How to Put God First in a Digital World
By Dom · · 10 min read
The alarm goes off. Your hand finds the phone before your eyes are fully open, and by the time you sit up you have read two emails, a news alert and somebody's holiday photos. Nobody decided that. It just happened, the way it happened yesterday.
Most Christians who search for how to put God first already want to. The trouble is that "first" is hard to measure. This post gives you a way to look at an ordinary day and see who actually gets your first and best attention, then one small swap for each moment where the phone is winning by default.
Key takeaways
- Scripture uses "first" three ways: priority (Matthew 6:33), the best rather than the leftovers (Proverbs 3:9), and loyalty (Exodus 20:3).
- The phone usually wins by default, not by choice. In 2021, 31% of U.S. adults told Pew they are online "almost constantly," up from 21% in 2015.
- Audit four moments, not the whole day: the first reach on waking, the idle gap, your best hours, and the last screen at night.
- Make one swap per moment, decided ahead of time. A plan made the night before beats willpower at 6:45 a.m.
- Putting God second again is not the end. A missed morning is a day, not a verdict. Pick up the next one.
What "first" means in Scripture: priority, firstfruits and loyalty
"Put God first" can sound like a time slot: pray before breakfast and you are done. The Bible uses the idea more widely than that. Three verses each define "first" a little differently, and together they make a better test than the clock.
First as priority. Jesus says, "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matthew 6:33, NIV). He says it to people anxious about food and clothes. It is a promise about what to put at the top, not a formula for getting things.
First as the best, not the leftovers. Proverbs says, "Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops" (Proverbs 3:9, NIV). Firstfruits were the first and best of the harvest, given before the rest was used. The verse is about wealth and crops. Applying it to attention is an analogy, but a fair one: God is not meant to get whatever is left over at the end of a tired day.
First as loyalty. The first commandment reads, "You shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3, NIV). A phone is not evil. The question this verse raises is simpler and harder: what do you reach for, and listen to, before God?
We have argued elsewhere that screen time is a spiritual problem, not a productivity one. These three verses are why. "First" is about love and trust, and attention is where both show up.
Why the phone wins by default
Very few people choose the feed over God. The feed simply gets there first, because it is always within reach.
Pew Research Center's 2025 mobile fact sheet, based on a survey of 5,022 U.S. adults, found that 91% own a smartphone, up from 35% in 2011. And in a 2021 Pew phone survey of 1,502 U.S. adults, 31% said they go online "almost constantly," up from 21% in 2015. Among adults aged 18 to 49 it was 44%.
Attention also breaks into smaller pieces than we notice. Gloria Mark, an informatics researcher at UC Irvine, told the University of California newsroom that in her first study people stayed on one screen for about two and a half minutes on average. Across studies from 2016 to 2020, that average was 47 seconds, and recovering from an interruption "can take almost half an hour." Her work measures people at screens, mostly at work. It is not a measure of anyone's faith. But it shows how little room is left for anything unplanned.
That is the honest diagnosis. God rarely loses a debate with the phone. He loses the race to the first touch. If the scroll habit itself is what you are fighting, how to stop doomscrolling takes that on directly. If your phone use ever feels like something you cannot stop at all, please talk to a doctor or a counsellor as well.
The first-fruits audit: four moments in an ordinary day
You do not need to audit every hour. Four moments decide most of who gets your first and best attention. Run through them for one ordinary weekday and be honest about the middle column.
| Moment | What usually gets it first | The question to ask | One swap |
|---|---|---|---|
| The first reach on waking | Notifications, email, the feed | Did I plan my first moment, as Jesus did? (Mark 1:35) | Charge the phone outside the bedroom; let Scripture be the first thing you open |
| The idle gap: the queue, the kettle, the ad break | Whatever app the thumb opens | What do I reach for before God? (Exodus 20:3) | Pick one default for empty moments: a one-line prayer, a verse, or simply nothing |
| Your best hours, when you are most awake | Whatever was not planned, often the scroll on a free morning | Does God get the best, or the leftovers? (Proverbs 3:9) | Give a slice of your sharpest time, not only your tired time, to Scripture and prayer |
| The last screen of the night | The feed in bed, often anxious news | What am I seeking as I fall asleep? (Matthew 6:33) | Close the day with a short prayer, and leave the phone across the room |
Most people find one row that stings and three that are fine. That is useful. You now know where to start, and it is one moment, not your whole spiritual life.
