The Average Pearl

In the Closet: Keeping Secrets with God in a not-so-secret world

Essay 8: Babylon

 

“The fact that our humanity was routed by these tools over the past decade should come as no surprise…We’ve been engaging in a lopsided arms race in which the technologies encroaching on our autonomy were preying with increasing precision on deep-seated vulnerabilities in our brains, while we still naively believed that we were just fiddling with fun gifts handed down from the nerd gods.”

Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

 

Digital Babylon is the term coined by David Kinnaman in his book, Faith for Exiles. Referring back to the Old Testament story of Daniel, Babylon was the city to which the youngest, brightest, most handsome exiles of the Jewish nation were brought. The famous king, Nebuchadnezzar, turned these young men into eunuchs and subjected them to severe training and academics. As the story goes, Daniel and his friends knew well to refuse the treatment, as much as it was up to them to decide. They came to the point of outright refusing to eat the rich fare of the palace, and proved to the king that their way of living was actually superior to the other exiles.

Daniel, in his bold purity, represents the man who stands for God and refutes godless living even in a godless land. He stands, throughout his life, as an example of what a person can prove by not falling into the habits and ways of the majority. A man of character in a culture of personality. A light in a dark world.

Kinnaman says, 

“Digital Babylon is not a place. It is the pagan, but spiritual, hyperstimulated, multicultural, imperial crossroads that is the virtual home of every person with wi-fi, a data plan, or for most of us, both.”

 

We Christians, believers in a God who didn’t spare His Son but put Him to death for our sins, are not to ride the waves of a personality cultural revolution. We aren’t made for the palace fare and fellowship with our phones. We are to remember we are the captives in this story, brought to Babylon against our will and well aware of the dangers of assimilating. Yet we walk right into Digital Babylon and belly up to the bar, thrilled to dine on the food and chat up the crowd. We push in all our chips, like it is some sort of game: we are here to play, and we are here to win.

It doesn’t help that in Digital Babylon, the radio is always turned on.

 

I remember watching a documentary on North Korea. Each room in every house had a radio speaker which broadcasted, every minute of every day, governmental propaganda. There was no volume button to shut the darn thing off, and so people listened day and night to the words pipe into their kitchens and living rooms.

It sounds awful to be deprived of any sort of solitude, but such is the manner of folks who push propaganda. A constant stream of ideas and words that are not your own, steadily put in your ears until you see no way around it, no way to fight it or disagree.

 

We subject ourselves to this same droning, never an arm’s length away from our phones or computers. It is the prerogative of the companies that buy and sell our information, cell phones, media platforms–to make us feel important and engaged by asking what’s on your mind? And popping up little red circles and hearts on our screens. 

 

The world will always encourage us to capitalize on our burgeoning popularity–to take our waxed, shiny personalities out for a spin and see who will buy it.

We are welcomed into this culture on constant engagement and begin to perceive it as the realist possibility, the most possible reality. We stoically deny we are strangers in this land. The very pleasure sensors in our brains wait anxiously to light up. We are being noticed, we are being liked. We are addicted. Perhaps we were not captives. Perhaps we have always belonged.

We forget it is a form of slavery to enter these rhythms, to bow before other gods.  

We assume we will be fine, dipping our toes in and out of the water, splashing here and there, not quite getting totally wet.

It isn’t that we refuse to acknowledge we live in Babylon–we do. But the believer refuses to align herself with the notion of becoming comfortable there. We refuse to make it our home, because our passport says it is elsewhere.

 

Paul frequently had to remind his beloved friends of this very notion–we don’t belong here. It is so, so easy to forget:
I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ…

Philippians 3:18-20

 

John echoes Paul’s urgency:
Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world…the world is passing away, and also its lusts, but the one who does the will of God abides forever.

1 John 2:15-17

 

You and I–we must wash ourselves again and again in this truth, because the world is so persuasive. Even our daily coffee habit seems to testify to our citizenship down here–our stomach, a god in and of itself. No one dares to deny me my morning java, my scrolling text messages at the traffic light, my anxiety over remote learning with kids during Covid. I have every right to express my disgust over politics–

I belong here.

