Do you ever stop to think about you never used to know how many people were “following” someone else?

You went about your daily life and regular tasks. You got excited about the work you saw God doing in you and through you in others. You saw what others were doing, but probably didn’t give much thought to their influence vs. your influence. After all, they had their assignment, and you had yours.

But now, it’s all changed. Because we can all be present on the same “platform,” we’ve somehow leveled the playing field to believe our influence, our impact, our worth, and our importance can be quantified.

Specifically, we’ve falsely correlated our number of social media followers with the importance of God’s call on our lives.

Listen, I’m not hating on social media. It’s is a great tool that can be used for a lot of good. But it’s also created unnecessary comparison + inadequacy. Now, instead of being content and reserving our energy to serve Him well in the sweet spot our Savior has positioned us, too many of us waste that time and energy striving and “competing” for something that might not even be relevant to His assignment for us.

Bottom line: We’re consistently tempted to look around at what others are doing instead of looking up for direction for what He wants us to do.

Today, I have two truths we must grasp to stop this vicious cycle.

First, social media does not equal reality. Just in my decade of social media experience, I’ve got dozens of examples of people who pretended to have it all together online when they were hanging by a thread in reality.

I know that’s not new information to you. We’ve all heard the behind-the-scenes vs. highlight reel comparison.

But let me ask you this: If you know that to be true, why do you still let it get to you?

Why do you let that silly number either make you feel secure or insecure? Why do you think you’re better than someone else or not as good as someone else based on the interaction you get in the virtual world?

Second, God’s call on her life is not God’s call on your life. Doesn’t mean one is better than the other. But it’s different.

So what makes us think we can use the same measuring stick to determine who is making a big splash for Jesus and who’s making just a ripple?

A smaller audience does not mean your purpose is less. It just means your assignment is diferent than her’s.

And if you waste the assignment God has given you because you believe you’re “better than this” or “you deserve something bigger,” sister, hear me in love; that’s just pride. No task that serves the God above us is beneath us.

Will you join me in stopping the social media madness? Here’s how we’ll do it:

  • Commit to look to God more than you look around.
  • Define your worth more in what God says about you than what others are [or are not] saying about you.
  • Refuse to believe purpose is attached to a number.
  • Stop thinking you’re better than or less than someone else based on the virtual world.
  • Live better offline than you pretend to be online.

 “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?

 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.  If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.”

– 1 Corinthians 12:12-20