The Dark Side of Social Media

Darth Maul artwork credit

'Yes, in the past, you lived the way the world lives, following the ruler of the evil powers that are above the earth. That same spirit is now working in those who refuse to obey God.'~ Ephesians 2:2, NCV

This past week or so, I’ve found myself an unhappily captive audience to some ‘stuff’ that has been going down on the pages of several Facebook friends.

I use the word ‘captive’ quite loosely because in reality, I DO have the choice to just click off the page/site and do something else, like:

• Pray
• Take a walk
• Clean my toilet
• Or grab a cup of coffee and hunker down with a good book

Any one of those things or another would be a whole lot better than watching the sniping via status updates that come through my daily news feed, but often, I find it’s like a train wreck – you just can’t look away, although you desperately want to.

I know there are many positive things to be said about social media.  You can get to know and converse with people around the world, anytime day or night. You can make new friends, reconnect with old friends and family members, find MIA classmates, coworkers and lost pets. 

There are pages for reminiscing about happier times and places, for finding and sharing information and favorite photos, for posting links to funny videos, and pages on which to ask for and find prayer and community support.  These are just a small handful of the things I’ve found to be good and helpful and fun.

But social media does indeed have its Dark Side, with Facebook and Twitter, seemingly more and more often lately, serving as the virtual playground for cyber bullies and mean girl cliques.

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Over and over, people pick on and call out others in ways I believe they WOULD NEVER think of doing face-to-face, using the anonymity of their keyboard and computer/iPhone screen as their shield, and brandishing their words like Crocodile Dundee’s knife or Peter’s Narnian sword, even as they make feeble attempts to undercut their snarkiness and ill intent with well-placed terms of endearment (like ‘sweetie,’ ‘honey,’ ‘dearie,’ and the infamous, overly-used and totally worn out, ‘why, bless your heart’).

The playground then becomes the battlefield, and I’ve witnessed both the godly and the godless, Christian and carnal 'friends' warring and wounding one another.  And THIS, my friends, should not be.

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For others, when this occurs, the safest, easiest and best option would seem to be to retreat. Keep your head low and run away. Wave the white flag of surrender and give up. Kill the accounts and unplug from all things social media. To be honest, I consider doing this at least once a week. 

However, if you’re among those of us whom God has challenged to faithfully commit to shine His light into a ‘dark’ place by bringing His encouragement, joy, hope, support, compassion and understanding to the land of social media, then take a deep breath. Take heart. And remember the following things:

• Not everyone will like nor want to hear what you have to say. But we weren’t created to please man, but instead, to please God (Ezekiel 2:3-7; Galatians 1:10)

• Have confidence in your God given gifts and purpose (1 Thessalonians 2:4; 1 Peter 4:11; 2 Peter 1:3)

• Put on your armor daily. Not just pieces here and there, but the FULL armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-17)

• Stand firm (Ephesians 6:11, 13; 1 Corinthians 15:58; 1 Corinthians 16:13)

• Don’t give up or lose heart (2 Corinthians 4:1; Galatians 6:9; Hebrews 12:3)

• Press on (Philippians 3:14)

• And stick close to the Lord, Who is Your Commander-In-Chief and your place of refuge and protection (Psalm 32:7; Psalm 61:3; Psalm 91:1-4; Romans 8:31-37)

Because while there are those out there on the virtual playground who seem to delight in pushing and kicking you around, and even more on the cyber battlefield who want to crush, 'kill,' and silence you – there are that many more who are hungry and thirsty and desperate for the message of hope, help and healing that is available through a life given over to Jesus Christ.

The message God has seen fit for you to carry on and hold out to them.

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'You groped your way through that murk once, but no longer. You’re out in the open now. The bright light of Christ makes your way plain. So no more stumbling around. Get on with it! The good, the right, the true—these are the actions appropriate for daylight hours. Figure out what will please Christ, and then do it.' ~Ephesians 5:8-10, The Message

This, Then, Is Love

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.


Love never fails. ~ 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, NIV

Today, a video popped up on  my Facebook news feed, from the Desiring God ministry page.  It is a video story about a couple named Ian and Larissa.


At the time, I had several things going at once; things I was researching on-line, and then, of course, there was the usual circus-like atmosphere at home -- phones and doorbells ringing, dog barking because phones and doorbells are ringing -- so I was somewhat distracted.  And unless something REALLY jumps out at me on Facebook, video-wise, I will often bypass it in my intense state of distraction and trying to shut out all the aforementioned noise. 


THANK YOU GOD that THIS was NOT the case this afternoon!  


Interestingly enough, there was no eye-catching thumbnail nor cleverly crafted words in the post to jump out and grab my attention to this post and video.  It was actually just a gentle nudge I felt from the Holy Spirit to check it out.  I'm so glad that I obeyed that nudge.  


Ian's and Larissa's story is a sweet and simple story of love.  Real, pure and true love.  Love that doesn't disintegrate or disappear 


when life gets hard


when plans suddenly make a 180 degree turn


when suffering becomes a du jour item on your menu


when what you've always wanted doesn't come packaged the way you dreamed or wanted


But very often -- and I can declare this truth personally -- our greatest gifts and blessings do not come packaged the way we've dreamed or wanted. 


This is not to say that as I watched this video, with tears streaming down my face, I did not have questions that chased one another through my head.  Questions for God that echoed the ones that author and Women of Faith speaker Sheila Walsh asks in her book 'Living Fearlessly,' a book I'm currently reading; questions that perhaps you have, and I'm sure, questions that Ian and Larissa have for God as well:


"What if my hopes and dreams are different from Yours?"
"If You can heal, why are there times You choose NOT to?"
"If You love me so much, why is life so hard?"
"Will You give me more than I can bear?"
"Where ARE You in all of this?"


