A couple weeks ago we started a series at NLCF on Galatians. For this series, during the last worship set of each service, there’s an opportunity for people to have someone pray for them. The first Sunday of the series, my Engage Group was one of the groups on the so-called HUG (hospitality/ushers/greeters) team, who folds bulletins before the service, greets people as they arrive, and takes up offering. Before the service, the HUG leader asked if anyone on the HUG team would be willing to join some of the staff at the back of the auditorium during the last set, to be available to pray for people.

Maybe it was because over the past two years, I’ve conditioned myself to volunteer to help out at NLCF however I can. Maybe it was because the Holy Spirit decided to override my decision-making at that moment. Probably a combination of both. Either way, I volunteered without even thinking about it. It was actually a few moments later that I even realized what had just happened. As if, for those few moments, something external actually had stepped in and made the decision for me. I’m glad though. Otherwise, I inevitably would have wavered and and maybe chickened out.

I got to pray for two people, neither of whom I’d ever met before. I stumbled through both prayers, grasping for words. But both of them appreciated it. And I was really glad for the opportunity to be able to pray for them.

It reminded me of high school, especially junior and senior year, when prayer was so much more a part of my life than it has been recently. Especially prayer for other people. I had close friends who came to me in their darkest moments, because they knew they could trust me to stand by them and fight for them in prayer, with faith and with power. God gave me that faith and that warrior’s spirit to be that person for those who needed it. (In fact, one of the people I prayed for Sunday reminded me a lot of a good friend in high school who was going through something very similar. They even said a lot of the same things.)

But that part of me was one of the casualties of my own dark night of the soul, during my first year of college. And though, more than two years later, I’ve largely recovered from that time, this is one area that still needs to be resurrected. But since that Sunday, I’ve been getting the sense that this is what God wants to resurrect next. In fact, I’ve been realizing that prayer is central to the growth I’ve been wanting to see in myself in many different areas. Just today I realized just how central, and how it ties all these areas together. But to explain that, let me back up again.

This semester I’ve started discipling two other guys in NLCF, a junior who is also an Engage Group leader, and a sophomore who is also very involved in NLCF. Our first discipleship meeting, maybe four weeks ago, we shared our backgrounds and then each shared about how we sensed God wanted us to grow, and what we could each do to move in that direction. We each shared different things, but over the next couple weeks, as we continued to reflect on what God was doing and what our next steps were, all three of us began to converge on prayer. We all came to the conclusions that the way forward in each of our situations was through praying more.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that we should take some time to focus on prayer—digging more into what it means to pray, how we can be more effective or diligent in it, and so on. So this past Monday, we studied a hexagon.

Allow me to explain. NLCF uses shapes a lot as a tool to help convey and understand Biblical truths in an understandable and memorable way. These shapes are actually developed by a ministry called 3DM, where NLCF gets a lot of ministry concepts and resources, especially for discipleship. There are eight shapes—a circle, semicircle, triangle, square…all the way up to an octagon. The hexagon looks at the Lord’s Prayer, as given in Matthew 6:9-13. (I’m quoting from the NLT, which is why it’s a little more contemporary than what we’re used to reciting in church. Also, notice that the last line, “For yours/thine is the Kingdom…” is not actually in Scripture. That is, it was not in older, more reliable manuscripts, and so it is not included in modern translations. This was added in later manuscripts and incorporated into our church traditions through translations like the KJV. Not that there’s anything wrong with that part, but the hexagon is based on what modern translations agree on.)

Our Father in heaven,
may your name be kept holy.
May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done on earth,
as it is in heaven.
Give us today the food we need,
and forgive us our sins,
as we have forgiven those who sin against us.
And don’t let us yield to temptation,
but rescue us from the evil one.

This is broken into six parts, represented by the six sides of the hexagon. Jesus gave this to the disciples, and to us, as a model for our prayers. So 3DM boiled it down to these six ideas, and recommend using the six ideas as a starting point for our prayers. There’s no one way to do it, although they give a couple ideas, but the idea is that the six points together make for a well-rounded approach to prayer.

