Do not index
Do not index
If this self-imposed guilt hasn’t happened to you yet, then here is a warning and some encouragement to you before it does because this is a way that the enemy will try to condemn you if you are walking in your calling with Christ and used to be a perfectionist as I was.
You start on your project that you have been called to do and it may or may not have taken you a lot of time to complete before hitting publish.
And then a week goes by, maybe a month, maybe a year and you start to beat yourself up by saying things like, “Why am I not loyal to Jesus in my calling?”.
If you've been trapped in the pit of the self-help/motivational guru community before, then you likely have come across the mantra that you need to “pump out content everyday” or that “you need to eat, sleep, breath your craft to be consistent” but all of this plus more is not true and is all a self-defeating disaster waiting to happen because when we have put our trust in Jesus that also means that we have put our trust in Jesus ability to guide and direct us on how He wants HIS content to go out and what that looks like on His schedule.
And yea, we get distracted at times in our walk and may be derailed from our calling by focusing on the wrong things at times (that may seem good on the surface but wouldn’t be what God would have called us to do in a particular season) — speaking from experience…..
But even our mishaps have already been incorporated into the Father’s plan and timetable for when He wants His content to go out WHILE keeping us from the snares and temptations that are constantly upon us the moment that we open our devices to social media.
For the past week or two I haven't been producing a lot of content, and I at first was feeling guilty but then God is showing me how I don't need to feel guilty about anything because there's no condemnation in Christ Jesus. And also because there needs to be a balance with everything we do so consistency is not seen in posting every single day and perfectionism or to be “perfect” in Christ (by His Word) is not about being a workaholic and beating yourself up when you see others in Christ posting content online (while you aren’t) because God may be telling you to rest for a few weeks or a few months.
Just never compare yourself to anyone else. You are doing what you are supposed to do right now because while we are producing content for the glory of God we are also being crafted and molded more into Christ image through the workings of His Holy Spirt, so our Father may want you to focus on Him during certain seasons where you would not producing online because God may be:
- Keeping you away from temptation - who knows?, God may have seen ahead of yourself and saw something that may be tempting to you while you’re making content online and could have called you to rest for a period so that you could avoid that temptation that may have prematurely caused you a stumbling block in your walk with Him. Our Father doesn’t lead us into temptation and neither is He tempted nor does He tempt; so He may be protecting you when He calls you to rest.
- Finetuning your voice to match God’s Voice and delivery - since we are God’s workmanship He is crafting us into His image and likeness through our faith in Jesus and there may be periods where He sends us away from producing content online because we may be around voices that could intervene with our growth and godly delivery of what the Father has for us to say.
- Wanting you to stand back and watch what others may be doing that God is not pleased with - this goes without saying that we all make mistakes whether we are saved or not saved but to those of us who are saved we have the strength in Christ to overcome making a consistent practice of making mistakes due to us focusing on heavenly things above and practicing righteousness while resisting the devil. So sometimes God teaches us through what other people are doing or what other people are not supposed to be doing and this is one of the reasons for why Jesus keeps the tares (lukewarm/unsaved) among the wheat (saved) for a time so that those of us who do practice the one of the fruits of the Spirit, patience, then we will be able to see error ahead of time by us pausing in our production. In doing so we are able to know what certain errors look like — through others who didn’t listen to God — while being able to avoid incorporating those same errors in our own walk and in our content that would be published online.
And I know there is much more than this but over the years these were the top reasons that I noticed that I was being drawn away from producing on a weekly or monthly basis all of the time. That even though I didn’t see it at the time; now when I look back on past seasons of my walk with Christ I am now able to realize that by me not releasing content “consistently” to my expectations I was protected from:
- Giving away too much information when sharing my testimony and lessons that I’ve learned in life.
- Repeating things that I’ve learned from common “church talk” that has no scriptural basis or that didn’t match God’s character but were things said traditionally within the church
- Not realizing that some things that I had previously recorded (but had not yet released) were the truth but were recordings of the truth that were not given in grace — we learn more and appreciate more about God’s grace and goodness the longer that we walk with Him in Christ and it is this same grace given to us that we would be able to give to others when we are making content online.
It’s an absurd and unhealthy way of thinking to think that it’s okay to just constantly be producing content for the sake of producing content online because doing so is working out of fear and the fear of man is a pattern that God is working in us to no longer be present in us. When you’re working out of anxiety or stress to meet a certain deadline or a certain expectation than you can’t focus and dedicate the proper time that is necessary to focus on Jesus and heavenly things above.
Again this is why it is so common to see so much “Christian” content almost obsessively producing things that are focused on what is going on in the world and what is the next big scandal of some pastor or “news” that has caught the headlines of the church over having people focus on Jesus and His teachings.
Those who are producing content like this while professing to be doing so in Jesus name are not able to focus on Christ or give content that will get their viewers to focus on Jesus, because they themselves are not focused on Him and it is seen in the mass production of content that goes out on their channels, blogs, and podcasts daily, with sometimes there being a release of work going out 2-3 times a day — (and yes I am someone that makes a large batch of content in advance to be able to produce daily but you can tell the type of articles and videos that were freshly made based off of some new gossip or event that passed across twitter, the news, or reddit).
Not sticking to the schedule that God would have set for you is also one of the top reasons for why people end up going through burnout or wanting to quite producing content online because they would be overwhelmed by their own impossible expectations and desire to please people before pleasing and doing for God first and foremost.
I wouldn’t want these things to happen to you as a follower and scribe for Christ so please be aware of the common temptation to think you are not doing good enough or making enough content for Jesus. Because in reality the fact that you have believed in Jesus Christ means you have already have and continue to glorify God in all that you do when you have sincerely believed. And I say this because the moment you were saved is the moment that you desired the desires of the Father as He is the One that puts His desires on our heart while giving us a new heart of flesh. God is the one that is glorified in you practicing and learning how to practice to be more like Him by Him teaching you because you no longer try to teach yourself by trusting in yourself, trusting self-help gurus, or trusting in the world.
Your trust is based solely alone in Christ and nothing else and Christ is glorified in your faith in Him just as the Father glorified the Son, so please keep your head up if this is something that has bothered or plagued your thoughts.
You will make and publish what needs to be published in the time that God wants it to be out because it will be according to His Will which never fails.
Photo by Dima Solomin on Unsplash
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