Social Media and the Path to Life

Today we went to a pumpkin patch, and it made me think about how social media has weaponized things like pumpkin patches. Those last eight words sound like the punchline to a joke, but everyone with an @ before their name knows social media can put sharp edges on even the most innocuous fun.

Nothing is safe from the incessant nudging to curate our lives and present them for others, right? Not the pumpkins, not the cup of coffee and open Bible, not the cute outfit. The nudges make it harder to enjoy the coffee, the Bible, the date night, the playground.

This is why I feel tender towards brides. They feel the nudge like a punch, compelling them to believe their engagement, bachelorette party—every wedding detail—be properly presented in order to have value. As they are preparing for a relationship that is characterized by unseen sacrifice, the world begs them to be a show.

This is why I feel tender towards my younger sisters in the faith. They felt the nudges earlier than we did, and I wonder if it’s harder for them to discern that dying—not display—holds the path to life.

This is why I try to take myself less seriously here (everywhere), why I try take lots of time off. I like to pretend I’m immune to the pressure, but I’m not. The right kind of display makes me feel seen, and I crave that.

Though there's nothing wrong with documenting or sharing lovely things (PLZ NOTE MY FILTERED PUMPKIN PATCH PICTURE), we have to be cautious. But this caution isn't found in abandoning social media altogether (unless the Holy Spirt leads), “finding balance,” or chasing "authenticity"—it's about placing our hope in the right spot, about taking every thought captive, about remembering the gospel in the "silly" places, because the places we're tempted to dismiss are especially dangerous.

Sisters, superficiality is the road our Tempter desires for us: lives invested in the seen rather than the unseen, hours spent curating our outsides and neglecting our insides. However, feeling the pressure to present doesn’t mean we’re superficial. It means we have a desire for something, and we’re hoping presentation will fulfill it. This is always, always an opportunity for God to work.

We don't have to entrust our desire to be seen to Instagram squares. Instead, we get something better—the opportunity to look to El Roi, the God Who Sees (Gen. 16).

We don't have to strain to scrapbook our lives as we desire them to be. Instead, we get to depend on the one who has every day of our lives written in his book (Ps. 139:16), and we get to trust that his steadfast love is better than life (Ps. 63:3).

We don't have to ask filtered pictures to make us shiny. Instead, we get to fix our gaze on the Light of the World (John 8) and marvel that he extended the metaphor to us (Matt. 5).

We don’t have to ask the documentation of pumpkin patch visits and nights out to prove to the world that we are worthwhile or happy or loved. Instead, we get to rest in what is forever proven in the gospel, and we get to behold our God and feast on his worth and his love for us.

We don't have to invite social media to inform our identity. Instead, we get to look at Jesus, remembering his shed blood covers us. It proclaims a better identity than anything the world has to offer: forgiven, beloved, daughter who belongs forever.

Sisters, that incessant nudging to curate our lives and present them for others? We don’t have to yield to it. The nudges do not make the path to life. Instead of being oppressed by them, we get rest and freedom. We get to faithfully hand each nudge over to God, who directs our path, whose love is better than life, who searches us and knows us, who will never fail to offer togetherness, who gives wisdom generously and without judgement—even in the “silly” places, like Instagram.