One swap for each moment
The first reach. Mark tells us that "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed" (Mark 1:35, NIV). It describes what He did, not a rule that prayer must happen at dawn. What it shows is a first moment that was planned. Jared C. Wilson, writing for The Gospel Coalition, describes noticing that opening email and social media in bed left him "thinking it belonged to me," and moving his Bible reading to before he even sat up so that "the first voice I hear in the morning is the Lord's." That is one person's practice, not a law. The fuller how-to is in a morning routine that doesn't start with your phone.
The idle gap. Decide tonight what you will do with the next empty thirty seconds. A short prayer, a verse you are memorising, or just looking up. The point is not to fill every gap with something holy. It is to stop handing every gap to whatever app is nearest.
Your best hours. If an employer has your best hours, that is honest work, and it can be done for God too. The audit is about the hours that are yours: the free morning, the lunch break, the Saturday. Give God some of the alert ones, not only the minutes after you are spent.
The last screen. Lay the phone down somewhere you cannot reach from bed and end with a few words of prayer. If you want firmer lines for the whole week, digital boundaries for Christians covers 1 Corinthians 6:12 and a full list.
Put a chapter where the first reach was
Every swap above is a decision made ahead of time, because a decision made at 6:45 a.m., half awake, with the phone already in your hand, usually goes to the phone. The trick is to make the right thing the default.
If the phone itself is what keeps getting your first look, change what is waiting at the reach. BlessUp keeps the apps you choose shielded until you have read the day's chapter, about nine minutes on the Protestant plan, using Apple's own Screen Time controls rather than a reminder you can swipe away. Your phone starts opening the Bible instead of closing it. BlessUp is on the App Store, with a 3-day free trial and cancel anytime.
An app cannot make God first in anyone's life. Only you can decide that, and only by grace. What a tool can do is change what is sitting there when your thumb moves before your mind does.
When you put God second again
You will. Some morning soon the alarm will go, the hand will move, and twenty minutes will disappear into the feed. That is not proof the audit failed or that you do not love God. It is a morning.
The firstfruits idea helps here too. A harvest comes every year; you do not lose the right to give the first of it because one season went badly. Start again with the next first reach. We have written about why a missed day should never reset you to zero, and the same is true here.
The whole faith and technology collection is built around this same question from different sides. And if you are wrestling with something deeper than habits, talk to a pastor or someone you trust at church. If you are looking for one, the BlessUp church finder lists churches by city.
Frequently asked questions
What does it mean to put God first in your life?
In Scripture, putting God first means three things: making His kingdom your top priority (Matthew 6:33), giving Him your best rather than your leftovers (Proverbs 3:9), and reaching for Him before anything else you trust (Exodus 20:3). It is about love and attention, not only about what time you pray.
Is using a smartphone a sin?
No. Nothing in Scripture makes a phone sinful. The questions the Bible raises are about mastery and priority: whether something controls you, and whether it gets the place that belongs to God. Our post on digital boundaries for Christians covers 1 Corinthians 6:12 on that point.
How can I put God first when my job requires being online?
Scope the audit to the moments you control: the first reach on waking, the idle gaps, your free hours and the last screen at night. Work done honestly online can be done for God too. The aim is that the unplanned first look of your own time goes to Him.
Do I have to read the Bible before my phone every morning?
No rule in Scripture says you must pray or read at dawn or before anything else. Mark 1:35 describes Jesus planning His first moment, and many Christians find reading before the phone helps. It is a wise practice, not a requirement.
What do I do when I keep failing at this?
Start again with the next first reach. A missed morning is one day, not a verdict on your faith. Treat it the way grace days work: one miss is covered, nothing resets, and you pick up where you left off.
Put first things first: decide ahead of time who gets your first look, and let a chapter be waiting there.
No guilt. Ever. Grace is built in. Funded by readers, never by ads.
