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Humanity has a natural desire for affirmation and community. We long for support and connectedness. These desires in and of themselves are not problematic. In fact, I would say that these desires are woven into our hearts by God Himself. He has created His people for community. When Adam was in full and complete fellowship with the Lord, God recognized that Adam needed a companion, a "help meet." Adam's connectedness to Eve was established before the fall of man. A desire to fellowship with others is Godly. The Lord Himself desires fellowship, but He is complete within the trinity. He is so holy and perfect that He finds community within Himself. (The Community of the Trinity. Sounds like a book I could write. Not so sure I'm qualified, but have you seen the Christian section at Barnes and Noble or Borders? Anyway.)
The devil comes to steal, kill and destroy. Part of the enemy's job description is to pervert our natural desires into sin. In fact, I would say (and C.S. Lewis deserves some credit for leading me down this garden path) that sin is an attempt to satisfy a typically good and natural desire in a way that violates the standards of God. For instance, a man longs to experience love and acceptance so he turns to pornography instead of the Lord. A woman longs to feel affirmed and beautiful, so she enters relationship after relationship in an attempt to feel validated rather than receiving confidence from Christ. A man wants to be a wise steward of his money so he lies to get a discount. The examples are endless.
The enemy has perverted our natural desire for community and fellowship, turning Americans into social networking codependents. We have filled every spare moment with text messages and Twitter statuses and every silent moment in the car with radio commercials. As a culture, we are addicted to each other. And somewhere in the chaos of pleasure neurotransmitters firing as we text and Tweet, Jesus is knocking. "What about me?"
Drink of the water Jesus offers and you will never thirst again (John 4:14). Jesus offers unlimited love, nighttime comfort, and weekend adventures. True story.
This is a wonderful blog! It is true, we long for acceptance. The social network craze of today has more people concerned or worried about their " status" even to the point of spending countless hours on pages and sites. I had said before when the world wide web was the term, the enemy had been successful at trapping many and holding them captive to something so simple and mediocre. Steve blog this question, how much time do people spend on FB as opposed to their bibles?? I bet the reality is staggering! Technology has it's place, but Gods word has to be our focus!! We need to often put these FB pages down(and that stupid Angry Bird!!!) I'm guilty too!! But I will say I make sure I pick up Gods word daily to get fed spiritually. There's a world of people dyin out there who don't know Christ. R we too busy with statuses, FB friends, who responds to my comments, etc? that we aren't sharing Christ?? Keep blogging Steve, keep being a strong witness for Christ so perhaps some will turn to Jesus because He was more to you than "status"
ReplyDeleteI like this blog a lot, Stephen...a few months ago, I was considering closing my facebook account and retreating from the creepiness that I associate with it, but then I realized: being away from the Christian community that I relied on so heavily at UMass, post-grad life has been difficult for me in a spiritual sense. Facebook has been an extremely positive and helpful presence in my life for the past year. My Christian friends on facebook, and their encouraging statuses, "About Me"s, and updates on mission projects have really inspired me to keep my focus on Jesus, even when I don't have a huge community of believers physically present. My point is that I think it's important to value facebook for what it's (hopefully) intended to be; a strong tool of connection that ties friends and family together, even when time and distance get in the way.
ReplyDeleteSocial media and Internet in general has always been a huge part of my life and especially now that Im here in US, FB is the main way I use to communicate and share what's going on in my life with my friends and family back in Brazil...
ReplyDeleteBut very often I catch myself thinking about the amount of time I spend on it and the answer do not make me happy...
Again, I try to justify it with lame excuses as in that's what everybody does or that's how I can keep in touch with people I dont see in a long time...
But then I realize that a friend or a family member is on Skype, but instead of calling them and really communicating (at least the most real it can get when you are 9thousand miles away), I prefer just to keep reading other people's profiles and posting meaningless stuff on my one.