I must confess I don't often like how I feel after checking facebook, pinterest, or other social media; it's like awkward junior high, minus the raging hormones.
Right now I am going through Tim Keller's "Fruit of the Spirit" Bible study with several women; last week's lesson focused on walking by the spirit, looking at the following passage:
"If we live by the Spirit, let us
also keep in step with the Spirit. Let
us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another" (Galatians 5: 25-26).
As we were discussing, it occurred to me that much of social media plays on these two forms of conceit: provoking and envying.
Provoking scenario: I enjoy a good life with many blessings from the Lord, so I post about it to boost my pride (because clearly I helped God in providing them), show off my beautiful, happy-without-problems family, and often provoke others in the process. I am amazing, mind you.
Envying scenario: I feel dissatisfied with my life and struggle with discontentment, so I read about the lives of others to escape and feel like mine isn't quite up to snuff; the posts (or pictures) feed my bitterness and sense of injustice that the Lord gave me a "bad lot in life." I am a victim.
I'm guilty as charged, multiple counts of both forms.
It's easier to associate conceit with provocation; the connection is much more blatant, and the offenders are easily identifiable; however, envy is a silent conceited killer. It lurks deep in the heart, cloaks itself as Humility, and leads to feeling beaten down, not good enough: Satan has his foothold.
Keeping in step with the Spirit should serve as a "heart check" button for Christians using social media. Christ's sacrifice humbles us to recognize our need and secures us in fulfilling our every need. Yeah, we have an app for that: the gospel.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
garden ready
An early spring is a welcome blessing in my household. After months of noses pressed to glass panes, brown morphs to green. My soul lifts from winter's dank underbrush as I scoop and spread compost on the garden plot. I move with purpose when the earth warms, and I wonder how I frivolously spent winter hibernating.
It has been one of the warmest springs on record, the earliest I recall of my Midwest decades. Thanks to helping family hands, a third of the garden is planted, all seeds having sprung: peas, carrots, radishes, lettuces, spinach, broccoli. More seeds wait patiently on a shelf in the garage for their turn to be buried in the garden, once April is filed away. Still more seeds lie damp in egg carton bottoms next to a bedroom window, and I water and watch the dormant seeds daily, hoping for a fruitful experiment.
Easter Sunday would be an appropriate sighting of a first green shoot.
Egg carton bottoms with four kinds of tomatoes, two types of peppers, rosemary, and basil.
A picture of the radishes from March 23; they were the first plants to greet us from our vegetable garden. Now they are three times as big and in desperate need of thinning.
It has been one of the warmest springs on record, the earliest I recall of my Midwest decades. Thanks to helping family hands, a third of the garden is planted, all seeds having sprung: peas, carrots, radishes, lettuces, spinach, broccoli. More seeds wait patiently on a shelf in the garage for their turn to be buried in the garden, once April is filed away. Still more seeds lie damp in egg carton bottoms next to a bedroom window, and I water and watch the dormant seeds daily, hoping for a fruitful experiment.
Easter Sunday would be an appropriate sighting of a first green shoot.
Egg carton bottoms with four kinds of tomatoes, two types of peppers, rosemary, and basil.
A picture of the radishes from March 23; they were the first plants to greet us from our vegetable garden. Now they are three times as big and in desperate need of thinning.
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