time and place in which we dwell.\xa0 Becoming digitally full of knowing, we have actually only become scatterbrained, anxious, and distrustful before the crushing complexity of our world\u2019s problems.\xa0 Becoming digitally powerful, we have, through very real elements of addiction, actually become powerless to put down the device: enslaved again to a technology that is not bringing us life, freedom, or divinity.\xa0

These works of our hands are manifestations of our reach to become like God without God.\xa0 And yet without God, all we find is death.

And so the Psalmist calls us back: \u201cNot to us, Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.\u201d\xa0

God also promises that we will become like him.\xa0 But not without him.\xa0 Glory comes to his name when we become like him by humbly receiving him and his Spirit-filled work in our lives.\xa0 His love and faithfulness in Jesus set us free to live fully, peacefully, and meaningfully as we do.\xa0\xa0

Jesus lovingly reminds us that the only place we really desire to be, is the place where he is.\xa0 What we really hunger and thirst for is an ever deeper knowledge of him, which is where all wisdom and knowledge begin.\xa0 The power we really desire to have, is his power at work in us that brings his kingdom in, through, and around us.

So again, I invite you to join in praying this prayer of the Psalmist with me today and every day you confront the lure of idolatry, technology, or any other sort of enslaving addiction.\xa0 Confront it with these words:

\u201cNot to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory.\u201d

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