If you follow me at all on social media, then you know that I have a love-hate relationship with it. Okay, hate may be too strong a word, but “a love-don’t like relationship” just doesn’t sound right. I love the potential connections we can make through it (and the actual connections I’ve made through it), and I love crafting simple, short messages that are encouraging, memorable, and worth sharing with others.
In short, I love shining the light of Jesus through social media. But a month or so ago, I started to notice something happening that I didn’t like. If you’ve been on any social media for longer than a nanosecond, you’re most likely thinking, “No kidding, Sherlock. There’s a lot of bad stuff on social media. Things like negativity, predators, and the always-lurking possibility of being rickrolled.”
If you just got rickrolled, I’m sorry. Like I said, there are so many bad things out there.
But that’s not what I noticed happening. The thing that I didn’t like was happening in me. Something was happening to my heart. In an odd correlation, it seemed that the more I scrolled, the harder my heart got, and I didn’t like it. I also didn’t like how much I was longing for the good ole days of social media when we only posted pictures of our pets and our meals because, let’s face it, that was pretty shallow.
But even that shallow connection became preferable to the growing cynicism in my heart after a scroll down Twitter lane. So, after one particularly maddening social media session, I asked God what I could do about this growing negativity. I remember the prayer I prayed clearly, almost word for word. I said, “God, what can I do about this growing negativity?”
And as God so often does, He answered me … with a song. I don’t mean that He actually sang a song, although that would be so cool. I mean, song lyrics instantly started running through my mind. They were from an old Jesus Culture song titled, Come Away:
“Come away with me
Come away with me
It’s never too late
It’s not too late
It’s not too late
For you
I have a plan for you
It’s gonna be wild, it’s gonna be great
It’s gonna be full of Me”
As I thought about the words, I sensed that God was calling me to come away with Him. That wasn’t a particularly hard conclusion to draw, of course, since those are the actual words that I was thinking about, but it was the words from the bridge that really grabbed my attention:
“Open up your heart and let me in”
The singer from Jesus Culture sings that line a couple of hundred times or so, and it dawned on me that he probably does that because I’m a slow RSVPer. You’d think that I would have jumped on that with an immediate “yes” after the first line, but no. It took me hearing that line on repeat for a few minutes before I made the connection that God was, in fact, asking me to come away with Him to a secret place where I could let Him in. If social media was causing my heart to close, then stepping away from social media and being with Jesus for a season would allow my heart to open again, and being open is necessary for Him to come in.
So, I’m beginning the new year with an end of sorts. It won’t be forever (as far as I know, or AFAIK for all the cool kids). Or maybe it will be. All I do know is that the lover of my soul is calling me away with Him so He can care for my soul, and I’m saying yes.
Social media isn’t bad, and I still love all the good that can be done on it. But it isn’t where I’ll be starting the new year. In fact, I don’t know specifically where I’ll be starting the new year. Maybe I’ll be in my office early, or on a run late. Maybe I’ll be on my face at the altar, or on the couch with a book. Where isn’t important, and neither is how long.
The only thing that matters is Who, and I’m starting 2023 away from social media so I can be fully present with Jesus, and He can be fully present with me.
