Today marks the end of my third day for my Facebook fast. I feel like I have been going at this for a week now... and for the first time in the three days I had the desire to log into Facebook. Why? I was bored. Being a Friday night I did not want to spend the evening reading my textbooks or working on homework (all if which I probably should have been doing) so I being the boring college student that I am; took a nap, played games on my phone and started watching a movie. While the movie was playing I had the strong desire to just talk to people so I picked up my phone and without a second thought unlocked the screen to check Facebook... thank goodness I had deleted the app on my phone.
Being a Psychology major and often having the desire to analyze my own motives for why I do what I do I decided to analyze why in that particular moment I had the strong desire to check Facebook. In complete and utter honesty the reason was momentary loneliness. I didn't want to sit by myself in my room on a Friday night just watching a movie, I wanted to talk to people and have the feeling of being loved on by friends, even if I wasn't actually physically around any of my friends. It was hard not logging in and get my craving for being social instantly filled. I had to tell myself it is ok to sit in an empty room with just me. When my roommate got off work and came back to the room we ended up getting people together and going out which was much more satisfying that chatting up faceless friends on the internet. But I did have to force myself to recognize the fact that I do not like being alone. Maybe this is another lesson that I am supposed to learn over the next 37 days, that it is ok to be alone, sometimes even necessary. I don't like the idea of having to learn that lesson, I love people and I love being around people. So, if you are praying for me during this little journey I have undertaken, here is another prayer request for you; pray that I can learn to live in the silence and not be afraid of being alone. Which is funny because as a Christian God is always with me, so I am never truly alone... remembering that though is I think one of the most difficult things to do.
Now onto the Bible part of my little post. I was reading in Mark today, I think I ended up reading the first five chapters of Mark but two stories in particular stood out to me. The first one was Mark 2: 23-28. Jesus and his disciples had been walking through a field on the Sabbath (the religious day in Jewish culture where you are to basically do no work) when they became hungry and started picking off heads of grain. The Pharisees instantly jumped on their case for breaking the Sabbath law (the Pharisees really creeped on Jesus, they watched everything that he did to try and find something to bring him down in the eyes of everyone) part of Jesus answer to them was, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for Sabbath." The day of rest and focus on God was made for us, to give us a day in which we would not have to break our backs working, we could spend time with family, fellowship with others. I know I have read that verse before but it never struck me so significantly as it did earlier today. God made the Sabbath, the day of rest, not because God needed rest or that God needed us to worship him on that specific day but because he knew we would need a day of rest. A day in which we could mentally and physically recharge and refocus. God is so good.
The next part that struck me was in Mark 3:17. In this verse and the ones before and after, Mark is giving a description of the men Jesus walked up too and asked them to follow him. In 17 Jesus nicknames James and John "The Sons of Thunder". Ok, so why did this strike me as interesting? Well number 1, I love the fact that even Jesus nicknamed people. But the second thing was why would Jesus nickname these men? What did the nickname mean? In the commentary of my study Bible, the possibility that Jesus called them Sons of Thunder (which kinda sounds like a biker gang) for the personalities; their zeal and energy. I can just imagine them being strong, loud men. Which got me to thinking, if Jesus gave me a nickname what would it be? What type of characteristic stands out the most in me? I can tell you right now that one would be my outgoing and loud personality, but also the next thing my friends would probably tell you, would be my rather perverted sense of humor. I definitely wouldn't want Jesus to nickname me "daughter with the dirty mind". As I sit back and think about my character, I can't help but feel a lot like Jesus disciple Peter, always saying and doing the wrong thing, but every once in a while getting something right. Jesus accepts me for who I am, which is amazing and in the middle of my soul searching tonight as I ponder my own thoughts and actions I can see many ways in which I can grow as an adult and a Christian and should grow. But God can even use my mistakes. I hope that as I continue to get older that I will develop a character that will reflect not just who I am, but who Jesus is too.
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