Complacency

LIKE IF YOU THINK CHILD ABUSE IS WRONG
"Like if you would help this child, it can't hurt!" 


Headings and posts like these are blowing up news feeds on facebook. While these are (hopefully) genuine and are better than supporting something like child abuse, I think that there is a lot of harm that posts like these can do. 
Posts like these allow people to distance themselves from the real problem. By "liking" whatever it may be, they believe that they have made some difference in the world. All it takes is a click. There's no pain, no suffering, no hardship in that. People don't need to get there hands dirty, or so they're being told. All these posts are doing is making people believe that they can do less than they already are in order to make a difference; they're being rewarded for being lazy.
Think about it this way; how do you think an abuse victim would feel if all you could say you did for them was, "oh, don't worry, I liked a post that was against what happened to you"?


And then there are the posts that read something like, "Like in 3 seconds if you believe God is real!" At first, I didn't really have a problem with these. Nothing wrong with people showing their faith over the internet, if they're not shoving it down others' throats. But then I realized that the same problem exists with these posts; people are being taught that all they need to do is like a picture on facebook in order to do their religious duty for the day. 


Finally, the most extreme and (to me, at least) the most offensive. There are posts that state, "Like this in 3 seconds, and God will do a miracle for you." I need to make my point clear: I am NOT saying that God cannot do a miracle through technology, or that He could somehow work through your actions on facebook to bless someone. I am saying, though, that expecting God to do a miracle for you because of your actions, be it liking a post on facebook or only doing "righteous" things, is absolutely wrong. God's grace, by definition, does not depend on our actions. This is good news, though, because if God's grace did depend on our actions, we would all be in trouble. 

Catch-up

It's been quite a while since I've written anything - I've been busy with spring break, exams, and other random things. 

First of all, I know I promised to give an update on how my "technological fasting" was going, but I never got around to it. To sum it up, after a while it was easy, but I found myself replacing the time I would have spent on facebook or other sites with things that were just as unproductive like video games. 

Luckily, my spring break trip was amazing. The focus of our trip was incarceration and the injustices that are happening in the prison system, but I ended up learning more about myself and God than I did about the prison system. The trip challenged me and caused me to grow and strengthen in my faith more than any one trip ever has. Every morning we dug into the Bible and talked about what it meant for us, right now, and in the future.

I have never seen God work in so many awesome, crazy, amazing ways - and every single person on that trip became like family to me. The funny thing is that I was not expecting much to come out of this trip - I might go as far as to say that I had signed up just for something to do during spring break. Just goes to show that God works far beyond our selfish intentions.

Last year I tried out for Hope's worship team. I didn't make it, and to say the least, I was devastated. I was angry at God because, as I put it, "how can I be called into worship leading and not make the worship team?" Again, I had selfish intentions.

My spring break trip helped me realize this. I realized that by being angry at God, I was confining God to work only in a situation where I was on the worship team at Hope. After I had realized this, a friend had asked me if I was thinking about trying out for the worship team again. I hadn't even thought about it, but I began praying for guidance. I felt that God was with me when I decided to try out for the team, and I had the feeling that, because it was God's plan and idea, it was okay whether I mad the team or not. Throughout the try out process I continually needed to pray for patience, both with myself and with finding out if I had made it or not. 

I am glad to say that I made it, and that I am beyond excited for how God will work through this experience. 

Now, it's summer. I'm done with my sophomore year, and I'm a junior in college now. Weird. I'm working, and hopefully getting to the beach fairly often. I think the one thing I'm afraid of for this summer is being away from the Hope community and the opportunities that it offers for spiritual growth. More specifically, the prayer room and the atmosphere that it provides. I'm hoping that God will prove that I don't need a specific place to be as close to Him as I have been, but that it's more about my heart and how much I invest in becoming ever closer to Him.