It is the spirit of the world that pulls us into these cycles of lust, materialism, self-indulgence, shameless pride and flattery. The spin we put on Paul’s “becoming all things to all people” might just be a tricky way of justifying our leisure pursuits as Christians into Digital Babylon, if we care to be honest.

Don’t be fooled: if you love anything in this world, the love of the Father is not in you.

 

Maybe this is why Daniel found himself scooting to his room in Babylon three times a day to pray–it was a lifelong habit–from the time he was a teenager–of removing himself and reminding himself of his true home. He was pleading with God to help him remain devoted, unentangled by propaganda and culture. 

 

Do not love the world. Do not love it, John pleads.

 

Leave it to the commoners in Babylon. Let them bow down to their idols from the “nerd gods”. Let them think they belong, let them be fools.

Our citizenship is in heaven.

In the Closet: Keeping Secrets with God in a not-so-secret World

Essay 7: Imperceptible Grind

 

To the wicked, God says:
“What right have you to recite my laws or take my covenant on your lips? You hate my instruction and cast my words behind you. When you see a thief, you join with him; you throw in your lot with adulterers.
You use your mouth for evil and harness your tongue to deceit. You speak continually against your brother and slander your own mother’s son. These things you have done and I kept silent; you thought I was altogether like you.
But I will rebuke you and accuse you to your face.”

Psalm 50:16-21

 

I had a brown spot on my tooth, newly discovered while sitting on the couch one evening, a book in hand. My tongue ran over uneven enamel, a rough bump on the pearly whites. That night when I brushed my teeth, I examined it closely in the mirror. It could be a cavity, I supposed, but I brush and floss my teeth often, and I was sure I’d have seen it sooner if it looked decayed. It didn’t ache at all, but the next morning I scheduled a dentist appointment. It wouldn’t hurt to have it checked out.

The doctor poked around and asked me if I grind my teeth at night.

“Well,” I said thoughtfully, “my jaw does seem tense when I wake up in the mornings.”

“That’s it then, you’re a teeth grinder. See here, you chipped off a hunk of your tooth. The tooth behind it is also chipped, but you can’t see it. Here, let’s take some photos so you can see it better.”

He took pictures and quickly pulled them up on the computer.

“Look at the wear,” he pointed, showing an up close view of a mouthful of slightly damaged teeth. 

Indeed, I had been clenching my teeth in my sleep. An imperceptible grinding was slowly wearing them away. The dentist prepared to fit my newest mistake with a partial crown. He talked about future dental care; he recommended an aligning treatment and, at the very least, a retainer to wear at night.

I left unsure of where to begin. It seemed an awful lot to take in for a person like me: one who took pride in her responsible dental care. It was like I’d been accused of drowning baby kittens when I thought I was a saint. Me, a flosser even! Now I was going to have to change my ways or face the music, a future void of pita chips and caramel corn.

Stick with me while I try to make an analogy.

For a long time I have been a podcast listener, eagerly awaiting weekly episodes to accompany my endless laundry basket hustle and evening dog walks. Podcasts are a cool way to fill in mindless work with a good mental chew, and I’m never without a list of options. One constant companion has been a well-known Christian group that puts out an hourly show regaling all things pop culture and current trends. The two hosts are delightful, funny, and quick-witted. Their references to music, television, movies, celebrities, and current events is amplified by their Christian worldview. I appreciate it, because I feel like they are speaking to me as a friend, someone familiar with my own upbringing.  To put it plainly, I get what is funny because they explain it to me in words I can understand. On the side, they happen to have another podcast that focuses on stories from the Bible. Again, they drew me in with their humor and candor.

But I’ve been folding laundry with them for a long time now, and I’m detecting some things that are not the greatest signifiers to being “Christian” podcast celebrities. It is an inconsistency that wasn’t, in the beginning, a glaring red light warning, so I ignored it for a good while. But over time, the language got worse, the length the hosts were willing to go to get a laugh. I was unable to listen to the program with small children around. Finally, at the end of one of their shows, they put in a quick advertisement for a brand new project they were working on for paid subscribers. For a small monthly fee, folks would be able to access this new production where the hosts would break down every episode of Tiger King, just like they had done for Game of Thrones.

