Last week I posted on Instagram sharing my thoughts that you don’t have to be famous to be effective. I think it resonated with a lot of people because so many of us (all of us?) struggle in this area. Can we exist and make a difference without being famous? If we are not famous, does that mean we are not making a difference?
Here’s a little of what I said:
“You don’t have to be famous to be effective—you only have to be obedient to what God has called you to do.”
We live in such a strange world where so much of our lives are spent on social media. We watch other people live out their life in snapshots that for the most part have been posed. The angles, the lighting, the filters to make us look “perfect.”
This is a problem.
When we are raising our daughters, nieces, neighbors, students, friends up to be followers of the Lord, this is what we are competing against.
They see their worth and value coming in the form of likes, comments and follows.
This matters in the fight to prevent sex trafficking because for the most part, these girls are being tricked. Yes, there are so many young girls (and I mean really young) that are forced into it, mostly by a family member (and I’ll be sharing more about that later) but I’m talking about the thousands of girls that are tricked by someone they know (either in real life or on social media).
Change starts with us (the adults). It’s not just these girls that are dependent on likes, comments and follows, we are too. It’s up to us to lead the way and set an example of how to live a full life that is not dependent on validation from the world.
We all want to be known, recognized, valued, cherished. Looking to the world (our friends, co-workers, classmates, social media) to feed that need ultimately will end in disappointment.
The struggle is real.
The real struggle for all of us is to actually believe the words of the Lord when He tells us He is calling us by name. He sees us. He loves us. God is our source for true validation.
He knows every hair on our head—just think of that fact alone. I have a lot of hair on my head (thankfully) and God knows every single strand, that is how well He knows me.
Here are 100 verses about how God calls us by name. Will we believe even one of them?
What are your thoughts on this subject? We would love to hear!
For further reading:
The Tech Industry’s War on Kids
The psychology of being ‘liked’ on social media
Has dopamine got us hooked on tech?
https://medium.com/swlh/likes-on-social-media-87bfff679602