Like I said at the beginning, I’ve been realizing that prayer is central to all the ways I’ve been feeling like I need to grow, especially in light of my decision to go on staff with NLCF. It was yesterday as I was praying that it really clicked, when I realized how the hexagon really ties together all three areas. So here are the six parts and how they relate to where I see myself right now. (The headings are the names given to each side by 3DM.)

Character

Our Father in heaven,
may your name be kept holy. (v. 9)

The first part of is really just starting by remembering who God is and what our relationship is to him. He’s our “Abba”, daddy. We can approach him as his sons and daughters. He’s in heaven, on the throne, in charge. And he’s holy—as we are trying to be, as he is transforming us to be.

What really jumps out at me is that, even so he is so much greater than us, and holy, and our King, we have this relationship with him. We can approach him as princes and princesses. As his children. He made a way for us to live in intimate relationship with him. And that’s what prayer is—approaching the throne, talking to him, listening to him. Hanging out with him. But how often does it feel like a chore? Something I try to work into my routine because it’s what a good Christian should do?

One of the things about being a college student is that any routine you get into gets reset every four months. Which for the most part I’m fine with. I’m usually not a fan of routine anyways. But sometimes there’s something to be said for routine. This is one area where the routine is really helpful to keep me in the habit. But every semester I have a different schedule and I’m back at Square One in trying to set aside time. And as it starts getting busy, between homework, tests, group projects, my job, and my responsibilities for NLCF, I have less and less control over my time, and I’m reading the Bible less and praying less.

What I need is more than routine. I need to desire to spend time with God. If I really want to do it, I’ll make it happen. And if it really sunk in that I have the opportunity to talk to the holy God who created the universe and who died for me—anytime I want—why wouldn’t I want to make time for it?

Kingdom

May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done on earth,
as it is in heaven. (v. 10)

So God is in heaven, and he is King. In heaven his reign is absolute, and his will is always carried out. But here on earth is a different story. While he is the rightful King, “the world around us is under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). And while, ultimately, God is sovereign and is in control, he has allowed evil to take control of the world. But not completely. When Jesus came to earth he announced the coming of the Kingdom of God. Not in the distant future, as foreseen by the prophets of old, but right then. It was near. It was breaking in—into the world that Satan controlled. It is still breaking in. And we are agents of this Kingdom. We are tasked with advancing it. But we aren’t alone. God’s will is for his Kingdom to be fully realized on earth, and Jesus made it clear that when we pray within God’s will, God will move. For whatever reason, he has given us this power. He wants to partner with us in bringing about the Kingdom. Although he is fully capable of bringing about his will all on his own, he has chosen to act within our prayers.

So prayer is talking to God as our dad, and it is also asking him as his agents to move in our actions and advance his Kingdom on earth.

This is a major part of what God is calling me back to—to pray for coming of the Kingdom. All aspects of it. To pray for the Gospel to be preached and for it to transform the lives of those around me, and across the world. And to pray for the renewal of all things—the healing of the brokenness in the lives around me, and the brokenness of the world. And not just to pray for these things, but to do my part to bring them about.

Provision

Give us today the food we need, (v. 11)

Or, as many translations have it, “Give us today our daily bread.”

God is our Father and our King, and also our Provider. In this same chapter, Jesus goes on to give his famous passage about God’s provision for the birds and the flowers. He concludes:

“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

Matthew 6:31-34

We need to remember that God has our backs. We need to depend on him and trust him to provide.

For me, my problem isn’t worry so much as getting into the mindset that I can handle life on my own. I don’t worry enough, in that sense. Because it’s when I do start to get stressed about things that I remember that I can’t do it, but God can. This is something God’s been prodding me about recently. Especially in my leadership roles at NLCF. Too easily I start going through the motions. I forget to be leading from God’s power. There have been times this semester where I’ve been pushed out of my comfort zone a bit. Which is good, because it reminds me to rely on God, and to remember that he’s the one leading. My job is just to let him use me. This is true in my classes too. It’s when my homework and projects start piling up and push me to the point where I don’t see how I’m gonna pull it all off that I remember it’s not me who needs to pull it off.