I guess the shock wore off quickly. Maybe it didn’t seem like a big deal. I hadn’t watched these shows because they weren’t accessible, and besides, they didn’t seem like my type. Without much consideration, I’d inoculated myself to this idea that other Christians willingly expose themselves to shows where vulgarity, sex, incest, abuse, coercement, indecency, and filth fill up their living rooms and minds on any given weekday night. Entertainment, we call it–nothing wrong with a little entertainment. 

 

The more I considered it, though, the more I realized my beloved podcast hosts were falling into a common trap of the enemy: the lie that says this behavior will not destroy me. 

It’s one of those nasties we sugarcoat with our boundless “freedom in Christ”, then end up completely off course, looking back and wondering where we took the fork in the road.

 

Psalm 19:12 says

But who can discern their own errors?

Forgive me of my hidden faults.

 

We are, on our own, pathetically unaware of our weaknesses. We give our flesh way too much credit for being good, when our very DNA denies it is possible.

I thought about my two beloved podcast hosts as my dentist filled the hole in my tooth and patiently explained to me the situation of grinding my teeth. 

Their overall spiritual health was at risk because they didn’t recognize the disease, the grinding, the effect of their poor habits. It was negating their whole lives as Christ-followers.

Instead of coming off as funny and charming, the inconsistencies in their dialogue carried the scent of deceit. Sweet and cunning on the outside and foul and rotten once exposed. For a small price, followers could buy into this cattiness, this insincerity, and feel as if they were part of a community–Jesus-branded, but ultimately, pagan, godless Babylon. 

To the wicked God says, “What right have you to tell of My statutes, and to take my covenant in your mouth? For you hate discipline, and you cast My words behind you…

You let your mouth loose in evil, and your tongue frames deceit…

You thought I was altogether like you. But I will rebuke you and accuse you to your face.

Psalm 50:16,17,19,21

 

The unknowing sin still causes damage, yet we are without excuse. 

 

Just as in the case of my teeth, most of the irreparable damage is done unintentionally. It is simply a matter of falling unchecked into patterns that came as natural as sleep.  Unaware, we keep up the grind. We retrace habits that chip away at our character. It is obvious upon closer look, like when my dentist showed me the pictures of the damage, but for the most part we go on our way, no wiser. 

It doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. It is still my fault, when it comes down to it: I was the one responsible for the grinding. But if no one had brought attention to it, I would’ve never known any better.

No one is forcing any of us to consume terrible television every night before bedtime. No one is pressuring us to open the same windows, scroll the same feeds, ingest the same junk. Many people who are professed Christians find nothing wrong with a little worldliness. But unless someone points out the damage, or we feel some Spirit nudge, how exactly will we confront our sin?
We are woefully unaware of our lack of reverence. When we tear down the mirror of God’s word and replace it with a big screen TV, our attention is not only divided, it is completely skewed. We’ve moved our souls into a fun house, where the floor is pitched at a forty-five degree angle, the chairs are nailed to the ceiling, and gravity is an illusion.

 

But we are not clowns. This, then, is why we ultimately must leave the amusement park. We commit ourselves to living with the Potter, eating at His table, making our home in His house. His shelter is better, his foundation, unmoving. Our God is a master at uncovering our weakness, gently revealing it to us, and developing a treatment plan. His is discernment, to Him belongs discipline and order.

And maybe most surprisingly–in His house is delight. 

 

In the Closet: Keeping Secrets with God in a Not-So-Secret World

Essay 6: Whittling Followers

 

The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all of this and were scoffing at Jesus. So He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is prized among men is detestable before God.”

Luke 16:15

 

 

As I mentioned in an earlier chapter, I kept our beautiful, solitary mountain experience silent. I reluctantly crushed my own dreams–I felt simultaneously foolish and faithful, but only as some foggy notion. If I’d known then I was in good company, what an encouragement it would’ve been.

