Death by Twitter

I recently found myself with a stab wound to the side and no one around to help stop the bleeding.

Twitter had stabbed me and run with no witnesses to testify.

It happened on a rainy day in September. I was walking alone with few cares in mind. I wasn’t looking for trouble when all of a sudden I noticed that someone I liked had stopped following me on twitter.

This prompted me to take a side trail of discovery. Turns out several folks I knew and liked had also stopped following me.

Ouch.

I didn’t see the stab wound coming but I suddenly stumbled in pain.

Was it something I said? Was it something I did? Could I not take it back? Could I not redeem myself with a smart tweet, a series of letters to incite laughter, wit, or deep thought?

The small seed of self doubt turned to a boulder of bitterness. You’re such a loser, I heard someone whisper. You’re not funny. You’re not smart. You can’t do anything right. You consider yourself worthy of a following? What a joke. Just give it up. Stick to your day job. Go home loser.

And all the while the bleeding continued. I was about to die by twitter.

Have you ever found yourself in a ridiculous cycle of self-pity? Things that shouldn’t matter – do. People that shouldn’t control you – do.

I’m an approval junkie, and I find myself again and again caught up in the cycle of wanting other people’s approval. If they like me, I’m happy. When they don’t, my spirit is depressed. The Bible calls it the fear of man. And it’s ugly. It goes against everything God wants for his children. The fear of man brings a snare. It brings bondage and captivity of thought, and defeat and spiritual death.

It’s been a while since I’ve given you my thoughts on practical ways to overcome the fear of man, but I’d like to do that now in case you find yourself bleeding out on the side of the road like I did.

1. Recognize it. The first step to minimizing the impact of others on you is to name it what it is. I spent a good 5 days analyzing why those twitter “friends” had stopped following me until I finally admitted that the issue wasn’t about twitter at all, but about my desire to be loved and accepted by people. The minute I called it out was the first step towards freedom from it. Are you living in the shadows of people’s approval? Do you find your moods affected by whether or not someone smiles at you, emails you back, talks to you? Beware of the fear of man, friend.

2. Resist it. The next thing I did after recognizing the impact twitter was having on this aspect of my life was to take measures against it. Now please hear me clearly: not everyone will resist their weaknesses like I do, and that’s fine. Personally, after months of trying to “manage” twitter I’ve come to realize that I can’t. Satan knows this is an area of weakness for me. He knows how easily discouraged I get by it, and he uses it to full advantage against me. So what I’ve done was to remove the twitter application off of my phone. I will continue to have a twitter account mainly to post links to my posts daily, but that is about all the activity on twitter I will have for some time. I don’t know about you, but I’m serious about filling my mind with the truth and resisting sin no matter how drastic the measure may seem. If you’ll miss me – thanks. If you don’t have twitter and won’t even notice – good for you!

3. Readjust your vision. The other side of the fear of man coin is this: Trust in the Lord. When there are 2 sides to a coin, you can’t look at both sides at the same time. After recognizing my area of sin and setting up guards against it, the third step I’ve taken is to fill my mind with God’s goodness to me by simply readjusting my vision on the truth. I have had to remind myself that whether I tweet or not has nothing to do with my success as a blogger. I’ve have to remind myself that my life and my future are in God’s hands, and that God loves me and has a perfect plan for my life. Trusting God brings peace and happiness. That’s where I want to stay. How about you?

4. Get Real. In other words, get out of the imaginary world of social networking and live the life right in front of you. A friend of mine saw me bleeding at the side of the road and took a 4×4 and gently applied it to my stab wound. And this is what she said to me: “forget about those twitter friends you barely know and focus on the real friends God has put in your life”. She’s right. God in his goodness has put a whole bunch of you right in front of my eyes. Thank you. Thank you for loving me and walking the road of life with me. You are worth far far more to me than any imaginary twitter friend.

Does this post seem to be much ado about twitter?

Listen – one of Satan’s greatest tools is to take little things and make them big.

My bleeding has stopped. But the scar will remain to remind me. And for that I am thankful.

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