disillusionment is hip, right?
and disillusionment with facebook? even better.
lace it with a little irony, and my disillusionment is the bat to the hippest pinata in town.
before you grab your cup of fair-trade coffee and settle down with me here, let me give you a little abstract: this post is an ironic (ironic bit: using a social medium to hate on social media) explanation of my sporadic frustration with facebook funneled through a sarcastic, wry voice (ctrl+f "image micromanagement") and my exploration of said resentment as a deeper struggle with my own flesh--ultimately, my reconciliation with abundant life. i want to illustrate some things i've learned the past few months about identity (God's, mine, maybe yours, too!) using facebook as a small picture of a universal struggle.
i'm going to double-click on Jesus' words to draw some parallels between this shared struggle--the fight for life-- and my own little disillusionment problems. i chose Jesus' words because they're the most authoritative ones i know. (cheating? maybe. He knows my heart).
let me share with you:
as i mature, i see God weeding and uprooting dead things from my heart: anything hindering me from being beautiful in the way He intends believers to be. He digs out these rocks so He can plant His goodness in soil that can grow precious, godly, lively things, like transformation and freedom and abundant life. when He takes away, He always gives back, and it's life that He gives. we don't even see how ugly these dead things are until they are in His hands. when i surrender, i am telling God i believe His beauty and trust His hand. i am telling Him i am ready for Him to awake my soul.
so, as He grows me in this area, i begin to desire to invest in things that will speak life to me. if we are real-life friends, you know i can be excessive. no, "focused" maybe is a better word. when i find an outfit i like, i want to wear it every day that week (but i make sure i don't see you twice in one week if that's the case). when i am excited about a new friend, i text until my fingers fall off. when i realize i'm good at making chicken curry, i buy curry powder in bulk (and take out a high-interest loan on the same day). in the same way, when God teaches me something, i want more of it, and i don't want any interruptions. as i learn that God desires for me to invest in things that give life, i go to another (often incorrect) extreme. lately, it's been the "i hate facebook so hard but i can't stop logging in" extreme.
facebook is just one area of sin i tend to fall into: if we have talked, you've probably heard me drop the phrase "image micromanagement." having my own webpage is a goldmine for self-glory. i can engineer my profile until i appear the way i want. the "facebook-me" i've created uses vague indie lyrics as status updates, sepia profile pictures, and witty wall posts to present the ideal balance of witty and deep, spiritual and sarcastic, and whimsical and edgy. i have become skilled at crafting an intriguing, attractive two-dimensional "person" i hope all the girls will want to be and all godly whimsical boys will want to be with.
but God is crafting a better version of me, a raw, three-dimensional person with a heart He's desperate to speak His life into.
but i think whether or not i delete my account is irrelevant (that's where self-control and personal responsibility come in, i reckon). i can use the gifts He gives me for life or for death, for gain or for loss, for His Kingdom or for mine. each day, i desire to wake up with open hands and receive from my Father. He gives me the gifts of social media and friends and tv and books and music or my new favorite belgian beer and caramel apples and the smell of fall, but when these sweet things become distractions or outlets for sin, i know i am making them ultimate. earthly things sitting on a throne meant for Jesus never satisfy.
He wants more for us.
I came that they might have life and have it abundantly. -john 10.10.
last summer, i read a book called waking the dead by a guy named john eldredge (think wild at heart, regrettably one of my top five targets for witty and snide remarks as of late--sorry guys). the book outlines ways that believers compromise for half-awake life and often don't even realize the freedom and fullness Jesus has right in front of us. we are blinded by our sin, kept from seeing the substance of His beauty because we're living in shadows. i remember scribbling compulsively in my journal really late one night as i wrestled with eldredge's words: "Jesus came that we might have abundant life, but we're going to have to fight for it."
i got this picture of the sin the author of hebrews describes in chapter 12 (one of my favorite chapters in scripture) as something that entangles, something we must cast off. i see in this illustration a call to action: we must ask Jesus to open our eyes to sin (anything that doesn't give life-- conversely, anything that steals life, and more conversely, anything that speaks death). when our eyes are opened to this sin, we have a choice: more self or more Jesus. i pray we choose Jesus every time, but i don't think we will.
so why don't we choose life? because fighting hurts (but doesn't staying where we are hurt worse eventually?) when i fight for life, a pruning occurs, and Jesus cuts out the bad branches of my trees so i can bear fruit. just like when i'm cleaning a room and it gets messier before it gets better, i often feel disheveled and ungrounded as Jesus does a healing, transforming work in me. that's where i've been for several months, and i'm so thankful he's been gently opening my heart to see the sweetness of suffering and sanctification. this season is so precious: i have little direction, and i have never felt so useless, humbled, and broken, but this period of emptiness and open-handedness is just a bigger vessel for my God to pour out His love.
suffering friends, you did not get the short end of the stick. you get glory. you get a jealous, affectionate, loving Father whose heart wrenches at your cries but who even more desires for you to lose your self-suffiency and hold fast to Him. how precious it is that we get to be nothing so He can be something.
i am so thankful He loves me enough not to leave me the way i am. i pray that as each of us is transformed from one degree of glory to the next, we will point out God's grace to each other, that our transformations will be in themselves acts of worship to the fiercest and gentlest Father i know.
i can't wait to get more beautiful with you.