 

The story of Gideon in the book of Judges has always fascinated me. He was a nobody, had nothing to offer, and was, like me, unsure of himself. Maybe he had a stern dad like mine, maybe he never once heard an approving voice. In fact, he must have been scared to death of his dad, because when the Lord commanded him to tear down his dad’s Asherah pole and turn it into firewood, Gideon snuck out to do so in the middle of the night.

Poor Gideon. Passive-aggressiveness hasn’t gotten much farther than a sorry kid like him, a sorry kid like me.
I read his story, and I feel the swell of bravery, the tiniest spark of faith. Sneaking in the dark to defy his dad’s idol worship, then still begging for a sign from God because this was all unfamiliar territory to a nobody. I can relate.
God did something with that mustard seed, and before he hardly knew it, Gideon had 32,000 men willing to follow him into battle.

Any influencer today would beam at his good fortune–he went viral, an overnight success! But then God immediately told him he had too many.
Just as soon as they had appeared, God sent 22,000 of them home. Furthermore, the Lord sorted out the rest of them, until there were only 300 guys left of the 32,000 who had come out in support of Gideon.

Pause for a moment and consider how this would hit anyone with a public platform today. It would strike fear and panic in their soul! The security of their success hinges on numbers. It is the one thing that can secure a book deal, the one thing that validates your worth, the one way I can get paid to promulgate my lifestyle and spread my message, become famous.

 

Why would God whittle down the crowd? The Lord told Gideon if he kept the 32,000, Israel would “become boastful, saying ‘My own power has delivered me.’” (Judges 7:2)
In other words, God would rather have our worship than let us have success. Popularity is detrimental to that quiet life He wants to live with us.

 

Followers mean nothing to God.

In fact, they stand in the very way of what God wants to do, powerfully, in your life.

 

Remember how Jesus’ brothers urged him to take his platform and go public, because “no one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret” (John 7:4)?
Well, Jesus didn’t care about becoming popular, like his brothers thought. He also wasn’t a popular guy, which is sometimes contrary to the charismatic, people-loving Jesus we paint in our mind. 

 

After He laid out the “bread of life” metaphor, the one where He literally told the crowd he was “the living bread that came down from heaven” and “if you eat my flesh and drink my blood you will have eternal life”–the people began to look at Him funny. I can’t say that I blame them. If this were my ultimatum, I’d have to say I’d be on the verge of quitting the disciple gig based on gore alone.

And this is exactly the response Jesus got. John tells us that
From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. (John 6:66)

 

After this disciple-whittling conversation, John says Jesus kind of stayed under cover because the Jews wanted to kill him. It makes me wonder about his personality–how did he balance truth and grace so well? How was he loving and merciful, yet at complete odds with those who tried to stamp out his holy fire? How in the world can I imitate such a wild character?

 

One of the earliest instances we know of Jesus as a kid is the story of when his family accidentally leaves him behind in Jerusalem. After a few days, his parents realize (no doubt busy keeping an eye on Jesus’s wily younger brothers) that their oldest boy hasn’t checked in with them in awhile. They become frantic, searching within their group, to no avail. When they finally backtracked to Jerusalem, three days after losing him, they found him in the temple. Unfazed, he said, “didn’t you know I would be about my father’s business?” He was teaching the teachers in the temple. Without fanfare, we are introduced to the boy, Jesus, who already understood and valued His relationship with the Father above any earthly accolades, including the typical first son privileges and hanging out with his buddies in the caravan. He wasn’t being sneaky. He would rather be alone with His heavenly Father than on a journey with the family and other teenage travelers. He was twelve years old.

Maybe this ought to hint at His personality–perhaps we might conclude that Jesus was an introvert and not a typical hormone-raging pre-pubescent. But if Jesus is God incarnate, I’d venture a guess that every picture we have of Jesus in his humanity is a reflection of the Father Himself. And He–God–desires intimacy with us. He wants us to be alone. With Him. There is nothing more urgent.

