Hello friends!
Truth Bomb: Following culture is empty!
This scripture wrecked my perspective on culture:
Galatians 5:19-21 The Message
19-21 It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.
This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.
That verse speaks for its self, our reckless pursuits for what culture deems as important are meaningless. I found that a lot of the things on the list correlated perfectly with my relationship with Instagram. I'll list the correlations I found below:
Mental and emotional garbage: Feeling like crap and insignificant when my photos wouldn't get 'enough' likes
Joyless grabs for happiness: The high I would feel from validating comments and more followers
Trinket gods: becoming obsessed with the Instagram app and fixated on influences hat I aspired to be.
Paranoid loneliness: the feeling that something was wrong that I didn't have a ton of friends in my city to do things with-and the fact that most of my 'friendships' on Instagram were shallow.
Cutthroat competition: constantly comparing every aspect of my body and my lifestyle with other girls on Instagram. Constantly comparing my engagement with other girls accounts.
All-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants: the burning desire to have more followers yet as I gained more it was never 'enough'.
An impotence to love or be loved: I felt like I needed everyone to like me and that likes on my photos correlated with people actually liking me and I let it heavily affect my self worth (stupid but true)
Small-minded and lopsided pursuits- The small minded pursuit that gaining more followers and likes would elevate my status and influence in the world.
Vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival: A lot of girls on IG that I follow were people that I looked up to a lot...however many other accounts were girls that I looked at their photos and engagement and just compared myself.
Uncontrollable addictions: Sad but true that I was addicted to the Instagram app. It was the first thing I checked in the morning and the last thing I checked before bed...and the app I spent hours scrolling throughout my day (yes, hours)
Ugly parodies of community: I thought that Instagram was my community and the people on it actually cared about me..when in reality probably 2% of the people following me on Instagram are actually in community with me and genuinely care about me and my well being. (Huge wake up call)
The maaaajor truth bomb lies at the end of the verse....that if we use our freedom to behave like the above list, we will not go to heaven....point blank. It is written right there in the Bible, like I am not making this stuff up people. Now your struggle may not be social media, it could be something completely different, but we all have a weakness that we know God needs to redeem. So, you may be thinking 'what the heck do I do with this information'....because that's exactly how I felt. I felt like I had gone too far down the rabbit trail to reset my mind to not think or behave that way. But guess what, with God all things ae possible.
Romans 12:2 states "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." Lets focus on renewing our minds and fixing our time and attention on things above.
Remember following culture is empty, but following the one true God with an eternal perspective will give you a grace and joy filled life!
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