Stop Relying on Social Media- or whatever may be hindering your walk with Jesus

" Why would they post this?"

"I wish I looked like her."

"Why can't I take pictures like this?"

I am so guilty of constantly asking these questions in my mind while scrolling through social media. This is why I decided to give it up, well sort of. For about a year I kept telling myself I was going to give up social media, I knew I did not need it. Every time I forced clicked the apps on my phone and then all I needed to do was press the X, I could not bring myself to do it. I do not know how many times I went to delete them. I could not give it up. I had a problem. I found myself scrolling on social media instead of studying for tests or writing papers. I would spend time on these sites instead of quiet time with the Lord. Not only was if affecting my school work, it was affecting my relationship with the Lord. I was constantly comparing myself to the beautiful girls that I saw on my news feed, and this caused my self confidence to plummet to an all time low. But.... I still did not delete it.

For those of you that know me know that I am a HUGE Georgia Bulldog football fan. After my dawgs gave a very embarrassing sugar bowl performance, my entire social media feed was full of negative and frustrating things about the game. Every time I checked my Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter it was something hateful about the game. This officially pushed me to the edge. It was a new year and there was no point in getting on social media just to make myself get mad. So I finally did it. I deleted the Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter app off of my phone. New year new me, huh? I am not going to lie, it was not easy staying off of it. But, when I finally realized the negative impact it was having on my life, I began to see things differently. I am slowly allowing social media back into my life, but I hope to never let it control my life like it was at the beginning of this year.

Here are a few ways that, in my life, social media was influencing my thoughts and how they have been changed over the past 6 months.

Selfish judging

I was constantly judging the individuals I saw on my news feed. Thinking things like: why would she post this? or Does she think everyone wants to see this?. I think everyone who has social media has said something along these lines. Well guess what y'all!!! It does not affect us. Yeah you read that right. Others posts do not affect us. They really don't. What is really affecting us is how we are judging their posts. It is hurting our mindsets and thought process that will automatically jump to judgement. By spending time away from social media, I was able to spend more time with Jesus. I came across the verse Matthew 7:2-

"For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you"

Well. I definitely did not want the Lord to judge me how I judge others. I wanted to change my ways of thinking. I prayed for the Lord to renew my thought process and patterns of thinking. I asked for my thoughts to be more like Jesus and less judgmental. I am still working on this every day. But, for me, spending time off of social media has helped me to become closer the Lord and remove some of the selfish judging I acted upon. Selfish Judging is something I am working on day by day, and I still fail regularly to limit this judging. But I am thankful for a heavenly Father that forgives me when I do this and helps me to become better as I walk with Him daily.

The Trap of Comparisons

Comparing myself to others is something I personally struggle with every day. The enemy knows this. By removing social media from life, I have been able to let go of some of the comparisons. Whether I was comparing myself to be better than someone or striving to be them, I was never satisfied with myself and how I look on the outside. I don't remember if this was in a podcast I listened to or if my preacher said it at church, but it really stuck out to me.

"Stop comparing yourself to others and start comparing yourself to Jesus". We can never be better than Jesus, so this will always leave us plenty of room for improvement. Comparing myself to Jesus is what I am trying to learn to do and work on every single day. I am on a journey of finding my self-confidence in the Lord, and not through what other people may think or how I compare myself to others. One thing I shared with my bible study gals is that whenever I start to tell myself I am better than someone else I repeat "Jesus loves them just as much as me". In the eyes of Jesus, I am not better or worse than anyone else.

Stealing my time

So, if you have an iphone there is this really neat feature called "screen time". It is a daily synopsis of how much time you spend on your phone and will even break it down for each app. I am not going to say what my screen time was for each day before my social media purge, but it was extremely embarrassing. I began to think.. what if I was taking an hour from my screen time and spending it with Jesus how much my life could be different. I would get in bed to go to sleep, but then mindlessly scroll for hours. Why couldn't I just spend that time in prayer? When I couldn't lean on my social media apps anymore, I began to open my bible and study more of what Jesus was saying. It was amazing the difference just 30 minutes or an hour with the Lord did in my life. Don't let distractions in this world take away from your time with Jesus. Be intentional with your time with the Lord and get away from all the distractions, even if it is just for 30 minutes a day.

My hope for your life is that you can identify your distractions in your life and try to eliminate them. I am not saying that everyone who uses social media is bad. In my life, my relationship with social media was unhealthy. I have many friends in my life that have a very healthy relationship with social media and are able to balance their time on social media and time with the Lord. We could all spend more time with Jesus, so take some time to analyze yourself and to cut out the unhealthy distractions to help point your focus towards the Jesus.

xoxo,

Madison