 From my IG video you can find here.
I have a confession to make. I’ve acted violently against myself in showing up on social media. I found myself comparing my life, my writing, my house, my décor, my makeup, my theology with a lot of others on here, especially on Instagram. What I often found was jealousy not joy. Competition not connection. I was getting so overwhelmed with life, work, and being an author, that I decided it wasn’t good for my mental health. So I cut down my Instagram following and my followers not long after my second book came out. I’ve wrestled with continuing to show up there, a lot. But I’ve done quite a bit of work to learn how to belong to myself (I’m still learning), and how to be confident in what I offer and what I hope for from others. So I’m going to try to show up a bit differently moving forward. Videos aren’t something I’ve done a lot, and part of that was due to low self love. But that’s an area I’ve been working hard at too. I like the person I see in the mirror, not just my mind, but my body too. There’s room to grow but I’m on a trajectory I’m proud of. Moving forward with social media videos, I’m going to read what I write. I don’t have time to memorize, and I’m not the best at going off the cuff. I’m OK with that. I work a full time job, and I have two kids, a dog, and cat, a bunch of plants, and I’m a spouse. I think that success from a prosperity mindset says I need to memorize and make this perfect, but I don’t think it’s fair to make this more than I should to myself, my kids, or my spouse. And I want to spend time with them. In fact, I’ve come to believe it’s violence against myself and my dearest ones to place so much pressure on what I produce because the tyranny of production is never satisfied. I’m going to show up sometimes with makeup and my hair done, but most of the time not. Because that’s real life. I’m going to share my thoughts and be as fully human as I can be. I just got home from giving a talk about Violence and Victory (based on my Violence & Victory article at Red Letter Christians) – my premise is that if we seek victory rather than justice we will never actually find shalom. Victory is individualized. Victory presupposes a winner and a loser. This is what studying God’s abundance has shown me. I’ll get more into it in the coming videos, but for now, I just want to confess that as a writer and speaker, I often find myself seeking victory. It’s easier than seeking justice. It’s what a lot of people are doing because we’re told it’s the only way. Victory is a bigger platform, a larger following, another book contract, etc. But when we seek the best for ourselves above all else, we lose ourselves along the way. We have to reject this if we really believe in collective abundance, in the flourishing of all. What does victory look like for you in your arena of life? In what ways does that provoke you to look at others around you as competition rather than as neighbors? I’m going to work towards being nonviolent to myself even on social media. I’ve long turned off notifications and been mindful of my time on the socials, but there’s more that can be done. And I need to find a way to practice abundance even here. I hope you can find ways to practice it in whatever spaces you are a part of too. If you’re feeling it, comment below and name one way you can reject the violence of social media?
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 Unbelonging uncovers the stepping stones that are invisible in belonging. Every time we are excommunicated, pushed away, pushed out, or told we don’t fit in. Every time we feel angst over the social boundaries we’re told we must abide by, we have begun the journey to see these stepping stones that give us a new perspective of Christ. For Christ, belonging is never transactional. Belonging has always been unconditional.
And this is the most radical, controversial, mind-blowing aspect of Christianity — the abundance of God in belonging. There are no prerequisites to begin the journey or even along the way. There is abundance of belonging for every step, every misstep, every part of the journey. Scarcity and prosperity have no room in Christ’s kingdom, because those identifiers are codependent on accolades, possessions, and checklists. And those identifiers dichotomize the whole of the human race: you either have it and are prosperous or you don’t. God’s abundance redefines what identity even is, and every unbelonging unveils more and more of this truth. But it requires a deep letting go of the things we thought we did for ourselves. We cannot hold onto our trophies, our accomplishments, our belief systems, or our good deeds. Authentic, abundant belonging has no relation to those measurements. This is absolute freedom. And, absolute sadness simultaneously to people whose identity is so wrapped up in accomplishment that the Good News of this abundance is deeply difficult news to their egos. It is in the unbelonging, we learn to truly belong to Christ, who is always bent toward us. The question is, will we lay down our bent toward prosperity so that we can accept this true belonging? |
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