There are some things we started to believe that I personally need to speak up against. For your sake and for mine, because I am just as prone, susceptible, and tempted to fall into the same traps of deception as you are.
It’s like we went to sleep one night only to awaken to a world where who we are and what we are capable of is founded upon this little thing called social media. I have had to fight, maybe more so than what meets the eye, to resist the urge to prove myself on social media. I went through a period where my writing became off limits to the outside world because I knew my intensions in posting where not to share for the sake of others but to prove my spirituality to others.
In the beginning days of social media, there was no such thing as “insta famous” or whatever you want to call it but the further and more prevalent the world of social media becomes the more and more this whole concept of being famous on social media creeps into the picture.
Most of us remember the first moment we broke a hundred likes on a picture or even the picture, that to this day, was our most popular post. Those moments were exciting but they were not defining. Now we find ourselves in a society where we delete the post that aren’t successful. We buy likes and we unfollow people because they unfollowed us (can’t mess up our ratio). We feel insignificant and place our value on a number when our value has never and will never come from a number. Our value only comes from a name and the name is Jesus.
I am not knocking social media by any means. I think it is a great way to stay connected and to use your voice. However, what I am saying is that we have started to believe a handful of lies when it comes to the world of social media. Especially within the church.
So let’s address them. Let’s call them out and stop allowing ourselves and other to believe these things are true because they are not.
The lies of social media:
1. You need you a professional photographer to take pictures of you at all times.
I spent the weekend in Nashville with a sweet family I know and was telling the mom how now and days it is like everyone my age somehow manages to have a photographer with them at all times. Photography is an art and I have multiple photographer friends but I need you to know that you are not anything less or anything more because you have a “good” Instagram feed. It can be very enticing and satisfying to have people continuously comment on your latest selfie or picture of yourself, affirming you. However, the moment someone opens up my Instagram and sees only me is the moment I have failed to occupy my space well on the internet. As believers, everything, I mean everything we have is to make the name of Jesus famous.
2. You need to document and post every significant moment of your life.
I am a lover of traveling. I love to capture different places I get to go. I love to post Instagram stories while I am out and about. But I can promise you there is nothing sweeter than having a moment that is just yours to hold on to. People do not have to know what you are doing at every moment of every day. You do not need to prove that you have an exciting life. It can be documented for you to hold on to. But sometimes, sometimes skipping the step of capturing a moment allows you to engrave it somewhere deeper than your photo library on your iPhone.
We miss the moments so often by trying to capture the moment. What if instead of trying to capture the moment we let the moment capture us?
3. You need to become a blogger
From someone who is a blogger, hear me say this loud and clear. You do not have to start a blog just because everyone else has a cute little website URL of theirs in their Instagram bio. I will just say it like it is: we are not all gifted in the area of writing and God does not need us to be. He needs us to own the gifting He has given us, whatever that looks like.
I think it is easy to start doing what everyone else is doing because it is safe and requires no risk on our end. Do not follow the trends, follow your calling, follow Jesus. When we get honest, some of us have been hiding behind trends and too afraid to step out and into the uniqueness of our individual callings.
Step out my friend. The world does not need more bloggers. The word just needs people to do what they were made to do. If that is blogging, then blog on. But don’t let yourself go for what you think you need to do because a lot of people are doing it. Let yourself do what you know you were made to do.
4. Your capability to lead is dictated and solely based on the number of followers you have.
Let me say it again. Your capability to lead is not dictated or based on the number of followers you have. Argue with me all you want but we have come to a place where someone’s qualification to lead, at times, is based on the number of followers they have. As if a large number of Instagram followers grants them the title of someone that has something to say.
You do not have anything less to say because you have less followers. It is not about how many people it reaches it is about how many people it sinks in. Vulnerability and authenticity will always be more important than quantity.
You very well might feel like “I would get to ask to do more if more people knew me” or “if only I had a larger following” and I am genuinely sorry and heartbroken that we have come to a place where people feel this way. I know that it is easy to think people inviting us to lead or to be a part of something is where we will get the confirmation that we have a role. But it is not people inviting you that declares you are capable. It is the invitation from Jesus that matters most and He is inviting us all to play a part in His story.
You are invited.
5. God will give me followers based on how talented I am.
Your gifting, calling, and talents are not measured by how many people watch or take notice of it. Rest firm in the truth that the size of the stage will never matter. The size of the audience will never matter. The only size that will matter is the size of your belief that God will use you and put you right where you are supposed to be. What matters is that you are using what you have been given when you can.
He will cross your path with the people it needs to cross with. Keep driving in your lane. Occupy your street.
If you are someone that has a large following, oh how I pray that you do not feel the pressure to be anything more than just human. I pray that you know what God entrusted you with is not something that makes you any better than anyone else. I pray that you always point things back to Him.
I pray that we all steward well what we have been given.
I pray that we stop letting something like social media speak for Jesus.
Jesus says you do have something to offer this world. Jesus says you are talented. Jesus says you do have something to say. Jesus says you are capable to lead. Jesus says you are invited.
Here is to always letting the goal be to make Jesus famous and to never letting the goal be to become “insta famous.”
Despite what the world and sometimes even the church might be telling you….
He doesn’t need you to be famous for Him to use you.
At the end of the day, none of us are the main act. We are all just setting the stage to go behind the curtains.
He is the main act.
