Welcome to the January 24th edition of Faith & Life Lessons.
You will see this email full of tidbits from my week. My goal is simple. I hope that from how I live my life, you can find a thing or two that helps you as you try to live a life that matters. I am always trying to do one thing - make Christ-focused decisions in love, work, and life. And this was my week.
The Story Of My Week
I finally got round to watch the movie “The Social Dilemma”.
The movie reminded me of some of the problems with social media that I was already aware of.
Now and again I have to go cold-Turkey to ensure that social media does transform me into who I don’t want to be.
After watching the movie, I went back to check the apps I used to monitor and block my use of social media once I exceed my time limit. I noticed the one on my new phone had gone to sleep since I didn’t complete the setup after installing.
I quickly set up everything to put me back on my regular track.
One of the ways I notice that social media has reshaped me is how I handle my downtime. In the past, I would probably create something or spend the time in devotional activities.
Nowadays, I find myself reaching for my phone and look for something on social media to fill the time with. And like that my whole time is burnt with here and there in the distraction-filled social media place.
This is one of the reasons I resorted to reading a paper Bible. Distractions are minimal when reading paper. I don’t need to know that another friend just created a verse image or completed a reading plan.
Bottom line, I’m trying to reclaim my focus and freedom from the powerful clutches of the social media algorithm.
I’ll still be on social media.
I’ll just be a controlled user, not a remote-controlled user.
Things I Learnt
1-The way you Inspire: I was catching up with a friend and asking how his writing side-gig was coming up.
He told me he was taking it slow and trying to build some habits into the whole thing first.
He said he spent 2020 trying to build consistency of writing every week.
According to him, he was inspired by me. He said my consistency to write every week has inspired him to action.
I wouldn’t have thought I was inspiring that. For 3 years, except 2018 Christmas week, I have sent out a weekly highlight of the lessons I learnt during the week.
I’m glad this helped him.
It also made me wonder what actions my other actions can inspire.
I’m reminded to be careful of what I do so I can inspire the best in others.
And that’s my goal.
I hope I inspire the best in you with what I do.
2-How did you Believe: I listened to an interview by Alisa Childers (formerly of ZOEgirl) with Sean Mcdowell on conversations with Christians who were deconstructing their faith.
I think "deconstructing their faith" for some of the people affected is a nice way of saying "backsliding from the faith". But that is a different conversation.
According to him, when he asks these former Christians if they ever had a defining in their faith that involved "I realised I was a sinner and I needed God's grace of transformation". For a number of them, it was "I wanted to be part of a movement" "I felt God in worship" "I felt God in creation" "I wanted to be on the side of justice".
Good as these are, one of the most defining experiences for being a Christian is recognising your sinfulness and crying out to God in repentance for forgiveness.
According to him, if you haven't had that experience, it is important to ask if you were truly in the faith in the first place even if you went to church and did all the practices.
He makes a case that there were probably so many of them who were even preaching, writing books, leading churches who leave the faith but they were not really in the faith, to begin with. Yes, only God knows the heart but this is what he saw from dozens of experiences.
You can watch the full video here (50 minutes long)
What he said is not far from scripture - They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. - 1 John 2:19.
Sometimes when I hear of people walking out of the faith, especially those with a public platform, I wonder if it not the pressure of public life finally revealing what we didn't know all along.
Don't get me wrong. I know we all have dark seasons when we question our faith - I have had that.
I went through my season but the anchor of "salvation from my sins" gave me something to hold on to through it all.
I started my Christian journey because I was afraid of the judgment of God and I didn't want to go to hell.
As I grew in my faith, hell went from being a place of torment to separation from God. I don't want to end up anywhere in eternity where God is not. That punishment is unbearable to consider because I have moved from experiencing God as more than the God the forgiver of my sins to God my father.
But I got in because I saw my sins standing in the way. It may not be the biggest thing on my mind every day not. But I have never forgotten it.
This was how I believed
Postscript
May your faith in Jesus Christ continue to remain strong through all the difficult challenges to your faith. May you never lose confidence in the uniqueness of Jesus' power to forgive sins. (Amen)
Tata,
Tola
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