Hello blessed child of God, I hope you are fine by God’s grace and I hope you’ve had a wonderful week thanks to Him. As for me, I’m fine thanks to God.
These days I am learning alot about the impact of social media on our lives. I just thought that it would be useful to share a little bit about this from a Christ-centered perspective.
Social media have been proven to have harmful effects on mental health. Studies have shown that being active on social media for as little as 2 hours daily contributes to higher levels of anxiety and depression. I know it is hard to believe that this could be possible since most of us use social media in order to share about what’s going on in our lives and in order to get updates from our friends and relatives. However, the very thing which was supposed to make social media powerful and friendly also happens to be what makes it really dangerous.
Think about this, when you want to share a picture of yourself on social media, you try to take the best shot ever, and you edit it if possible to make it look even better, and when you have to write text to accompany your picture, you become extremely good at writing some sort of deeply wise text on how life is and how happy you are and how good your life is, or how strong you are though life is though. You try to portray the perfect version of yourself. You edit your story till it is good enough to be shared.
You try to share what is perfect because that’s what you want to believe and that’s what you want people to believe about your life. In the same way, when your friends, family, relatives, and even perfect strangers who don’t know you see these pictures, do you know what they think? They think what you wanted to make them believe, that your life is perfect and that their life sucks.
This is not to blame anyone for posting on social media, this is just to be real with ourselves, because this is how we feel, at least this is how I feel at times, and if you try to be real you’ll recognize that at times you feel this way too.
- “Wow, somebody else is getting married, and here I am, still single. Has God forgotten me?”
- “What? He already has a new car? Didn’t we graduate from school together? How come he has a new car, while I am still looking for a job. Life is so unfair”
- “My marriage is falling apart because we can’t stand the fact that we don’t have kids yet and they are welcoming their fourth child in a happy home? My life sucks”
- “Oh, another person who says he has been delivered from addiction and he is 2 years sober now. Good for him, I’ve been going for therapy for 9 years and trying my best to do everything I was supposed to do, and others recover from addictions and not me? Okay, life sucks”
- “Why are their family pictures always so jovial? I can’t even get my kids to get along with each other? What does this family have that I don’t have? We go to the same Church, we are in the same Bible study group, why is their life better?”
- “What? She’s only 19 and she earns this much money on Youtube? I am 23, what am I doing with my life?”
- “This is so unfair, he doesn’t believe in Christ, he doesn’t tithe, he spends his life in night clubs but his business is working, he has lots of money, but I am following Jesus; I avoid sinful places, I am surrounded in a community of Christians, but my business is not working?”
I could make a list really longer than this one, but it was just for you to get the point. The problem with social media doesn’t have to be “others bragging about their perfect lives”, the problem is us. The problem is the way we react, and what we do on social media.
I can’t completely discourage you from using social media, but I can try my best to give you insight into how to make your social media experience healthier for you, by giving you useful tips.
1. Don’t Compare Yourself To Them
I think this is probably the hardest thing that I’ve ever been asked to do. Not comparing myself to others. Actually it was easier in childhood not to compare because there were so many things I wasn’t aware of in the lives of others, I just knew what was going on in my life, and I knew very little about the lives of my friends. As such, I had very little data to use to compare myself with anyone.
Fortunately or unfortunately, this is not the case now. We are in an era in which we are constantly connected. We have all the crispy “good” details about peoples’ lives, about the wonderful things they do and about how perfect life is for them. As such, it never stops. We are always hearing about someone who is living the life we would want to live, and that can be extremely frustrating.
I read something beautiful a few days ago about comparison. The big thing I understood from it was the fact that God has a specific plan for your life. His plan for your life is different from His plan for my life and is different from His plan for the life of ……………………….. (fill in the gap with the name of whoever you envy or compare yourself with; it could be your sister, your bestfriend, your classmate, a famous musician, a famous actress etc)
Lamentations 3: 37-38 AMP
Who is there who speaks and it comes to pass, Unless the Lord has authorized and commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High That both adversity (misfortune) and good (prosperity, happiness) proceed?
If we say that we believe in God, and that we trust Him, then we’re also saying that we believe in His goodness and Sovereignty, in His plan for our lives. I may not be where I would like to be right now, but God has a plan for me, He knows why I am where I am now, He is GOOD, He is not unfair, He is my good Father, He has planned out my life, as such I don’t need to compare myself with anybody else, I am running my race on my road, and they are running theirs too. I don’t have to look into their lives to compare it with mine, I have to look into what God is doing in me, and to see if I am walking in His Will for me. If I am walking in His Will and becoming a better version of myself in Christ everyday then it is okay.
It doesn’t matter whether others are getting married, having kids, buying new houses, becoming millionaires. I don’t want anything if God has not put it in my life yet. I want God’s Will for me in God’s time. He has my life planned out.