 

And He will whittle our own circle down, sometimes until we are very lonely. He will knock us down, sometimes over and over, until we realize we cannot do anything on our own. We need Him. We need Jesus, just Jesus.

In the Closet: Keeping secrets with God in a not-so-secret world

Essay 5: Perpetually in Pursuit

 

Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment…
Romans 12:3 

 

I excitedly scanned the book proposal the literary agent emailed me. I knew exactly how to frame my pitch. I had researched comparable books, determined my audience, and written the chapters. But I was stumped. On the fifth page, it asked me about my platform.

How many Twitter followers did I have? How many hits to my blog? What kind of traffic were my Insta posts getting?

The fact is this: I’d recently quit Instagram out of a firm conviction I was spending too much time there, getting too much of a high off of the atmosphere. My twitter account, amounting to three tweets from nine years ago, was beyond neglected. Tired of silently judging from the backstage, I’d been culling my Facebook friends list down (kindly, though, in a block-them approach, not a snarky unfriend or unfollow way) to a couple dozen folks who shared either my maiden name, alma mater, or only posted gratuitous baby photos.
I know myself well enough, know the trapdoor to my soul. I derive energy and pride from lusting after information, and the internet is a big, sucking, muddy hole that constantly wants more and more of my attention. 

Social media, I was assured, was the ticket.
Smart marketing, maybe. “It’s the only way publishers and readers will find you,” the literary agent promised.

I just couldn’t swallow it.

 

When I first joined Instagram, it filled me with joy. Pictures! Connection! An every-hour-of-the-day newsreel! It was the same with Facebook in the beginning, and Twitter, when I ventured there. It immediately gratified my nosy nature–I loved knowing things, snooping around, silently judging appearances and actions, the beliefs of online “friends”, and inevitably sifting it through my own superior thoughts.
I consumed and consumed and rarely produced, but when I did produce, I did it with integrity, or at least that’s what I told myself. When I found an audience of people who agreed with me, it sparked a giddiness inside. Human connection–who says that wasn’t what I was looking for? Who could deny me the pleasure of finding company in the safe, controlled internet spaces of social media? 

As a wise person (doesn’t pride always sneak in dressed up as truth?), I flaunted self-control by limiting my posts to once a week or less. No one but my family knew or suffered the hours of being ignored by me, the time I spent looking at my phone.
One day I glanced up and saw my kids waiting patiently for me to put it down. 

The self-control, by-the-book, it’s-just-social-media-not-porn! pharisaical I-am-technically-doing-everything-right notion swept right out of my mind. 

My kids were watching: I was neglecting my real life.

Knowledge puffs up. It makes us feel important. I was as big as the michelin man, completely, one-hundred percent sure of myself. If someone had asked me why I thought it necessary to maintain a social media persona, I would’ve cited my dreams. This is just what I have to do to get my book published.

 

I gained nothing by consuming social media, nothing but excess knowledge and stress and indignation over other people whom I had zero control.

My best intentions, my most aware self, my integrity–it was all still fake, because I was under the influence of the world. I was a faithful servant to Distraction–a natural step for the worldly, but unnatural for the child of God.
I could see the ugliness of my idolatry reflected in the eyes of my kids. It needed to end.

In C.S. Lewis’s book, The Screwtape Letters, the fictional Uncle Screwtape, demon supreme, advises his young protege, Wormwood:
We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.

 

Follow your dreams–it comes straight from Satan’s lips. This is a trick from the tempter himself, to ignore the beauty right in front of our faces and instead busy ourselves with hope for a future revolving around, well, me. It is idolatry dolled up in Adobe photoshop–to never, ever quiet the ambition; to seek glory, here and now.

I know me. I know the dangers of self-inflation and the ultimate price of praise. My book writing, once conflated with marketing, selling, and the pursuit of dreams–it all had major potential to let my eyes slip off the prize.

 I’d be constantly getting in my own way.
It wouldn’t be worth any book I could write.
I tossed my proposal in the trash.

