This week, I realized a terrible truth. INSTAGRAM HAS STOLEN MY HEART… BUT LIKE… NOT IN A GOOD WAY. Yep.
This past week, I was scrolling through my socials late at night when I discovered that my Instagram follower count had dropped by 30!!! Now, as a Christian, I had been taught over and over again to not find my worth in how many social media followers I had, but rather in my identity in Christ. So I tried to keep my composure and tried to fool myself into thinking I was ok with this sudden decrease. In my head, the phrase, “you are worth more than a follower count” was on REPEAT. But HA! Who was I kidding? I was uPsEt. How could my follower count have dropped by 30 within a matter of hours?!?
Earlier this week, I had reached a personal milestone of 700 followers on Instagram, which played a huge role in why I was feeling so upset. I remember feeling so proud of this “milestone,” and now that I had lost 30, I was back to only 600 something followers.
I immediately started researching. I wanted to know if others were experiencing the same issue as me. I wanted to know if this was a glitch or something. I even went so far as downloading one of those apps that tell you who’s not following you back to see who was included in the list of 30 who had the audacity to “betray” (aka unfollow) me.
YIKES. I know…
The next day, it was revealed that this was indeed an Instagram glitch, and soon enough, my follower count returned to 700+. But it was too late. The damage was done, and the ugly truth about my heart had been revealed. I had allowed myself to fall into the trap of finding my worth through social media.
This was definitely not the easiest thing to admit to myself. But I knew I had to. I knew this flaw had to be exposed if I ever hoped to see any improvement and growth. During this whole ordeal, I felt so many negative and conflicting emotions. I felt distress at having lost so many followers, wondering if they had unfollowed me because my content wasn’t engaging enough. I felt anger at the ones who I thought had unfollowed me. But above all, I felt guilt for feeling distressed and angry. I knew my response to this situation was not God-honoring AT ALL and it didn’t reflect the truth of the Gospel. If I truly believed that I am saved by Christ and if I truly believed that I am a daughter of God, I shouldn’t have reacted in this way.
But the fact is, I’m human. I live in a broken world that has forgotten their first love and has lost sight of their true identity. And yes, I am a part of that too. I could spend days beating myself up for caring too much about my IG follower count, but will that really solve anything? What I need to do is allow my heart to be stolen back by God. It is said that you can’t fully devote yourself to two or more things, and after this experience, I really believe that. 100% of my heart needs to be devoted to my relationship with God, which means that none of me should be devoted to worldly pursuits like gaining followers.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that I have to eliminate social media out of my life. I think it’s totally ok to have a presence on social media. I guess what it does mean for me personally is that I have to be in continuous conversation with God. Instead of asking myself things like, “Does this picture show that I’m a kool kid?” “Will this picture fit my Instagram aesthetic?” “Will my followers like this pic?” I have to ask myself, “Does this picture that I’m about to post reflect who I am as a child of God?” “Does this picture reflect the hope and confidence that only comes from knowing God?” When you involve God in the conversation, I truly believe your social media will reflect His goodness and His grace, whether or not you’re aware of it, and that is when social media becomes a good and God-honoring tool rather than a means for self-validation.
And so, as is seeming to become customary with this blog, I leave you with a question:
What is the truth about YOUR heart?
~jo