2. Don’t Get Depressed Because Others Are Getting What You Are Still Praying For
Someone once told me that no body gets everything they want all at once, that someone may have all the money, all the popularity and all the attention but still have something which they lack, which they are praying for and which they don’t have, and you may envy them for their money while they envy you for your happy marriage or for your kids. I was once told that the people you admire don’t really have it all together. They just show their highlights, the best moments and the best side of their lives, just as you do, but to know the real pain which they are going through, you have to get closer.
That kind of made me feel better 7 years ago when there was this girl that I was jealous of and who made me feel sad, but today I realize that it’s not really healthy to feel better just because you think that someone is probably having it worse than you do. It’s not very kind and sweet I think.
Anyhow, it is true indeed that we all have issues we’re dealing with. No body lives a perfect life. The impression we give in real life and even more on social media (now that we have platforms to entertain our pride) is that our lives are perfect, but it is not the case.
When you pray for something, your job is to have faith in God, and to trust Him for the outcome and the timing. Your job is to trust Him not to compare with what He is doing in the life of your neighbour. Your job is to trust Him. The devil will distract you with everything else so that you don’t focus on trusting God in your season of waiting.
I love the story of Cain and Abel because it is a very good story about jealousy.
Genesis 4: 1-5 GNT
Then Adam had intercourse with his wife, and she became pregnant. She bore a son and said, “By the Lord’s help I have gotten a son.” So she named him Cain. Cain: This name sounds like the Hebrew for “gotten.” Later she gave birth to another son, Abel. Abel became a shepherd, but Cain was a farmer. After some time Cain brought some of his harvest and gave it as an offering to the Lord. Then Abel brought the first lamb born to one of his sheep, killed it, and gave the best parts of it as an offering. The Lord was pleased with Abel and his offering, but he rejected Cain and his offering. Cain became furious, and he scowled in anger
When you read the complete story, you see that Cain’s jealousy reaches a level where he kills his brother, but you also see that way before he killed his brother, God came to speak with him, God tried to have a conversation with him, because God knew what the anger and jealousy of Cain would produce and God wanted to deal with it before it would deal with Cain.
Genesis 4: 6-7 GNT
Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why that scowl on your face? If you had done the right thing, you would be smiling; (or I would have accepted your offering). but because you have done evil, sin is crouching at your door. It wants to rule you, but you must overcome it.”
At times our lives suck because it’s just not our season yet, and at times our lives suck because of our own dumb decisions. Cain was having a hard time because he had not given his best to God and then he got mad at Abel because Abel had given his best to God and Abel’s offering had been approved of.
At times, the reason why you feel like your life sucks is because you’re lazy, or because you’ve not learned yet to prioritize God. Just like God took time to speak with Cain and to make him understand that the problem was not Abel but instead Cain’s wrong choice to take the best for himself instead of giving it to God, may be God is trying to talk you out of depression and making you understand that if you don’t yet have what you’re praying for it’s because you’re not ready. You’re not ready to get that because you still show that you’re not putting God first in your relationships, in your finances, in your job etc.
At times it’s not because of you, at times it’s because of you.
The time you waste feeling depressed and comparing yourself to others should be the time you ask God “God what are you trying to teach me through this?”
Life is like a video game in which you need to get a certain number of skills before you can go to the next level. May be God keeps you here because you’ve not yet learned what you need to get to the next level. Ask Him what He is trying to teach you instead of wasting your time and enery killing Abel instead of killing “self”.
3. Don’t Post To Brag
This is going to be an honest confession right now. One day some time ago, I was looking at the social media accounts of some people I admire, and then my admiration started turning into comparison and envy (May God forgive me). I looked at almost all the things they posted in the last 2 years and I felt like “you mean their lives are 24/7 perfect? There’s not one post letting me even get a hint of anything about them hurting or facing struggles. Their lives are really perfect”, and that’s how I looked at my own previous posts over the last months and I just felt like it was a competition.
I felt like I had to have at least one nice thing to post about my life, at least one. So I picked an image, I edited it, I wrote very beautiful, perfect cute sweet things (in a season where I was crying myself to sleep everynight) and I made a beautiful post to give the illusion that my life was perfect and to prove to myself and others that “good perfect sweet things also happen in my life.”
1 Peter 5: 5b-6 GNT
And all of you must put on the apron of humility, to serve one another; for the scripture says, “God resists the proud, but shows favor to the humble.” Humble yourselves, then, under God’s mighty hand, so that he will lift you up in his own good time.
The Bible says that God resists the proud and that He lifts up those who are humble. That was pride. I was posting just to keep up with the game of “whose life is perfect and whose life is better”, and I can tell you that I felt better after that, but just for a few hours, then I came back to reality.
