Photo Credit: Michel Catalisano.
Since the advent of social media so much of our life is exposed for all the world to see. That can be both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s great to catch up with High School or College classmates we haven’t seen in years. To be able to proudly share pictures of children and grandchildren in an instant with friends and family who live far away is truly a blessing. Even posting our personal achievements and vacation adventures can be interesting. But then, there is the dark side of social media, postings of sexually suggestive and inappropriate pictures, videos of people fighting or being bullied while others stand idly by or even worse, egg them on.
There are those who conduct entire arguments on Facebook perhaps not realizing how foolish and immature they both appear. Sometimes the shade throwing is a bit subtler, but if you know the back story of the parties involved you know EXACTLY what they mean and who the target is. You will even see Glam shots of people looking fierce and fabulous with captions that are meant to convey to the man or woman who left them “Eat your heart out dude, you made a big mistake when you walked away from ALL THIS”. But perhaps the saddest of all are those whose moods and feelings of self-worth are governed by the number of likes and comments they get to their posts or how many hits and shares of their latest YouTube video.
But I can somewhat identify with them. A good friend of mine recently asked me how many “followers” there are of my blog. I told him I have no idea, and I don’t. Now, I do occasionally check the stats for the number of views for a particular article but I don’t know how many have signed up to follow the blog on a regular basis. In all honesty that was one of my concerns when God first put it on my heart to start this blog. First of all, I was concerned that I’d have nothing to say but God assured me He would take care of that. But once I got started I was worried that no one would read it and I would check the stats daily.
I had to repent from that and pray not to get caught up in numbers. Seeking the approval of man is a slippery slope we must avoid at all costs (Proverbs 29:25 NKJV). Yes, God wants us to be effective in what we do for Him but He doesn’t measure effectiveness the same as we do. He cares that it touches and impacts, in a positive way, the heart and life of those exposed to it (even if that’s only one person), that it is a seed planted or watered leading to the eventual entrance or return into the Kingdom. He wants our motives to be pure (Colossians 3:23 NKJV).
So don’t concern yourself with who likes your post or views your video or follows your blog. Don’t get worried over negative comments (Psalms 56:4). Ask yourself and God, “Does God like it?”, “Is He pleased?”. If the answer is “Yes”, then you’re good to go. But if the answer is anything else, not to worry, you are playing to a very forgiving audience. He allows you to edit, reformat even start from scratch if you have to. Our audience of One wants our product to be stellar so that He can give us a standing ovation.
THROUGH THE STORM 