 

VeggieTales, the number one animated Christian series where goofy vegetables bounce around singing “Silly Songs” and regaling Bible stories, was created by the mastermind, Phil Vischer. Phil had a dream from the time he was a kid to make movies and shows that elevated TV by inserting Bible-driven morals. It took him years of hard work, borrowed money, and tedious hours and days of graphic animation–sometimes as many as 30,000 frames per one half-hour show. He was committed to a goal, a vision he’d had from childhood, to produce a hilarious, captivating piece of art–and he did it. Finally, after years and years, he was on top of the game, beloved by children and parents alike. He was the king of a kingdom he himself created. Better yet, he had hundreds of employees that were impacted by his Christian influence. He made his dreams come true and didn’t once compromise. What a marvelous example of how to do it, right?

But what began as an honest dream to influence current culture with Biblical truths spun out of control. He envisioned a Veggietales “DisneyLand” of sorts and borrowed money to break ground on a new office space. His goals for Big Idea to function as Biblical truth in a needy world became watered down as Vischer hired people that did not agree with his original vision. Ill-prepared to run a massive business, he partnered with the wrong people and made some big financial mistakes. At the height of his game, he was a part of a bad deal that fell through and with little warning he was in court being sued for all his money, his little Veggie friends stripped from him.

Reflecting on this difficult time, Vischer wrote in his memoir, “The more I thought about my intense drive to build Big Idea and change the world, the more I realized I had let my “good work” become an idol that defined me. Rather than finding my identity in my relationship with God, I was finding it in my drive to do “good work.”

“The more I dove into Scripture, the more I realized I had been deluded. I had grown up drinking a dangerous cocktail–a mix of the gospel, the Protestant work ethic, and the American dream. My eternal value was rooted in what I could accomplish. My role here on earth was to dream up amazing things to do for God. If my dreams were selfless, God would make them all come true. My impact would be huge. The world would change.” 

As it grew, Phil’s dream became influenced by other people and a self-inflated sense of purpose. By the time he realized it, the matter was quite out of his hands.

The memoir ends with a solemn exhortation:

“…I am very serious when I say this, beware of your dreams, for dreams make dangerous friends. We all have them–longings for a better life, a healthy child, a happy marriage, rewarding work. But dreams are, I have come to believe, misplaced longings. False lovers. Why? Because God is enough. Just God. And he isn’t “enough” because he can make our dreams come true–no, you’ve got him confused with Santa or Merlin or Oprah. The God who created the universe is enough for us–even without our dreams. Without the better life, the healthy child, the happy marriage, the rewarding work.

“God was enough for the martyrs facing lions and fire–even when the lions and the fire won. And God is enough for you. But you can’t discover the truth of that statement while you’re clutching at your dreams. You need to let them go. Let yourself fall. Give up. As terrifying as it sounds, you’ll discover that falling feels a lot like floating. And falling into God’s arms–relying solely on his power and his will for your life–that’s where the fun starts.”

(Me, Myself, & Bob, Phil Vischer, 2006)

 

God is enough. He is enough. He is enough here and now, and He is enough when you let your dreams go– and especially when you let them go.

 

In the Closet: Keeping Secrets with God in a not-so-secret world

Essay 4: Busybody

 

Eleven years ago, in the great year of 2009, my husband and I were poor paupers, two years removed from the lower standards of living the midwest provided. We had moved to Denver a couple years prior, renting a one-bedroom apartment just barely on our feeble paychecks. Now I was pregnant and had quit my job, and we were moving to the southwest corner of the state so he could begin managing a store for his company.

The first thing to do was find a place to live. We were a little horrified to realize it was going to be even more expensive to live in our new town, but we called up a local real estate agent and crossed our fingers anyway.

I don’t remember his name, but he had balding red hair and a defatigable attitude, promising us he’d find the perfect place for us. I sat in the backseat of his car and my husband in the front as the man showed us several hopeless options, from a house with dirt floors (two-hundred thousand dollars, a real fixer-upper) to tiny mountain cabins built as second homes for the wealthy (three-hundred thousand dollars and an hour’s drive from his work).