When you post just to brag, and just to keep up with the competition, you may not realize it but unintentionally your words may typically send this message:
“My life is perfect because I am the perfect Christian and your life sucks because you’re not as good as me as a Christian and you’re not submitted to God as much as I am, if not you would be enjoying the same quality of life and of relationships that I enjoy. Your life sucks because your not perfect and my life is awesome because I am“
You might not know who is reading what you’re writing and who is looking at your pictures. This person may be so depressed, so hurt, so broken, that your post is the last straw that sends this person to commit suicide or to take drugs of abuse one more time.
You don’t know what they’re going through, and this is not to make you responsible for every suicide attempt in the world nor to push you to stop posting on social media, but this is to tell you to check your heart before you post, read what you’ve written, make sure that The Holy Spirit of God who lives in you approves of what you’re doing, post to build people up, not to destroy them, not to set unreasonable standards of perfection without talking about God’s mercy.
I know this is most difficult to hear for Christians nowadays because we now have platforms to post all we want to post. We think we are so wise and so humble, and we post things in which we are clearly telling others that we are better than them, that we are perfect, that we are good and that all their problems are due to them not being as Christ-centered as we are, and we think that because we used the hashtags #humble, #Jesus, #Godlyadvice, we think that because we used Christian hashtags, we did the best thing ever.
We are not supposed to point to us, we are to point to Christ. When we share on social media, if we say that our aim is really to bring people to Christ, we have to share His Word unaltered, and we have to point people to Him, He is perfect, not us. No bragging. If we post, we have to do it not to impress people, not to brag about being better Christians than others, but in order to give glory to God.
1 Corinthians 10: 31-33
Well, whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do it all for God’s glory. Live in such a way as to cause no trouble either to Jews or Gentiles or to the church of God. Just do as I do; I try to please everyone in all that I do, not thinking of my own good, but of the good of all, so that they might be saved.
Philippians 4:8 GNT
In conclusion, my friends, fill your minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise: things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and honorable.
Before you post something ask yourself if it goes in line with Phil 4:8, are your posts filling your audience’s minds with things which are good, worthy of praise, true, noble, right, pure, lovely, and honorable. Ask yourself if it will bless someone.
“Post to bless not to brag”
-Victoria Eyog
Ask yourself, “If I looked at this on my bed at night while I am depressed would I get hope in the fact that Jesus will help me and will fix me, or is this just going to make me feel like my life is a waste and I am hopeless?”
Ask yourself, and if God convicts you of the fact that your posts will be a stumbling block to Christians out there and will hurt them more than they help them, then don’t post it at all, and find a better way to rephrase it in a way which points to Christ and not to you.
4. Make It Healthy
While you’re in this journey of fighting comparison, jealousy and depression on social media, find healthy strategies which will make you to be least exposed to these feelings as you are letting God to change you from inside.
Making it healthy for you may be different from making it healthy for me.
- For someone it may require closing your social media accounts and taking a break for 1 or 2 years without caring about FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)
- For me it may imply using social media only for 2 hours a week instead of 7 hours daily
- For you it may imply unfollowing some people not out of jealousy, but in order to guard your heart from comparison, jealousy and depression. (It’s not because they are your friends in real life that you have to follow them on social media)
- Follow the right people and look at the right content; Follow people who post the type of content which will lead you to Christ and which will help you guard your heart and develop your relationship with God
It really depends on your need right now, and mostly on what God tells you to do about this. I recommend that you take some time off and ask God to teach you what He wants you to do to have a healthier social media experience.
Prayer
Father Lord God Almighty, please grant me wisdom and open my heart and my mind so that I may discern the best healthy way to use social media, in a manner that honours You. Help me to be humble, to trust You in the way You have planned out my life, and help me to be a blessing to people on social media. Be my peace and my joy, and deliver me from jealousy, comparison and depression in Jesus Christ’s Name. Amen
It’s Now Your Turn
Now that you’ve read this blogpost, what did you relate to the most? What do you intend to put in place to have a healthier social media experience? Please let us know in the comments section.
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Are you fighting a battle in your mind against anxiety, depression, comparison and jealousy, you need to learn how to tap from God’s Word to receive the necessary resources to win this battle. I recommend that you check out this new series by Pastor Steven Furtick, lead Pastor of Elevation Church. This series started on 11-12/08/2018, it is a 7 week series and we are already at week 2. You’re going to learn how to take back your mind in the age of anxiety.
All you need to do is tune in on the Youtube channel of Elevation Church every Sunday at any of the following times.
- 14:30 (GMT+1) a.k.a 9:30 am EST
- 16:30 (GMT+1) a.k.a 11:30 am EST
- 22:00 (GMT+1) a.k.a 17:00 EST
If you feel concerned about your internet connection, watching the whole worship experience with video quality 240 MP should cost you 250 MegaBites. Alternatively, you can download the sermon replay on YouTube on Monday evening at 17:00 GMT+1 (12 Noon EST)
God loves you so much
God bless you
Victoria Eyog
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