Where the Search Begins & Ends

My 12-year old asked her Father and I when we were her age if we had a cell phone, texted, and used facebook. I had to educate her on the reality that when we were her age technology wasn't as advanced as it is now. When I purchased my first phone I was a newly married lady and the thought of carrying around a cell phone was so foreign to me that if I left it at home it was no huge deal. Fast forward to 2017. If I leave my phone there is a chance that I will turn around and go back home to get it. We use technology for more than just contacting someone in case of emergency. We use it to take pictures, balance our checking account, typing up blog entries, and staying in contact with friends and family.

It's the latter reason on my list of technology uses that brings me to my own phone to write this blog entry. While I was a Facebook user in the past and currently am an instagram user I have a certain level of familiarity with how social media is used today. I've witnessed that there's a blessing in being able to connect with family and friends that one may not be able to see on a regular basis. Users can experience joy as they celebrate on social media forums, seeing pictures from events and "liking" them and leaving well wishes in their comments. You can drop lines of encouragement  and uplift the people in your life by tweeting them.

While the ability to connect with others in this way is useful and brings enjoyment, it can impact an area within us that we may not even realize. Day in and day out social media calls out to us. Our eyes want to see who's getting engaged,  married, or having a baby. We want to stay abreast of the latest news and statuses of the people that interest us. Our flesh enjoys the feelings we experience when we see old friends and how they're living since we last saw them. In return we have a sense of joy when other people commend us when they see our own personal experiences. Accumulating a lot of "likes" makes us feel good and gives a sense of acceptance and fulfillment to know that someone has noticed us. The downside in all of this is as we experience these feel-good sensations from social media, we're constantly feeding our minds with a reality that may not all together be truth. We take in countless scenes of what seems to be blissfully, amazingly happy people. As we daily gaze at smiling, exuberant faces of people that we know, we are constantly feeding our minds a false reality of life. Our desires to be in-the-know with twittering comments, statements, and opinions can easily bombard and rule our thoughts.

The truth is real life is not filled with a constant onslaught of laughter, joy, and perfectly orchestrated moments. Although it may not be the intention of the people that you view each day to send a message that they are completely content in life without problems, as your mind takes in these images on a continual basis it will impact your thoughts and thoughts impact our behaviors. As we take to our cell phones and the internet and enter this false reality of life, in many ways we are escaping to a world that may make us feel better about our true life situations as we see the "likes" or we're emotionally uplifted by the sense of happiness that we see depicted in the life of our friends and family by what they choose to highlight through pictures and tweets.

We may also feel a sense of defeat or discouragement when we view what seems to be perfectly happy people while our current situation has us in a place of hopelessness. We may find ourselves comparing our own lives to theirs and end up feeling as worse off than when we tuned into their life. As we're inundated with tweets regarding the latest news and current events our thoughts are shaped and influenced by the world. The happy glimpses that we get into other people's lives should not be our escape from our own realities and the overwhelming load of information that we receive from the internet should not be what shapes our thoughts and emotions.

For the believer our escape should be to the throne of grace and the main influence of our mind and heart should be the Word of God. There we'll find a true picture of joy, peace, and happiness and our mind, flesh, and spirit will be completely satisfied. Because we're shaped by the things that we see with our eyes and hear with our ears, we have to remain cautious of what we allow ourselves to focus on day after day. We have to guard and protect our hearts, being careful what we take in.

Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.

(Proverbs 4:23)

I am guilty of being tempted to give into the pull and draw that social media can have on the flesh to be "in-the-know" and once you're surfing in this world it's difficult to pull yourself back into reality and gain a Godly perspective on life. As much as we surf out in the virtual world, we need to measure how it impacts the time we spend in God's Word. We're told to meditate day and night on the Word.

This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.

(Joshua 1:8)

Writing on this has challenged me to monitor the time I spend perusing and using social media. If I were to avoid it all together it would make it difficult to fulfill God's challenge to me when He tells us to be a light in the world. I can't be a light in a place if I'm totally devoid of it. No, the answer isn't to live in a bubble. We can use our links into social media to share God's Word and hopefully impact others for Christ.

We have to remember daily that the Bible is reality. There we find truth and a true illustration of man. God just doesn't show us the happy illustrations of life. We're not deceived by God's Word to think more highly of others or of ourselves. Instead it's a picture of how we can mature and grow deeper into Christ-likeness. While social media can bring us temporal feelings of joy, it can never complete us. If we were to solely go to it for satisfaction we would always end up with a void, wanting more and never being content. God on the other hand, is enough. When you seek Him with all of your heart you need not look for anything else in life to fulfill you. The search begins and ends with Christ.