Disconnecting and Reconnecting

After an inspiring article in the latest issue of the Christianity magazine (September edition), I have braved what most social media users dread – deleting Facebook. This has come as a shock to myself, considering I was hooked to it. It was like reading the morning paper. It was not just on my laptop. It was an app on my phone. I could take it everywhere. I could update my status anywhere. Post pictures to share with my Facebook friends instantly. I could not break away from it. Or so I thought. 

Lucy Mills (@lucymills) wrote an article entitled ‘Disconnect in order to connect’. Now I will not go into it all here, but it made me think about what I use social media for. Originally, I thought I could stay in touch with people. In reality, I barely speak to those I should, others do not even appear on my News Feed and I spend so much time being the neighbour on the fence staring over into everyone’s lives being nosy rather than friendly. Therefore, I have decided to pull the plug on my profile and transfer it to a page dedicated to my blog and writing. 

I also have to be careful here as well. Lucy Mills says:

‘A lot of our tools persuade us to be seen; to be followed or befriended; to publicise ourselves; to be inspirational – or, yes, righteous – in the eyes of others. Jesus says that we should hide our righteousness, not announcing it when we give towards the needs of others.’

I do not want to create a page to give glory and praise to my writing or to my blog. I write because I want Christ to have the glory, and I want to use the tool of Facebook, the internet and WordPress to do this in a creative way. Lucy goes on to say:

‘There will be times when it’s appropriate to share and to celebrate what God has done for us. Testimony is powerful and can change lives. But are we sharing for sharing’s sake? Or do we share because there are some things we should shout from the rooftops?

With this is mind, I hope that I can share the wonderful news of Jesus Christ with others and at the same time, I can open up about my journey of faith to encourage, love and point others to the Lord, all of the time ‘leaving room for wisdom and reflection’. Taking time out from Facebook and spending time in the quiet, whilst reflecting and writing. This could be a more fruitful use of my time as I seek to become more like Christ and I become less nosy and attached to ‘unsocial media’.