When my teenage daughter realized she would be without her phone for an entire summer, her response caught me off guard: “It’s actually a relief!” I was surprised, not because she’s especially attached to her phone—though, like many of us, she rarely goes anywhere without it—but because her expression of relief was so genuine. She later said that the break from her phone made her more awake to her creative interests and to being fully present with others. 

Her experience highlighted something important. If a simple break from our phone can open the door to greater mental awareness and presence, what would a deeper, spiritual wakefulness do for us? This is not just about being more attentive to our surroundings or relationships, but about being fully present in our oneness with God, mentally alert to the good that’s always at hand. 

Mindless routines, familiar distractions, or merely emotional responses—worry, self-doubt, busyness—can dull our spiritual perception and have us drifting along in a mental fog. This is a subtle form of being mesmerized by modern life. In the Apostle Paul’s teachings to some early Christians, he appealed to them to “serve the Lord without distraction” (I Corinthians 7:35, New King James Version). Seeking to understand God better enables us to be more conscious of the ever-present activity of God as the one, infinite Mind than we are of the issues in our lives.