So when I pray, I need to reaffirm my dependence on God. I need to give him each of the things I’m doing, and remember that my ability to do it comes from him. And when everything seems to be ready to come crashing down, I need to ask him for the strength to keep going.

Forgiveness

and forgive us our sins,
as we have forgiven those who sin against us. (v. 12)

There was a time, early in my walk with God, that I thought I had it all together, more or less. I don’t think I would have admitted this. I don’t think I even thought that I thought this. (Does that sentence even make sense?) I knew I wasn’t perfect. I knew I made mistakes, and I knew there were one or two areas that especially needed some work. But other than that, I figured I was more or less OK. But over the years, I’ve come to see more and more that I really do have a ways to go. God continues to show me just how many aspects of my life really need a lot of work. Sometimes it gets really frustrating that I still need so much work. And that, instead of improving, I just keep realizing that I’m even more messed up than I thought I was.

So when I read this verse, I realize that I think I have an easier time forgiving others than forgiving myself. Just as I need to live in God’s strength, I need to live in God’s grace. I need to remember that he’s my Savior, too. He paid the price 2000 years ago, knowing full well how broken and sinful I would be. This is another one of those things that I intellectually know, but it doesn’t always sink in, and I don’t always live like it. I need to keep coming back to this, and keep reminding myself of the magnitude of the grace that was shown to me.

Guidance

And don’t let us yield to temptation, (v. 13a)

Or, “Lead us not into temptation.” This follows close on the heels of the last part—not just in the order Jesus prayed them in, but the idea itself. It balances it. Jesus didn’t stop at dying to offer us forgiveness. He rose again to offer us new life. He promises to transform us. And while the transformation won’t be complete until we die or he comes back, it started the moment we said “Yes” to him. There is a spiritual shift in our hearts, and we die to sin. (We read Romans 6 in Engage Group on Thursday. Paul lays out this whole idea in that chapter.) The Holy Spirit moves in and starts his work in us. We may not always see the transformation, but we can trust that it’s happening.

So just as I pray for God’s will to be done on earth, I pray for it to be done in me. For him to continue to chip away at my sin. As I draw closer to him and let him work in me, temptation will begin to lose its power. And while I can do things to facilitate God’s work in me, it is only his power that can bring about this transformation.

Protection

but rescue us from the evil one. (v. 13b)

I’ve touched on this already here and there, but it’s time to address it directly. We have an enemy. He seeks to disrupt our relationship with God as our Father. He sabotaged it at the very beginning, when Adam and Eve walked with God in the Garden. He convinced them to rebel against a holy God, severing that relationship. And in that moment, God’s will was was no longer perfectly realized on earth. Instead, the enemy established himself as the prince of this world, in defiance of the King. And as for us—the children of God created in God’s image—Satan will stop at nothing to claim us for his own. Just as he did with Eve, he convinces us that God’s holding out on us. That we need to take matters into our own hands. Make our own bread. He leads us astray, convincing us that we can find our fulfillment in everything but God. And then he turns around and points out our guilt, accusing us to the point of despair. And sometimes, he just flat-out attacks us.

We need to take him seriously. I need to take him seriously. I talked about my time in high school, praying for friends in their darkest moments. This might sound weird or creepy, but more often than not, those prayers were desperate battles against the forces of hell (told you.) Admittedly, I might have been too obsessed with the whole spiritual warfare thing at times. And these days, I seem to have swung too far in the other direction, not giving it much thought at all. But there has to be a balance. Because when I think of those times, there’s no doubt in my mind that the enemy is real and he is powerful. There’s no other explanation for the things my friends and I experienced. Jesus dealt the decisive blow when he died and rose again, but the enemy isn’t vanquished yet.

