#266
This last week I made a personal vow to myself . After being on Social Media for about nine years and loving it . Maybe a little too much. Which for me was basically Facebook. I’m really not into the whole snapchat , twitter and instagram scene. I figure I’ll leave that for the more advanced. If you ask my children . Well my 24 year old and my 28 year old they’ll say my generation took over Facebook and made it uncool and lame that they moved on to other apps. Do you know they have other apps out now ? I’ve never heard of Telegram , Meet up , Reddit, LinkedIn and Tapebook. Have I been living under a rock ? No. I’ve been living on Facebook. I got a confession to make though. Those days I’m afraid are over. That’s the vow I made to myself . I’ve decided to put myself through Facebook detox. I guess there really is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. I guess what I’m trying to say is that some matters should not be discussed on social media . There too toxic. Especially with hot topics like politics and civil rights . I often ask myself when did we stop becoming human and start becoming critical robots feeling forced to reply with a fact check to everything? Anymore you can’t even post a picture of someone being kind or compassionate because it will literally turn into a political fight. I can’t tell you how many fights the devil has started on my posts by something he has took totally out of context from my words that had nothing to do with politics and whispered it in the ear of just one person . It took that one person to comment something negative. Turning a very sincere post that I really ment with all my heart into a blood bath . Some of the battles took off before I even knew the first shot was fired. It wasn’t until I logged back on and seen I had twenty some comments. Thinking to myself . How kind. Twenty some people were touched by the words the Lord gave me . Only to find out that the Prince of darkness and his demons got in the way causing chaos and confusion . Often times busting up friendships and ruining relationships right before my eyes. Do you know what that feels like ? To know that your hated so much by a world no one can see that you can’t even post a thing without the devil trying to intercept your words . Just to get to the people he knows might be having a bad day and might not be seeing and reading your words clearly . That’s how the devil plays. He’s not gonna catch my friends on a good day when they read the words on my posts the correct way. He’s gonna catch them on a bad day . When they’ve had about enough politics and they think I’m being political. When they’ve had enough christianity for one day and they think I’m trying to lecture them . That’s what the devil is all about . He’s a liar. He’s a thief and a joy robber. Most important . He’s a masked murderer. He’s not gonna catch you on the great days and whisper in your ear because on the great days it’s much easier to be grateful for all that you have. It’s the gloomy days . The harder days. The days we’re going through right now. Where we are starting over. Where we are being tested. It is so much easier to finish something then to start over don’t you think? Starting over with a new President. Starting over with a new year. New laws. New changes. Maybe that’s why I love the book of Ecclesiastes so much. No one really knows who wrote it. Many scholars have argued but most believe it was King Solomon. As the beginning of the book starts with the words … All Is Vanity…1 The words of the Preacher , 1: the son of David , king in Jerusalem. 2 Vanity 2 : of vanities ! says the Preacher , vanity is vanities! All is vanity . So , to me it’s kinda like take that for what you will. In my opinion and it’s just my take. I believe it’s King Solomon and I believe he wrote the book of Ecclesiastes at the end of his life . If you read the book in the Bible. It’s quite interesting. It’s one of my favorites. A few years ago . My friend Sue (Ethel) and I took a 4-5 week course on the book of Ecclesiastes. A Theology Pastor / Professor came down and taught a class . Just when you think you know it all. He had all kinds of degrees and you know what was cool. He really could have wiped the floor with every student in that class with his knowledge of God’s word but I remember him saying that would be so foolish because we never stop learning. I don’t remember his exact words though I wish I could . It was almost like he was trying to say that God never changes nor does his word but we are made anew everyday in God’s Word. So we are always learning but it is the fool that thinks he knows it all and needs not learn anymore. I never quite understood that until recently. That’s why I made the vow to myself to no longer deal with foolish people on Facebook any longer . Not on my newsfeed . Not even scrolling down. Life is too short to spend it foolishly. Just like in the book of Ecclesiastes says , it really is all vanity. The