Social media sadness

I grow weary of social media. Scrolling through my Facebook feed in the morning to see people sad about the election results, disappointed with the candidates and a lot of hatred. I see people share their close minded general life opinions they don’t have the ability to listen to others or gain knowledge from other people. I see parenting tips from close minded people who only have their thoughts on the way kids need to be raised and anything else is wrong. Sometimes the bad can overtake the good.

Even with this I am a fan of social media. Social media is the only way I can connect with friends and family I don’t get to see that often. I get to see the good news of people getting married, advancing in life, awesome family pictures and the occasional throwback where I get to see what life looks like at a younger age. There is so much hate and love on social media. What if we focused on the good?

Philippians 1:9-10…

“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.”

Life is full of disappointments, but it doesn’t have to be. I was a stringer writing for the Lansing State Journal when one of our editors had a great idea of covering a full day of sports on the first day of Fall practice with a timeline and stories based on the timeline. I was assigned to go cover the Holt Ram girls swim team as they opened practice and write about what happens during that time of the day.

Holt at the time had won something amazing like 10 conference championships in a row (I don’t remember the exact number but it was impressive). Rather then getting in the pool and to work, coach Brent Pohlonski spent time addressing their attitudes. He explained how swimming is tough and sometimes we have a bad day as we head to practice. He told the team no matter what, to have fun and be happy. He said even if you have the worst day in the world, fake being happy. Soon enough you won’t have to fake being happy and truly enjoy being happy. This was amazing and you could see the team buy into this philosophy and it led to a great experience for the team. It was nice to be able to witness this communication between a coach, a winning team and most important a happy team.

Why does Paul talk so much about love, because we miss the point. What if we focused on love instead of hate and being judgmental? What if we showed this love through life and social media? How would life be different? We have a chance to lift people up or tear people down with what we say and how we act. We are supposed to lift people up. How can life change if you chose to be happy with your outlook on life rather then sad? We are called to be blameless for the day of Christ. Today, I am going to try focusing on love.

Have a great day.

No faults, just like most politicians

Some people see no fault sin themselves.

Maybe you know someone like this or have seen someone like this.

It can remind me of a political campaign.

Whether political party or candidate, they try to paint themselves as an amazing person with no faults.

Maybe some of them are, but most are not.

Why?

They are human.

We make mistakes, we try to judge different situations.

We are not perfect.

Jesus was in the middle of calling out the Pharisees in the previous section of scripture when he healed a blind man and they were mad because he didn’t keep to the Sabbath.

He was in the process of saying something like I have come to judge so the blind will see and those that see will be blind.

This confused the Pharisees, they asked this and he responded in John 9:40-41 (This comes from The Message Bible)…

“Some Pharisees overheard him and said, “Does that mean you’re calling us blind?

Jesus said, “If you were really blind, you would be blameless, but since you claim to see everything so well, you’re accountable for every fault and failure.”

In a weird paraphrase Jesus is basically saying you think you are all that and a bag of potato chips but you are not.

We get wrapped into this.

Thinking I see everything through our eyes and we are right.

The Pharisees thought this.

They thought they understood what faith in God was all about, but when Jesus came along it changed.

He showed them a different way to believe and have faith, they couldn’t take it.

We all know that some politicians are great great people, but some have multiple failures.

This is why I put my trust in God and Jesus rather than claiming some person on earth is a saint.

Sometimes I need to keep myself in check with my thoughts and motives.

We are held accountable for our thoughts and failures.

How are you doing?

Do you think of yourselves as better than others?

Do you not see any room for improvement in yourself?

What do you think?

Have a great day.