Going Gray

I've gone gray, and I don't mean hair color.

I heard a discussion about time management and cell phones, and how we have a tendency to waste time on our many devices.  One suggestion was twofold:  1) Turn off all phone notifications except for phone calls and texts; 2) Go gray, removing color from your screen.

Last week, I had my son switch my phone to the black/white mode.  The idea is that all the colors on my phone and other devices entice and stimulate me to spend more time on them, often wasting my time.  And, as an added bonus, gray screens supposedly save battery power.

The result - I noticed the screen wasn't in color, but it wasn't a problem.  So I decided to switch both my iPad and computer screens to gray.  

I mostly use my iPad to read books, and gray is a little strange because my books (the book cover icons) appear as black and white, and not in color.

But, since I do a lot of writing and work on the computer, my computer screen is a different issue.  My desk top, a picture of my sons, is now black and white.  And I've had to adjust my navigation habits; I've started thinking in "black and white."  

Also words that often appear as blue to signify a link to another site, well, they're not blue anymore.  

And I have to switch off the gray screen when I'm editing pictures, to check the picture colors. 

But overall, I'd say this isn't a big deal, and time will tell if I now waste less time on the computer.

Curiously, in my house, when the lighting is dim, I now sometimes have the impression that my rooms are in black and white, that the color is "turned off" in the house.

Also, in general, I'm more mindful that the world around me is in color. 

This experience in going gray has given me a picture of how my perception isn't correct.  I'm realizing that, I'm physically seeing things differently, sometimes wrongly.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.  1 Corinthians 13:12

In this world, with all of our accomplishments and knowledge, we think we know so much; we think we "see" it all.  

But we don't see things fully.  Our sin blinds us to reality.  It's like we're looking at a colored world, but seeing it in black and white.

In thinking about the world "in gray" I've realized that how I perceive my self, how I perceive others, how I think about situations, etc - well, that perception isn't colored correctly either.  It's a mixture of some right and some wrong.

God's wisdom, knowledge, and thinking, it's just different, more abundant, and flawless.  Mine is not.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.  Isaiah 55:8-9

I'm waiting for that Day to come...

Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.                      1 John 3:2 

Amen, come Lord Jesus.