Social Media Fast

This one is vulnerable, but I hope that sharing it helps someone else.

For June, I deleted all social media apps from my phone & fasted from it for the month. It was a hard, but much-needed decision. I do not doubt that God works through me on this platform, yet I found myself entangled in a mess of emotions using it.

Social media is an amazing place to minister and get the goodness of God out into the world. But there is also a dark side to it. Something that starts as an innocent ministry with the sole focus of sharing the gospel, the devil can manipulate and use it to torment us with comparison, jealousy, and pride if we are not careful.

My story…

I happily share content that not only speaks to me, but content that I know God wants me to share with others. I know this because of private messages or conversations where people would share how my posts impacted their lives... you know, those undeniable God moments. It felt amazing being used in this way…lifting others up and sharing about how amazing our God is.

And then it didn’t. I found myself posting and watching the likes and comments. As someone who has experienced childhood trauma, I easily pick up and notice behaviors and patterns. This is a behavior coping mechanism people develop from trauma to protect themselves as children. As adults though, it most often becomes detrimental to our mental health & relationships, especially when the underlying trauma hasn’t been fully healed.

What started as a ministry for God quickly turned into “Why isn’t this person interacting with my posts anymore”. It started to become an obsession in my mind, tormenting me to the point of depression and anxiety. I started comparing myself to others and experiencing emotions I am quite frankly embarrassed to admit I was feeling.

I had felt the need to step away for a while, but I knew God was using me in that space, so it was hard and to be completely honest, social media was an addiction. I used it to soothe and silence my loud mind. My mind rarely shuts down. It’s constantly busy, thinking and overthinking, worrying and wondering. So social media was my drug…my alcohol…my food…my addiction. My escape. It took up so much of my time. It took me away from family and important conversations. Most importantly though, it took my time away from God. Ouch. I knew all of this but still refused to put it down.

I wanted a closer relationship with God, but I was burned out from life and just wanted to “get away” via social media mindless scrolling. Much of my feed content was uplifting/biblical…Godly snacks, and again, I knew God was working through me to minister to others, so I just did not want to put it down.

But on June 2nd, I did. I deleted Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, & Pinterest from my phone. My husband also removed games and LinkedIn from his phone. Except for the church social media pages I run & checking messages from special people who only talk to me on Messenger, I stayed off for the entire month. No posts, no feeds.

My experience was amazing. I had urges of wanting to log on to post and scroll but since the app was gone I couldn’t. What I started to realize is that I enjoyed the “stillness” I experienced with not being on the apps. I had time to reflect on life and how God wants to use me on social media. While I haven’t received clear direction from Him yet on how He wants me to use social media, I did receive gentle correction from Him.

He showed me how posting content and then watching for likes and comments was making it about me and not about Him. To keep it about Him means posting and knowing in my heart and spirit that whoever the content was for will reach the person whether they like the post or not. He also showed me how removing the thing (social media) that triggers me and all of these negative emotions won’t make the emotions go away…only healing the part of my heart that gets triggered will make it better. This experience has shown me that I have some more deep trigger healing to do. I have to heal the part of me that relies so heavily on the approval, acceptance, and opinions of others.

He also gave me an amazing revelation from Paul in 2 Corinthians. I’ve read 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 several times, but when reading it again last Friday, I realized that I may never be completely healed of the things that “torment” me, but I can lean on God’s grace and strength, and instead of focusing on those things & how bad they may be, I can focus on God’s grace and how He works through those weaknesses. It doesn’t give me a pass to act however I want to, but it does let me know that when I mess up, God’s grace is sufficient. It also keeps me from becoming proud, which is another very sneaky tool Satan likes to use.

I still have a lot of reflection and discovery to do…a lot of talking and listening to God. I’m at a place in life where I’m not sure where I fit in anymore. I do know I want to introduce others to Jesus Christ and help get them on a path to developing a relationship with Him. I know I’m not perfect and I am a messy warrior for Christ. I know God has called me to be a disciple and to make disciples of the nations (Matthew 28:19) and I know He has specifically called me to plant seeds.

It's time to let go, trust God, and stop trying to do it all perfectly and in my own strength. It’s time to stand firm against the devil, knowing he knows my weaknesses and my strengths and is actively waging war against me.

It’s time to be still (Psalms 37:7). It’s time to silence the noise of the world so I can clearly hear the gentle whisper of my Father.

After my fast ended, I found I did not want the social media apps on my phone. I've learned to embrace the quiet, the conversations with my husband are better, life, in general, is less stressful without the extra noise, and God has been moving and speaking in so many ways to me. So for today, I don't have plans to add them back on my phone. I will gradually come back online from a computer and pray that I don't fall back into the spiral of negative emotions from it.