I think a key difference between my high school days and now is location. His strategy in this part of the world, where people pride themselves on rationality and skepticism, seems to be one of subtlety. (This is entirely based on my own experience and observation. I have no theological or Biblical argument to back this up.) When most people don’t give much credit to the supernatural, he can be more effective by allowing them to believe he doesn’t exist. Even believers, who would agree that the supernatural is real, are influenced by the culture around them and fall into a tendency of living from day to day as if it isn’t. Since I’ve been here, I have too. I think what it really comes down to is that we believe in God and his angels, but we think of them as being up in heaven. And we believe in Satan and his demons, but assume they’re in hell. We aren’t as comfortable with the idea that angels and demons are among us, here on earth, mostly unseen, but active and powerful.

In other parts of the world, that’s not the case. Where I grew up, religion, culture, and everyday life are completely intertwined. The supernatural is taken for granted the way the absence of it is here. The way they think of it might be different, seeing it through the lenses of their own beliefs, but they believe it’s there and has an impact on their day-to-day lives. The veil between the spiritual and physical worlds is much thinner. The enemy’s tactics are far more overt in those parts of the world. And here we were, a Christian school in the middle of this. So believe me when I say I have felt the presence of angels and demons, and experienced clashes between them firsthand—including direct attacks on my friends and on me. And it was in this situation that God called me to be a warrior. Like I said at the beginning, my friends came to me in the midst of the onslaught because they knew that God had given me the faith to stand by them and face the enemy, trusting in God’s power, even when their attackers turned their attacks on me.

I know this probably sounds weird/creepy/crazy to many of you. I’ve never shared what I just shared so publicly before. I don’t think I’ve talked about it at all since coming back to the US. But I risk sounding out of my mind because I think it needs to be said. And I’ve said far more about this section than any of the others not because I think it’s more important than them. There was a time when my prayers were maybe too heavily weighted in this area. And like I said, I think I’ve swung too far in the other direction since coming back to the US. But remembering those times, I’m realizing that it needs to become a part of my lens again. It needs to become a part of my prayers again. With balance. I think either extreme is a bad place to be. There’s a danger of acting like he doesn’t exist, or is insignificant and powerless. But if that doesn’t work, he’s content getting us to focus way too much on him—and not on Jesus. In the model Jesus gave us, we acknowledge the evil one and pray against his attacks, with a healthy balance alongside the rest of the prayer. I’ve written far more about this side of the hexagon not because it’s more important, but because I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch for most of my readers to buy into the first five sides. This side will probably take some convincing.

So there it is. This ended up being a pretty good sized essay. What’s really cool is that I’d been thinking about each of these things independently of each other. They were all things that I’d been thinking about and felt like I needed to focus on. And I was starting to get the sense that they were all interconnected, and that the starting point for change in all of them was prayer—developing that connection with God and allowing my relationship with him to flourish. To let growth in all of these areas come out of that relationship. As Jesus said, “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

And then we went and studied the hexagon, and suddenly, everything clicked.

So it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here. In fact, last time I posted was early in the spring semester, which turned out to be my busiest semester since starting at Virginia Tech. Thanks to God and God alone, I not only survived the semester with my sanity intact (well, mostly…) but it was academically my best semester yet. Actually, it was a really good semester across the board, busy as it was. I also got an internship in the DC area over the summer, building a database system for a residential builder to improve their workflow and the flow of data—from subcontractor bids, to analysis of the bids, to award documents, to a historical cost database, and finally to budgets for new jobs. I really enjoyed the job, and they really appreciated my work. So it was a great experience for all of us. And now I’m back in Blacksburg, and classes have started up again—and it’s the beginning of my senior year.

It’s hard to believe how fast my time has flown here, and how far I’ve come in three short years. Now for fourth and goal. (Excuse the analogy—after all, it’s football season again. (Go Hokies!) Anyways…) Before I know it, my last year as a Virginia Tech student will be done. And then…then what?

That’s actually what I’ve come back to my blog to write about. Because notice what I didn’t say. I didn’t say my last year at Virginia Tech.

If you’ve followed my blog much, you’ll know I’ve shared a lot about my church family here, New Life Christian Fellowship. I’ve shared about how I and a group of NLCF-ers have been building relationships with international students, helping them adjust to America and find a place here, and showing them the love of God. And I’ve shared about how God’s brought me from being a lost and lonely international student, to finding my place at Virginia Tech, and finding a family I love in NLCF.