After a day or so of house-searching, I think our new friend realized we weren’t ready or even able to saddle ourselves to a mortgage, so we made the most of our hunt, chatting in the car, becoming the kind of fast friends whose two-day relationship was coming to an amiable close.

He mentioned we could find him on Facebook if ever we should wish to resume the real estate search. We had laughed–surely we could just call him on the phone! Surely he didn’t think his business had much to do with social media! Somehow, in our short encounter, he had divulged he was a Christian, and I will never forget what he said after that:

Facebook is going to change everything. It is going to change the way we do business, the way we do life.

He specifically mentioned he thought Facebook would, in the future, be the biggest tool the world has ever known for spreading the Gospel.

 

Eleven years later, I can see the first part of his prediction is true. Personally and professionally, social media platforms have become the arena where communication takes place, where proud homeowners pose in front of their new purchase, letting the whole world know. We can broadcast our life, make it a commercial for everything we think worthwhile. Everyone can see who has bought a house, how much they paid for it, where they bought it, how happy they are. It advertises a lifestyle and promotes the idea that success is within reach, that there is no higher pursuit than that of self-actualization. Our posts recommend and testify; they are the ultimate tool for word-of-mouth advertisement. We are glossier online, and everyone knows the advantages of making a good impression.

 

But as far as spreading the Gospel? What ground have we gained in the going-into-all-the-world command, the Matthew 28 instruction of Jesus? Has Facebook made our lives as Christians attract such attention that all the peoples of the earth are yearning to know Jesus? Has it broadened our worldview, has it opened our hearts to give ourselves generously over to the work of making disciples? Or have we, via the internet, “gone into all the world” and made nothing more of it than a show of our good side, the one that is internet-worthy?

I would counter that nothing is more anti-Gospel than self-promotion and giving the whole world access to every part of our lives, personally and professionally.

This is life as we know it, and yet it is a far cry from the life Christians are called to lead.

 

1 Thessalonians 4:11

Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands…

 

2 Thessalonians 3:11-12

We hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread.

 

Paul exhorts–he urges the Thessalonians to make it their ambition, their dream, you could say, to put their hand to the plow and remain steadfast and single-minded in their worship. The word ambition in the Greek means something like a chief desire or something we yearn with eagerness to attain. It is a crucial marker of believers, that they find their satisfaction in God and no one else. They love living a quiet life. 

 

How often have I checked out from this real life, let my hands slip to my device, looking for respite from the work to which I’ve been called? How many times have I made it my ambition to lead anything but a quiet life?

Don’t be a busybody, Paul pleads. Don’t you dare get in the way of yourself.

 

We’re to endeavor to live lives free of people pleasing, gossip, and strife by giving Loud a cold shoulder. Yet nowhere is this less apparent than in our very day in age!

As I wrote this chapter I was made aware of a promotion on Twitter for authors seeking representation for book projects. I hadn’t been on Twitter in nine years, but the opportunity intrigued me, so I logged on and pitched my book idea.
The entire day I obsessed over checking the analytics. I grew irritable when my kids tried to distract me from the event. I was discouraged when, ultimately, I realized my efforts were in vain. Not one publisher gave me even so much as a wink. I had, in the end, wasted my day and ignored my kids over a vague promise that my work “might” be considered. It would have been better if I’d spent the day writing (something I love to do) rather than worrying. 

I only tasted dissatisfaction for one day, but the bootcamp lesson wasn’t wasted on me. I wonder if our whole trouble with “putting ourselves out there” is a matter of us getting in our own way. 

 

I confess, I am desperate for the disciplined life. I want to make myself useful, productive. I don’t want to waste time, but inevitably, I do.
Those Thessalonians, those people who were looking forward to Christ’s return–they didn’t have a clue we would be here, thousands of years down the road, fighting the same battles with our flesh.

Some of them figured life didn’t matter too much, since Jesus would be back any minute.

Get to work, Paul was saying. No, seriously, get to work.

 

Work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.
1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

 

We are to be quiet, and by being quiet, set an example. Our example will win the respect of outsiders.
And setting a quiet, disciplined example of how to live this life? Facebook can’t quite do it justice.