My brain has been in overdrive. For like, all of quarantine.
I feel like the world is going mad, literally.
People are out there somewhere setting things on fire. Black
people are dying. Cops are dying. There’s a literal area of anarchy inside the
city of Seattle. I can’t read a single article that anyone posts online without
dismissing it as biased and/or grossly misleading or bent. Since I follow
people from all political persuasions, I stomach the hatred and apathy that
spews from all sides. Oh, and there’s a virus of some importance in there still
pulling punches when you step away from the screen time.
I’m white, upper-middle class and college-educated. Anything
I post is automatically dismissed through those lenses. Even being female isn’t
in my favor these days, because of the latter and my mostly conservative Christian
beliefs, I just automatically get lumped in with all the Women for Trump ladies,
even though I never voted for the man. If you don’t know me, you don’t know my
story.
The same can be said for every, single person posting on
social media. It’s easy to lie about yourself and others from the other side of
a screen. It’s easy to paint someone the victim in one essay and the criminal
in another when the truth might be, they were both.
Truth. My brain physically aches from desiring and seeking
truth. I find myself savoring the time I can spend in God’s Word because it’s
literally the only thing I read all day long that I KNOW is true.
It’s tempting to disconnect from all social media and choose
to live in my white, suburbia bubble and pretend this will pass. This won’t
touch me. Then I try to leave my home and go shopping, and the fear, condemnation,
confusion, and anger is palpable in those around me. It’s as physically
suffocating as the mask they want us to wear.
I sit back and watch the drama unfold across my screens, and
I wonder if people know. Do they know they are puppets in a grander scheme? If
you pick a side, the mainstream media is tailoring all the articles that come
across your page to support your side. Oddly enough, when you don’t pick sides,
when you see things from all sides and many angles, especially in the light of loving
Jesus and the Bible, my news stream is silent. They feed me zero information as
if to keep me silent. I wonder why that is?
Might it be because my relationship with Christ makes me a
beacon of actual truth in a world where it simply cannot be found because the
powers that be are betting they can blot it out?
Truth says we ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory
of God. (Romans 3:23)
But I can’t #alllivesmatter without being against
#blacklivesmatter for some reason. And if I #bluelivesmatter, I better be
prepared for the wrath that follows—the unfriending, unfollowing, and hate from
the other side.
I can’t be pro-life without being against women’s rights for
some reason.
Covid-19 is either a hoax or a pandemic worthy of all the hype.
There’s no space for someone to be in the middle.
You can be Republican, Democrat, Progressive, Libertarian,
etc., but who do you vote for when not one candidate represents all your views?
If someone believes gender is defined by biology, somehow
that means they’re against the entire LGBT community.
If you don’t pick a side, you don’t belong. You don’t have a
place. You don’t have a voice. I genuinely fear showing support for anything
because if you don’t know me, you make assumptions about me based on my gender,
race, and socio-economic status that may or may not be true if you don’t have a
conversation with me. A face-to-face conversation. Over tea and gouda grits.
All my friends who rant and post hateful comments about the
president or BLM or LGBT or vaccines or covid-19 or politics, can I tell you
what I see? I don’t see your passion for change. I see your hate. I see
your explicatives, the derogatory language you use and your boldness to willingly
cut people out of your lives that don’t agree with you.
I see the
hate that exists within yourself while you claim to be fighting against hate. How can you fight something that
exists within you? And while my initial response was anger as well, now I
want to weep for every person who lives enslaved and engulfed by rage and fear.
Truth says we are by nature children of wrath unless we
belong to the family of God, and even still, we will battle that nature.
(Ephesians 2:3, Galatians 5:16-17)
Brothers and sisters in Christ, if you claim the title of
Christian and profess to be in relationship with Jesus Christ, then the actions
of your life must follow His words and footsteps as well. The words you type on
a screen for the world to see must promote Christ, the Light of the World, in
an ever-darkening world. Those who don’t know Him, won’t share Him. We are His
ambassadors. (2 Corinthians 5:20)
Jesus created and loves ALL life. So, when I #alllivesmatter,
what I’m saying is I support the unborn life, the orphan, the widow, the
foreigner, the law-abiding cop, the peaceful protester, every race and tribe
and tongue. I want them all to live in truth, walk in truth, and find truth.
So maybe it’s time we Christians flood our feeds with the Truth
instead of reposting what the mainstream media is feeding us or posting nothing
at all. And just a reminder that if the entire article isn’t true, every word,
every angle, isn’t true, even if one sentence or picture is misleading or hides
part of reality, then it’s a lie. I don’t want to be a proponent or perpetuator
of lies. And since I don’t have the time to fact check every article that comes
across my feed with eye witness corroboration, I just won’t repost unless it’s
my story to share or the story of someone I actually know and trust. And by “know
and trust,” I mean someone with whom I regularly speak.
I wonder if all our worlds would shrink to a more manageable
size if we took this approach. If we only supported people we knew personally,
I wonder if our personal influence would increase even if our public influence
decreased. It would mean less likes and less friends, but more real
conversations, more actual influence for change instead of inciting of rage.
If you profess to follow Christ, now is the time to be the light.
If silence is violence, then not speaking God’s Truth into the darkness is the real
crime against humanity. Maybe I get labeled a Jesus-freak, maybe I’m cursed up
one side and down the other for not ever choosing a side, maybe my voice is
silenced online by those who don’t want the Truth to be shared.
Ah. But God. He is greater than all the powers that be in
this world. His message will be delivered in one way or another if we will only
be faithful to take it and share it, and even in our unfaithfulness, I believe
His plan will be accomplished. How will you choose to share God’s Truth today
and every day? Do you share His Truth more than you share the opinions of this
world on your social media feed? Do you intake His Truth, His comments on life
equal to or more than the comments and posts of this world? If not, why not?
Instead of choosing to post nothing, could you choose to share what you know to
be true, something you can back 100%?
That parched, anxious feeling in your soul—it’s your spirit
trying to tell you it’s dehydrated for Truth. Brothers and sisters fill up with Living Water then
go take it to your people.
Grateful to be His,
Jennifer Durham