So when, last fall, I and maybe a dozen other student leaders were invited to an interest meeting about going on staff with NLCF, it got me thinking. Thinking about how, of all the things that fill my schedule, the stuff I do with NLCF is the stuff I most want to be spending my time doing (and I get really frustrated with everything else for taking time away from that.) Thinking about how the stuff I and my Engage Group (that group I mentioned) are doing for international students is making such a difference in their lives, and how I’ve seen God moving in their lives through their interactions with us. Thinking about how my Engage Group, the NLCF staff, and so many others at NLCF have become my family, and how, because of them, Blacksburg has become home.

The point I’m getting to is this: after almost a year of thinking, talking, and praying, and listening to God and to other people, I’ve decided to apply to go on staff at NLCF.

The funny thing is that this is both really surprising and not at all. Not surprising because ministry of some sort has always been the direction I’ve been heading. Before I decided, almost four years ago, to get a degree in engineering, I already wanted to go into ministry. And engineering was only ever going to be a channel for that. But what blows my mind is the fact that I’m choosing to stay in Blacksburg to do it. The plan was always to go overseas somewhere—whether back to where I grew up, or elsewhere. Staying in the States was never the plan. But then, God’s never been too concerned with making sure all our petty little plans work out. Not that he doesn’t want us to be happy, or doesn’t have our best interests in mind. He absolutely has our best interests in mind. He knows better than we do how our gifts and passions can be used, and he has something so much bigger and better in mind than anything any one of us can dream up. A greater plan that we get to be a part of. An epic story that we get to play a role in. And over the past year, I’m starting to see where the next chapter is set for me.

So over the course of this year I’ll be going through the application process—some paperwork, a couple of (very personal) interviews, getting references. If I’m accepted, I’ll go to new staff training in June, and after that will start raising support. (Because this is a church for broke college students, all the staff raise support to be here.) When I reach 100% support, I’ll be officially released to come back to Blacksburg and start serving here full time.

It’s impossible to anticipate everything I’d be doing on staff. It involves wearing a lot of hats. But it will probably include the things I’ve been doing and enjoy doing—discipling, running sound for services and serving in other technical ways, and working with international students. Right now, we are just one of several Engage Groups at NLCF (10 this year.) Several of us in the group see what we’re doing as a really important part of NLCF (not that the other Engage Groups aren’t important) with the potential to expand beyond just an Engage Group and become a more full-fledged ministry of NLCF to the international community at Virginia Tech. On staff, I would be in a position to spearhead this ministry.

When I shared this with my Engage Group, one of them asked how long I planned to be on staff. My co-leader took the words right out of my mouth: “Until God calls him somewhere else.” I could definitely get comfortable here, and stay for many years to come. But I could just as easily start getting restless after a couple years. My biggest hangup the whole time I was weighing this decision was my desire to go overseas. Like I said, my plan had always been to go overseas again. A piece of my heart is still on the other side of the globe, and it was really, really hard to give that up. In the end, I had to tell myself that I wasn’t. I still have plenty of time (I think) to go back someday. And someday, maybe I will.

That said, the really cool thing is that I can have an impact on the nations from right here in Blacksburg. Virginia Tech draws young people from all over the world. Dozens of countries are represented at this university. From here, I can reach out to these people from across the globe. And when their time here is done, and they go back to each of their countries, they in turn can reach people there. So even if I stay here, I can still live out that calling to the nations. That’s a really cool thought.

Two short years ago, I never would have guessed I would be making this decision. In fact, if you had told me that I would still be living in Blacksburg after I graduate, I might have just broken down crying. Or flat-out not believed you. And yet here I am. It says a lot about this church, and my Engage Group, who are my family. I thank God so much for them. And most of all, it is a testament to God and his faithfulness.

