#1 Contentment Killer

Hello, facebook, how are you? Let me tell you a little secret. You kill contentment. You allow people {including me} to give this illusion of perfect lives with perfect friends, prefect families, perfect jobs, and perfect homes. You give us never-ending lists & lists {also known as my newsfeed} of people hitting every expected & celebrated milestone as well as a play by play of their adventurous, spontaneous lives. We will never miss a single meal, outing, adventure, date, breakup, haircut, sports game, wedding, marriage, pregnancy, showers, births, birthdays, etc. Must I go on? You give us the perfect breeding ground for comparison which leads straight to discontentment.

So maybe I wasn't as ready for this challenge as I had thought. I think I had rose colored glasses on. I am quite intimidated by the professional bloggers out there who do this for real. & again here I am being tempted to fall into comparison & discontentment. & then I think wow, I need something more. Maybe I should buy something to make my blog fancier. Maybe I should work harder. Maybe I should do more. {Enter discontentment}. 

Maybe facebook isn't the real culprit. Maybe it's really my heart trying to cling to the more in this life. What do I actually need? Other than Jesus, that is. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The real kicker is that I know the truth. I have grown up in the church. I have read my Bible until it is literally falling apart in my hands. I know that what God has planned will far exceed any plans I could ever even imagine for myself {Ephesians 3:20}. I know that God is working all things for my good {Romans 8:28}.

 

Yet here I sit scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, & scrolling. When I get bored, what do I turn to? Social media. I check in to see what everybody else is doing today? Oh, she's on vacation. If only I could go on vacation somewhere. Oh, she's wedding planning. If only there was even hope for one day planning a wedding. Oh, she's doing really fun things for her job. If only my job had cool things like that to do.

Suddenly, I am so deep in a pit of discontentment that I cannot even see the light at the top. I'm in utter darkness. Nothing about my circumstances seems good enough or fun enough or cool enough.

Don't get me wrong, God can use social media to further His kingdom, spread the Gospel, & plant seeds in the hearts of those who do not know Him. But Satan is also running rampant on social media. He delights in seeing us drown ourselves in discontentment & ignore the true source of contentment.

So what do we do about this?

For me, there has to be a healthy limit. There has to be a point where I say no more. There is a time to step away and reevaluate.

One day at a time. So I need a plan of action for today. Here it is.

Course of action: I will limit my social media usage {specifically facebook} to checking on the phone two times a day. & only after I have spent quality, solid time with the Lord in order to focus my heart on Him & find contentment in Him before subjecting myself to the differently lead lives of others.

Stay tuned for day three of thirty-one of my journey to contentment in  Jesus & feel free to check out the rest this series here.