A few years ago in 2007, God showed me things about myself. Ugly things involving laziness, idleness, gossip, needing to know and pride.
The new Facebook changes have brought this lesson to mind again. There are a few issues with the FB change but they are not the point of this post. I could just copy and paste the blog post but it is slightly different this time… so I won’t. But you can read it here on Cleaning Up My Internet Habits.
Moreover, as they go about from house to house, they learn to be idlers, and not only idlers, but gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not say and talking of things they should not mention.
1 Timothy 5:13
Many years ago, I read an article that convicted me of the sin of ‘needing to know‘. But you know what? Just because God taught me some things about that then, does not mean that I now have all my ducks in a row and that I don’t struggle in this area anymore. I do.
Which is why I’ve decided to limit my usage of FB. The new ticker is not good for my emotional and spiritual health. For those that don’t know, the ticker is located at the upper right hand side of the feed page. And it updates in real-time. I can see every little bit of activity that each of my ‘friends’ partakes in. I can see when they comment on a mutual friend’s post even if I have no part in the conversation. However, I can even see their activity (comments, etc) to their friends with whom I am not connected! I really don’t need to know this information.
The words of a whisperer are like dainty morsels, And they go down into the innermost parts of the body.
Proverbs 18:8
This is not edifying, helpful or beneficial to my Christian walk. In 2007 I decided to only [cyber] hang around places that I would contribute to. If I do not have any kind of relationship with a group or persons, if I am not contributing in any way then it is, quite simply, gossip. That which Paul describes as wandering around the neighbourhood, being a gossip and a busybody.
If I am not involved in some way with a person or site or blog (by praying for them or commenting them) or if I’m not serving them by responding to queries then maybe I ought not be there. I need to continually ask myself: Why am I here visiting this site? Is it to serve, to be edified, informed, to pray? If not, then I need not be there.
As a woman of the word, I need to guard my heart and mind. I do not need to be about gossip and ‘knowing who said what to whom’. I need to be about the word and serving others. I will continue to use fb as a way of sharing but forgive me if I don’t comment on your walls or updates. I need to guard my heart, be careful to not be a busy body, be busy at home and not be idle. This is my weakness… and as such my course of action.
Watch over your heart with all diligence, For from it flow the springs of life.
Proverbs 4:23
Oh, before I forget… this is my weakness. I am prone to be idle and a busy body. I am referring to myself. This is not a post that you need to take on as though I am speaking at you. If the Holy Spirit convicts you, then that is wonderful. If not, that is fine too – He has other lessons in store for you.
That’s a good post,Susan. While some of the FB changes are obvious, I had not even noticed this ticker thingy 🙂 I comment quite a bit on friend’s statuses but I rarely put up statuses (or is that statii?) myself. I get frustrated with the posts like ” Having breakfast”, “going to the shops”, “doing the washing”. I’m not that nosey! It is good to read posts such as yours and keep precious reminders like Philippians 4:8 at the forefront at any time but especially on the social media.
Aside from that, I was fascinated to hop on FB this morning and find SO MANY boos for the new layout.
Thanks Ruby! Actually I don’t like to pooh pooh things and I do like the new layout. I find changes easy to grasp and hey, it’s new and shiny: what’s not to like? 🙂
But the privacy aspect of it has me mad… and it is far too tempting for me to “need to know”. So I’ll just lay low for awhile, until FB fixes their privacy settings to reflect the user settings and then I’ll look at some of the hacks or work arounds to remove the ticker. 😉
I agree whole heartedly Susan. I try very hard to not gossip in real life, and find that this may open my eyes to seeing things that I shouldn’t see, evoking reactions that I could probably do with out, and thus knowing things I was never meant to know.
LIke being a fly on a wall.
On the other hand, the one good thing about it, might be, that people become more careful about what they say/share on line. Which I am sure in the light of the UK riots could be a good thing.
But as I said on g+ I have many friends, from various walks of life, and I would hate for a Christian who was not as further along in the faith, be affected by a conversation I might have with a wiccan or pagan. That might cause my brothers/sisters to stumble.
It has become a slippery little slope.
x
You should check out http://www.fbpurity.com/ It is a facebook filter. You can tell it what kinds of fb stories you want/don’t want to see. I’ve blocked the real-time stream from my page. I don’t think I could do fb without fb purity!
I just installed it earlier tonight! I’ll see how it goes for awhile, but cutting down is never a bad thing anyway. 😉
I love how you have incorporated your passion into your family, Robin. Ultralight… what an interesting concept. I’m going to pop over to your site now and have a deeper look around. 🙂
So true Susan 🙂 Thank you for your transparent honesty which in turn helped me to look deeper.
Hi Chareen, and thanks for popping by with encouragement 🙂