The 40 Day Social Media Fast
/Last Sunday my home was bursting at the seams with twenty of the sweetest women you’d ever want to meet. We gathered together to break our 40 Day Sugar Fast. Though it felt like a large gathering in my little home, it was a small representation of the 15,000 men and women who joined us online for our 5th annual community fast!
Each year we fast from SUGAR in order to feast on the SATISFYING SWEETNESS OF CHRIST AND HIS WORD! However, as we sat together in the living room and shared our testimonies, many of us confessed that sugar isn’t the only distraction in our busy lives! Over and over again we admitted to one another that we need a Social Media Fast as desperately (maybe even more) than we needed a Sugar Fast!
That is why, this Lenten season, March 6th - April 18th, I’m taking a 40 Day Social Media Sabbatical and inviting you to do the same! While I know that I’m not the only one who needs this, all I can do is humble my own restless heart and seek His rest, as you quietly seek Him where you are. Therefore, during this 40 day fast, we obviously won’t have the same community feel that we enjoy during our sugar fast. Instead, we will step back from our online friendships, in order to experience undistracted fellowship with God and the the flesh-and-blood people in our individual lives.
Just as sugar was originally intended to be a gift from God… I see so many ways that our phones and social media have been used by God to bless us too! Unfortunately, our devices have become divisive. Dividing us from experiencing His nearness, and the sweet nearness of one another. Our phones and tablets and laptops are the most distracting (notifying, buzzing, ringing) distractions keeping us from focusing on what matters most.
Jesus matters most.
That’s why I’m fasting this Lent. I don’t want to be distracted and miss out! I want to be wide awake and alert to what He is doing in me and around me each gifted moment.
Do you struggle to live in the moment, with your nose in your phone? Do you struggle to interact with those you love, because you’re busy interacting with those you “like.” Do you spend more time following all the people in the world, rather than One who simply said, “Follow Me”?
If you know that you’re addicted to your phone, consider a 40 Day Social Media Sabbatical of your own. During these 40 days of Lent, make the bold choice to forsake the world and open up the Word. You’ll be freed up to spend oodles of time with Him, in the days before Easter. What a wonderful way to encounter our Resurrected Lord!
“Fasting is taking out that which is temporary and ordinary in order to focus on the One who is eternally extraordinary! ”
Believe it or not, your phone will one day pass away, but you will not pass away… you will pass on. You will pass on to an eternity with your Savior. Let’s put down our distractions and enjoy some undistracted time with Him here and now.
Sign up for your own Social Media Fast today. I’ll send you one simple email confirmation, followed by 40 scripture memory cards, a list of book recommendations, a downloadable journal template to record what you learn these forty days, and a decorative screen saver to remind you to put down your phone in case you forget.
One more thing that I learned on Sunday, as I hugged real people in my real-life home: I want to be fully available to socializing with those nearest and dearest to me. It is my hope that as I fast from social media, I might get social again. Social with the Lord, yes, but social with the friends and family who I’m often just too busy to invest in.
Do you know the feeling? Too busy to meet up for a cup of tea or a walk around the block, but able to spend an hour or more scrolling through social media? It’s sad how our online friendships have crowded out some of in real life [IRL] people.
I am excited about those friendships and so much more! I’m excited to be more rested, to find the time to get more exercise, to engage more patiently with my children and my husband, to read through a book or two of the Bible and privately journal what the Lord is speaking to my undistracted heart, to try some new recipes and clean out a few closets too! I’ve been too busy for all of this and so much more.
I hope that you’ll make the bold move to “go dark” in order to experience the Light of the World shining in your life again! Let’s fast from Social Media in order to get social with Him again!