I’ve quoted it before on this blog, but Third Day’s “Mountain of God” is such a great song, and has become somewhat of a theme song for me (among a few others.) The bridge gets me every time, and comes back to me now:

Sometimes I think of where it is I’ve come from
And the things I’ve left behind
But of all I’ve had, and what I’ve possessed, nothing can quite compare
With what’s in front of me

A couple of well-known verses have been on my mind since my post, “Setting things straight”:

What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?

So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.

James 2:14-17

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3

Faith without deeds is dead; faith and deeds without love are nothing.

Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:13

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about God, it’s that he likes to throw monkey wrenches in our plans, and substitute his own. To disrupt us if we start to get too comfortable—not because there’s anything wrong with comfort, but because if we’re too comfortable for too long we start to get stagnant.

A week ago I shared my intention of delving into technology on this blog a little more. I specifically said that I was going to start with a review of an app called Moves, and that I was going to write said review this weekend. I actually started it this afternoon, and wrote for a little while until I had to go to 130 Jackson for sound check and band practice before the service. Once we’d gone through the sound check, and I’d got the mix about where I wanted it, I pulled out my phone and picked up where I’d left off (the beauty of cloud sync) while the band practiced.

Then the service began. [nlcf] is doing a series on the Seven Deadly Sins, leading up to Easter. Last week we started with Pride, and this week was on Gluttony. Jim defined gluttony more broadly than it is commonly used, to mean an unhealthy over-indulgence of anything, to the point of waste, and to the point of turning our focus away from God. At the end he brought up Lent, which begins on Wednesday, and encouraged us to think about something we could give up for the forty days, that could make room in our lives to grow closer to God. He gave a few examples of common fasts, including chocolate or Facebook. Even while he was still talking, I knew. I’m going on a technology fast.

I mentioned in last week’s post that my biggest time waster is technology blogs. It may not have come across in what I said there, but I’ve been realizing over the past several weeks that this is a big problem. Not because there’s anything inherently wrong with them, but because they suck away so much of my life.

In addition to the Seven Deadly Sins series, over the first four weeks of the semester, at [nlcf] we’re focusing on listening and hearing from God, and freeing up time to do so. That is, we’re spending the four weeks looking at it in depth—particularly in our Engage Groups, but enmeshed with everything we’re doing—in order to become a congregation that practices it habitually, setting the tone for the semester and beyond. A major aspect of it that we’re taking on is time management. This is something that has plagued me…probably as long as I can remember. But God’s been turning the heat up on this issue for me recently, and now that we’re honing in on it at [nlcf], it’s something that I really want to tackle head-on this semester. Not only to free up time for God (although that’s the most important reason,) but also to stay on top of homework better, so I’m not getting it done late at night when it’s due the next morning, and to have time to do other stuff that I just can’t now. All that stuff that falls under the umbrella of “being a good steward of my time.”

Part of this has been looking at things we can prune back. The amount of time I spend on tech sites (or their app counterparts), YouTube, and the like, jumped quickly to my mind. So I’ve already been thinking about ideas for regulating my time spent on non-school-related or unessential surfing. But after Jim’s sermon tonight, I’ve decided that for Lent, I’m going cold turkey.

My plan is to only use my iPhone, iPad, or laptop to do the things I actually need to do. It’s unrealistic to unplug from email, texting, or even Facebook, because I need to be able to stay in touch with people, and all of those are necessary for that at some point or other. So I’ll launch the Facebook or Facebook Messenger apps if I get a notification, I’ll take appropriate action, and close them. (Historically, wasting time on Facebook has not been a huge issue for me like it is for a lot of friends. I have other issues.) Same goes for email—I’ll open it when I get an email, respond accordingly, and move on. (More on email below.)

It’s unrealistic to stop managing my schedule and to-do lists in their appropriate apps. (Well, technically this one’s probably doable, but I don’t think it’s necessary or beneficial. I’ll still be carrying around my phone, so I may as well use the calendar and task management apps. I’m not about to go out and buy a paper planner. I really think that would just make it harder to be effective with my time.)

It’s certainly unrealistic to stop using the apps and websites I need to do homework and stuff.

