SOCIAL MEDIA

PRAYER: Lord allow us to fast, pray, meditate, and sacrifice as we draw closer and nearer to you. Take out of us everything that is not like You that is within us. Help us in our spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical growth in You.

VERSE OF THE DAY: Daniel 9:3-4

You would not believe the kind of start to my morning that I have had. Well it first started off with prayer. I was suppose to be up early this morning so that I could get logged in for prayer and but of course my alarm clock goes off and I fall back asleep (so needing an emoji, right through here), until something nudges me to wake up at 6AM on the dot. Then you know that the code had to be a hot mess for me to call and key in, because I was still asleep. What in the world! I usually have it all programmed and all set up all nice and neat. No, not on this glorious morning. Thank goodness I have an amazing Pastor who knows that there are saints like me who just can’t seem to get their lives together in the morning, who more so did an expectation of what Lent is all about as I chimed in. Then I started writing this blog and I some how deleted the whole thing, take me now! OMG…O’ yes and did I mention that it is Lent? So what is Lent to be exact? It is a time where Christians pretty much starve themselves to try and draw nearer to God. I’m just kidding. That is not the real meaning. That is the 21st Century New Millineil definition, maybe. Dang nabit I can’t spell Milliniel right. Milliniel, O’ goodness! mil·len·nial and as you can see I googled it and this is the finishing results…now how do you spell Google’d? Well I’ll be…

Lent is a time of fasting, prayer, meditation, and sacrifice. It is a time where Christians sacrifice something they love in order to spend more time with God or to draw closer to His presence by reading, watching, and listening to things that will empower their spiritual growth and development. This is a time when most people who have an addiction or a bad habit that is really hard to break and they keep trying to sacrifice it to God until God takes it completely away from them. For some they do really well and for others they don’t do the greatest but they find that they have come a lot farther than where they were when they started and that is the entire point. While I won’t bore you about all of the different things that it requires (in which I left what my church is doing above, Empowerment Temple) one of the one things that I would have to let the Millennial generation really know about that is a huge sacrifice is social media.

You named it Facebook, Twitter, Vine (do it for the Vine, no I ain’t gon’ do it…or will I during Lent?), Tumbler, Instagram….Stick It & Click It (I’m being so sarcastic) and WishList (for you shop-aholics, what did you think I didn’t know), we all must sacrifice something. Well I encourage you to use your social media because this is apart of our lively hood. Everything that we do is connected to social media including the latest news and updates, so what my church is asking me to do is to sacrifice from the hours of 6PM to 6AM. Meaning for all of you who can’t seem to get your studies done and be straight “A” students, (I know, I know, its a sacrifice to be the genius that you truly are but don’t really want anyone to know, I know…), or for the ones who desire to grow and mature from reading a good book, now is the chance and opportunity to do so without feeling obligated to click the Like, Share, or for some of you the Delete button. It is a good way for you to be in your own quiet time and meditate, pray, and spend some quiet time with God.

So I encourage you to shy away from the social media and to really try and take this time out for growth and development. God is a God who likes to see progress and maturity in His children both spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. Yes, even diet and exercise can be considered as a sacrifice, but sorry not if you do it everyday or often. You have to really do something that you love and cannot live without in order to really make it a sacrifice. I didn’t say be foolish. I’m saying be wise in what you desire to sacrifice. That means you still have to take your medicine like the doctor’s order and you still have to maintain your daily regimen according to the doctors orders. This is not the time for you to become religiously spiritual talking about you are healed, yet you are stretched out and we have to come and see about you in the hospital. No, that is not going to work. So be wise in what you sacrifice. Social media is painful for some but it is doable for so many, especially during that time. So be encouraged you have 40 Days to do so, starting today!