fighting going on against friend and foe. Friend and friend. Brother and brother. Sister and sister. All is vanity and a striving after wind. If you have much wisdom you will have much frustration. That’s just how it is going to be. He who increases knowledge increases sorrow. The thing is . I see so much anger on social media by so many people that are so blessed with healthy bodies , capable bodies . Making a good honest living. They are angry and frustrated. I feel their anger but I cannot watch it any longer because I get angry because I see myself in them and if there lucky like I was . God will do to them what he did to me and put them in their enemies shoes and I cannot bare to watch that because it really is a double edge sword when God brings you the gift of compassion. Compassion is such a gift. Especially when you forget that everyone is God’s child made from his image. It’s so hard to love your neighbor when he doesn’t work and your working overtime and have always worked a full-time job since you were a teenager. It’s hard to pray for people that are not worshiping the same way as you . You know they are wrong in their beliefs. You know that God would not condone what they are doing . God said he detested hands that shed innocent blood? Doesn’t that go for all innocent blood shed ? Aren’t we all living human beings from the first sound of that beating heart in the womb to the last beat our heart makes? It’s so hard to draw that line on who is voiceless when so many are weak in this life and being unheard like an innocent unborn child. Especially when you know that every child is God’s no matter what age from conception to death. Knowing we will all die. The foolish and the the wise. I’ll tell you. You read Ecclesiastes and you start to think a little bit about your situation and that man in the mirror that’s looking back at you. You start to see the wrinkles you didn’t see before. The wonderful laugh lines that seem to be disappearing and you wonder to yourself. Maybe it is better to have funerals everyday instead of parties because you know. When you bury the dead. You realize just how short life is. That you appreciate life and your thankful for your own. I think that’s the problem with today’s world and this virus. Let’s face it. It’s easier and safer right now and a lot cheaper to share an obituary on Facebook then it is to have a big viewing with a funeral. Many cannot afford the cost or take the chance of getting sick. Bury the dead don’t always slap us across the face like it once did. Seeing that lifeless body in the casket. Making us so immune and out of touch with the human race. That we become desensitized and lose compassion because we’re all about ourselves and wrapped up in our own little cyberworld. It’s human nature . I’m not throwing stones. What else do we have after a long day of hard work but to get on the computer and see what the rest of the world is doing ? My whole life I worked . I was a good worker. I never really complained about working. (My husband might tell you a different story )If you can be anything. Be a good worker. No one can take that from you. No matter what your job is. Do a great job. Do it with pride. That job is a blessing. Even if your sweeping up manure. Be glad you woke up to sweep. I will admit I had my moments when waking up to go to work wasn’t what I wanted to do but I never let my customers know it and one thing I don’t remember doing was complaining about paying taxes. Most will say. “Well you have kids .” I’ll tell you what. There is no tax check that can off set the cost of raising a child. Then there’s always that one comment from the Jack in the peanut gallery who chimes in ” well your the one who had all the kids. ” The point I’m making is. Right there , an unwelcomed debate I had so many times with my coworkers. It was a broken record in the break room. . That’s what Facebook has become. A broken record. Except my coworkers and I understood tax brackets , deductions , laws and being civil and why ? Because we were in the same room together. There’s something about the internet that gives people the permission to dehumanize eachother and get down right nasty and when it brings out my ugly sinful Camille that I work hard daily to drown out. Rises to the surface something has to go. I’ve already been taught compassion by my Lord and I’ve learned and I’m still learning the same way Paul learned with the thorn in the side as it will always be a reminder that the body and the money we make with the healthy body is not our own. It is God’s . The last time I complained about lazy people not working and paying their dues . I was frustrated. I was working and I had got hurt a couple months prior . At the time no one realized how bad my condition was including myself and that it wasn’t just physical but there was a reason I was experiencing mood changes, sleep changes , migraines and headaches. I had been in physical therapy but still working and getting worse . One night after therapy I stopped at a Walmart. It was in the winter. A night before payday. I only ran in for a few things . I had about thirteen dollars to my name. I was printing out some pictures when a man came up to me and asked for five dollars for gas . Claiming his wife was in the car with his son . They needed gas to get to the other side of Fort Wayne. Blah blah blah. Being I was already aggravated. My thoughts ‘I worked in the cold all day. Went to therapy. Dude I got thirteen dollars to my name ! Geezum! I know your lying !’ So I look down in my purse and I see two , five dollar bills and three, dollar bills . So I’m like here. I gave him the three ones . I wasn’t happy about it. In fact ,I even had to put away a couple things I was gonna buy but really didn’t need if that tells you anything. Limping my way to the car through the parking lot. I actually got angrier. I know it was the enemy in my ear as he kept telling me to look over at the liquor store,” you know that bum is over there , probably conned more suckers like you. ” You would have thought that three dollars was all I had in the world. Mind you, I was going home to a warm home. Healthy children . A husband . A freezer full of food. I only went in for corn torts. I was going home to make tacos. If that isn’t a blessed night right there but all I could do was stay in the darkness. Because I was in Fort Wayne. I spent the drive home talking out loud to myself . Complaining about all the lazy people in this world. How they don’t work. How hard I have had to work my whole life and where does it get you ? A beat up body before your time and a forehead that says sucker on it. I remember hitting the steering wheel out of anger because I was sick of working. Sick of paying taxes for low life lazy people who suck the system dry and do nothing so I can get up everyday and work my fingers to the bone. You know what you get when you work your fingers to the bone ? Boney fingers !! I wasn’t half way home when those boney fingers were pointing back at me . I never felt more ashamed in my life. Because I knew that it was the Holy Spirit convicting me of my words and reminding me whose money it was . Who gave me good health so that I could wake up everyday and make the good money I had made all the years before I got injured, the money I was going to take home that week. The job that was providing me physical therapy. I was reminded that working was a blessing. Just waking up was a blessing. When we complain about it being ours and where it’s going because we are making it and we , we , we ,I, I , I…. we and I are nothing without God. He has no problem making sure that all his children go to their knees before they go to the flames . He will do what it takes to get them there. He did it with Moses , he did it with The Apostle Paul and I know he did it with me. I will never get better mentally . There is no cure for post concussion syndrome .I have occipital neuralgia . I will never get better physically. There is no cure for sacroiliitis or lumbar degenerative disc disease but that’s ok. I never thought I’d ever say that until this week. Because seeing how hateful and mean everyone is becoming on social media dehumanizing eachother is not good for our country , it is not good for the church and it certainly is not good for one’s soul. If being healthy and being angry at my fellow Americans and brothers and sisters is gonna turn me back into something I once was . I’d rather the Lord keep me this way and keep me compassionate and seeing the human side of people because I’m right there with them . There’s nothing more human then watching your body fall apart and relying on medication and prayers to get you through the day . That’s what I love about Ecclesiastes so much . It’s such a great reminder to me that we’re all human. We will all die under the same sun and be subject to the same God. The unrighteous the unrighteous, the sinful and the sinful because let’s face it . Is there a sinless and a righteous without Jesus Christ among us making us so ? Through our baptism , word and water. Our communion in him through body and blood. Yes . Because without Jesus Christ we are by nature sinful . We will always turn around and fall off the wagon but when we strive to do better . We look to Our Savior repenting for our sin, turning away from sin turning to Our Savior for help. Jesus is the only way any of us can obey the Ten Commandments . The greatest advice that I’ve ever been given has been in Ecclesiastes. That everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil , that is God’s gift to man . Ecclesiastes 12: 13 -14 The end of the matter all has been heard. Fear God and keep his Commandments for this is the whole duty of all mankind . For God will bring every deed into judgement, with every secret thing , whether good or evil and the Devil does not want you to know that.
365 Things The Devil Doesnt Want You To Know 