But other than the essentials, I’m unplugging. I’m not gonna read up on the latest iThing and everything it can do. (I think that’s gonna be the hardest part of this for me. What might Apple do between now and Easter, that I’m gonna miss? I’ve heard rumors of updated iPads sometime this quarter, and of an up-and-coming iWatch sooner or later. Of course, if they do something big, I’ll hear about it somehow or other. But I won’t get to read all the juicy details myself.) I’m not gonna browse the App Store looking for apps to experiment with. I’m not gonna play Letterpress or Angry Birds Star Wars. I’m going to resist the urge to pull out my phone anytime I’m standing in line or waiting around for class to start, just to fill the time. Or to reach for it when I wake up and spend the first minutes of my day reading a review of Blackberry 10.

I’m going so far as to rearrange my home screens to put the apps I’ll need on the first one. And not even go to the others. (This is actually a very strategic step. As long as my home screens look like they always do, I won’t think twice about tapping open my News folder and tapping one of the icons sitting inside it, before realizing what I’ve done. But if that folder is nowhere to be found on that first screen, I’ll remember that I’m supposed to be staying away from it.)

I’m even going old-school and pulling my old (imitation?) leather-bound Bible off the shelf. The one with pages and stuff. (The books I’m reading are stuck in iBooks, though, and I think it’s still worth reading those.)

And during these forty days, I’m going to be thinking long-term—about what boundaries I can set on myself in this area for once Lent is over, and about other steps I can take to manage my time a little better.

I will probably still be blogging some. Maybe even a little more frequently, because with more time to hear from God I’ll probably have more stuff to share. But if you were excited about hearing about apps, sorry. I’ll leave you with a consolation mini-review. (Last chance to plug an app here for a while—and this is actually relevant.)

Going back to email, I actually just started using an app that I think will really help in the battle of the inbox. It’s called Mailbox, and it conveniently just launched the other day, although I’ve been waiting for it for months. The basic premise is that the only emails in your inbox are the ones you need to address at this moment. The app badge actually shows the total number of emails in your inbox, rather than the typical unread count. You can archive or delete an email, move it to a list, or snooze it. This snooze feature is where the innovation really lies. You can tell it to snooze until later today, tomorrow, next week, or even later. It will move into a Later section (where you can still go to see the emails you’ve snoozed) and will come back to your inbox whenever you told it to, so you can deal with it then. Sure, it’s a fancy way to procrastinate, but it’s a good way to handle those emails that you’re leaving in your inbox until it’s a good time to take care of them. It makes me really think about each email—whether I can respond to it now, or if there’s a better time when I actually will. In the meantime, I can get back to “Inbox Zero.” Which feels really, really good.

They’re launching for just iPhone and Gmail and will expand from there. (In anticipation of this app, I set up yet another personal address over break, at Gmail, and have my previous email addresses (iCloud, etc.) forwarding to it. Virginia Tech mail is conveniently Gmail-based.)

They’re also rolling it out first-come, first-serve, slowly at first, but speeding up exponentially. I was fortunate enough to hear about the up-and-coming app back in December, from a blogger who got let in on the private beta and said it was the best thing since sliced bread. I got on the waiting list way back then, so I was only #18,728, and I got access to the app only a couple days after it launched last week. People getting in line now could be waiting a month. (While you’re waiting, the app shows the number of people in line in front of you and behind you. Last I saw, there were more than 600,000 behind me.) But I think the app is worth the wait.

If you’re an iPhone/Gmail user, you can read more about Mailbox at mailboxapp.com, and get it on the App Store here.

Back to Lent. Seeing as it starts Wednesday, I have a couple days to think about this some more, and see if there are any other ways I can unplug. (If you have ideas, drop them in the comments below.) In the meantime, I’ll probably start easing into the ideas I have so far, before going all-in on Wednesday. So there you have it. This could be an interesting six weeks. But I think it’ll be good. Really good.

(Also, in case you were wondering—my iPad and keyboard only stayed in the trash can long enough to take the picture. I actually wrote this on that iPad, with that keyboard.)