Giving Up Social Media

Good morning good friends,

Last night I was convicted almost out of nowhere. As I wrote on the blog yesterday, I am trying to spend this Lenten season to work on the meditations of my heart, to keep myself set on God. I had decided that one clear way for me to do that would be to set aside the TV news. But as the night wore on, as I kept thinking about it, I realized I spend an inordinate amount of time on social media sites. Facebook. Twitter. Instagram. These big three suck up more of my time than I’m sure I’d want to know about. 

On the surface, who cares? If I’m still a productive member of society, and spending a few hours on social media a week is what it take to relax me, who am I hurting? But when I held social media up against my desire to focus on the meditations of my heart, I realize that I was spending a bit too much time worrying about what was going on in other people’s lives. And the time that I spent worrying about what was going on in other people’s lives was time that I wasn’t spent thinking about what is going on in the meditations of my heart. If I’m going to do this for Lent, let’s really do it. 

The objections started in my brain almost immediately. What about all the people for whom I only connect on Facebook through messages or whatnot? What about all the relationship building I do with the kids from the youth group on Facebook? Won’t everybody miss my piercing insight on Twitter? But really none of these objections holds any water, particularly when you realize that we’re only talking about 40 days. So a cleanse has begun. 

My question on the J-Blog is are any of you also taking a break from social media? I know it’s been a popular discipline for some in recent years, but I don’t know anyone else personally who is taking on this challenge, and some accountability would be awesome. We could tweet each other…oh wait…

Also worth mentioning that this challenge isn’t one that I think everyone needs to make. I don’t think everyone needs to step away from Facebook and Twitter. I just know that for me and my heart, they were stumbling blocks between me and my relationship with God. My only challenge to the rest of our dear readers is to examine whether these social media sites are doing the same thing in your life. 

More later today.