These are questions for which there are no answers, this side of Heaven anyway.  All I know is that it is obvious that Jesus Christ was not only invited to Ian's and Larissa's wedding, but He was invited into the very center of their marriage. 


A marriage based on the selfless, completely committed, unfailing and unconditional love of Jesus.

As you watch this video, I invite and encourage you to please pray for Ian and Larissa. And have some tissues ready.  For this, then -- is Love.

The Story of Ian & Larissa


This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience—it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance.


Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage. It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails.


Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen. ~ 
1 Corinthians 13:4-8, PHILLIPS Translation

Walking Through The Hard

When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was. ~ Job 2:11-13, NIV

I wanted to share something with all of you out here in the Blogosphere, and it is now my extreme honor to do so.  


Today's post focuses on how we as Christians often deal with those people in our lives who are broken, hurting, struggling and suffering.  Many on a daily basis.   Most times, since we seem to be really uncomfortable around them or are unsure what to say, we simply avoid them.  


Or sometimes, like Job's buddies, we try to pinpoint their problems with misspoken words in the hopes of 'fixing' them.  Job's friends were really off to a great start in comforting him in his time of need....until they opened their mouths.


Or perhaps -- you yourself are among the broken, the hurting, the struggling and the suffering.  And nobody really seems to understand what you're dealing with or knows what to say to you.


I did not write this.  It was written by someone else, a young woman named Rebekah Bell, who posted it on her Facebook page.  Rebekah's friend, Christi Armstrong, a Christian mom and poetry and blog writer (like many of us here), felt her friend's message was of such an important nature that she shared it on HER Facebook page, which is where I found and read it.


And after reading it, I too felt so strongly about the subject matter, that I contacted Christi and asked for her and Rebekah's permission to share it myself. 


As Christi noted when she reposted this:

"The only way things will change is if we all actually change them. Jesus went to the hurting and sat with them, where they were. He didn't sit in His comfortable life and avoid the pain others were going through. We need to start living like Jesus..." 


Amen, sister, amen!  Read on -- let Rebekah Bell's words and her heart's cry seep not only into your mind, but into your heart and soul as well.  And perhaps -- let them change you and how you see those in your life who are hurting as they attempt to walk through the hard......

To Walk Through The Hard 
by Rebekah Bell


So God is teaching me how to “walk through the hard." 

This past month has been insane.  Not just because of stuff in my universe… but because many people I love are going through genuinely "tough times".  Tough health news.  Tough relationship news.  Tough job news.  Tough times in their lives.

And what has been unusual for me is to watch Christians "dive into" these tough situations.  These situations are in different parts of the country.  Dealing with different varieties of Christians.  But the response, across the board, seems to be the same.  Well meaning followers are attempting to fix other people’s complex situations with "one size fits all" answers.

Without divulging details of anything, many of these situations are degenerating. Some involve diseases that won’t end in recovery.  Relationships that are broken in ways that would be difficult to ever fix.  Jobs that were lost because of a dying economy, making finding replacement positions immediately unlikely.  

In this, how does the church help?  Promises of prayer. Which are nice, but lonely solutions.  People sit alone in their damaged lives, while you wander off to your happier situation to pray.  Some tossed around trite scripture passages talking about "seasons" or "making things perfect in their time" or that "God has great plan for you."  Which are nice.  But like handing someone a flashlight without batteries, when faith is shaken by circumstance.

And sadly, I am not much help either.  My heart isn’t full of grand solutions.  Recently, I had to face the reality of my Grandmother’s mental condition.  First, you have to understand, my Grandmother was my rock.  She helped raise me.  More than a Grandmother, she was my friend. We chatted about school.  She taught me to drive. When times were hard, growing up, she let me sit in her house and cry (that happened a lot).  My Grandmother now seems to have developed dementia.  The person that I loved has changed into someone unpredictable.  I am watching one of the most precious relationships in my life slip away and I can’t stop it.

To help me deal, someone gave me the "it gets better" speech.  Seriously.  From this, there is no better.  The relationship that I once had is going to slip away, not get better.  

What I need is people who are willing to help me "walk through the hard."  Not tell me "look for the better."

But this is where Christians seem to "land."  Easy quotes that are supposed to make things better.  A prayer.  Pat on the head.  And you are off.  Faith bright and shiny.  Into a world with complex situations. Shouting "keep the faith" at people, from the safety of shore, as they bail water from a sinking boat.  

Why can’t we let the bad stuff be bad?  The hard stuff be hard?  Situations remain broken.  Why are we quick to stick a band aid on a broken leg and tell people that they should be able to walk around.  Where does this impulse come from?

I think that it is because faith in a loving God is threatened by unlovely circumstances.  

And that is hard to deal with.  To travel that road.  And we are generally unwilling to do it.  We pray for protection in our lives and are happily isolated from the difficulties of others.  Holding out for them pretty pictures of uncomplicated faith, rather than sitting with them in the dark places, where there aren‘t beautiful things.  

I think we fear the hard.  That is why we can’t let it be hard.  And to me, empirically, the inevitable conclusion seems to be that God is frequently unwilling to make things easy.  He lets them be hard.  

Thus, if we are to call ourselves a people of a true faith, it is time for us to embrace the presence of hard things. To seek out darkness and not run away.  To resist the urge to make the complex, less than what it truly is.  To allow the faith to exist in the dark and forbidding places of life.  Situations where "better" is unlikely.  And not abandon those who are in pain, to the pain they are feeling. 


It is time to learn to walk through the hard.


"Rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn." Romans 12:15, NIV