I have been trying to understand how social media works in not just my life, but the lives of my brothers and sisters in Christ. I heard something the other day that made sense. The new commodity for sale in the information age is people’s attention when it comes to social media. People are being trained to spend more and more time on their phones, TVs, and computers. They either want to perform and get attention, or they want to look at other people and give their attention to the rest of the world.
The whole situation reminds me of the idea that the devil will lead you into temptation without you even realizing it so you must remain ever vigilant. The idea of monetizing attention is the perfect example. Essentially, instead of making alcohol or drugs more important than God, some people have made attention more important than God. The worst part is that they may not even realize it. Being a writer, I realize that I am going to need to use websites and social media to market my writing, but I realized a long time ago that there was something wrong with social media.
I joined a group and found myself caring about what perfect strangers thought about my life. I wanted to defend myself and I was getting emotional about their comments about my life. As soon as that happened, I immediately left the group. I realized that the way social media is set up people are rewarded for getting attention. It doesn’t matter if it is positive or negative. All that matters is that the person gets attention. I didn’t want my life to boil down to getting attention. I have dedicated my life to one deity: God. He is my one truth in world, and nothing will ever be more important to me than Him. My self-worth doesn’t rely on how much attention I get in social media circles. My self-worth comes from God’s grace.
I keep ever vigilant in my life and watch to myself carefully. I want to make sure that nothing will ever be more important to me than God. My faith tells me that if I keep God in the center of my life, then I will always be led in the right direction.
There’s one other interesting point to all of this. I have been feeling very upset about the way that the world is going because I see how the U.S. elections went. However, today as I contemplate social media and attention, I think I am finally coming out of anger and into acceptance. The world is going to a very dark time. There are so many people being led down this path of attention and they don’t even know it. It’s not Hitler, it’s not really politics. It’s about who we are and who we are choosing to be. I’ve never felt like I really belonged to humanity, but if I truly am a servant of God, maybe He can help me to share His message.
Today, I feel renewed in my purpose. I realized several years ago that I am a servant of God and that God wanted me to share a message with the world. I just didn’t know what the message was. Then, a few years ago, I learned what the message was. However, I didn’t realize God wasn’t done yet. I was prideful thinking once a got the message, I would know exactly what to do, but it’s not about me. Now that I have the message, I need to be patient once more because I need God to show me how to share that message. I forgot to be humble and let God lead me. For now, I just need to keep doing what I am doing, and I know that God will guide me on my path. Eventually, He will show me the next step in His own time. He always does. I have faith.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
