The One Who's Always "Active Now"

There it is: the little green “active now” circle next to their profile picture.

Maybe you’ve been dying to talk to this girl friend all day and you see she’s finally available. It’s a perfect time to catch her while she’s scrolling through social media.

Or maybe you notice the guy you’re attracted to chilling on the socials, just like you are. Your heart skips a beat, hoping he’ll want to chat.

We live in a crazy time when anyone, anywhere can be connected with friends 24/7 by phone calls, texts, social media platforms, email, and messaging apps. Distance and timezones are no longer major communication killers. As long as you have data or wifi, you can instantly connect with anyone at the command of your fingertips.

You’d think that this would be a great time saver, right? But so often we let connecting with people virtually become a major time consumer. And when people don’t respond within minutes, hours, or days on end we can quickly become impatient, annoyed, insecure, etc.

(Especially if they’ve left you on read.)

the most important relationship

Ironically, we spend so much of our day interacting with people who aren’t with us that we neglect to spend quality time with the people who are around us in the moment. And one person we very easily forget to spend quality time with is always “active now.”

Every day of our lives is a gift from above, but it can become so easy to get caught up in our often misdirected priorities that we don’t connect with the Giver of life.

In Matthew 28:20b, Jesus reminds His disciples, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Social media is notoriously known to be a cause of depression and loneliness—even though it’s supposed to keep us connected at all times! When we feel needy of attention or hungry for interaction, we forget or ignore that Jesus’ “active now” status is never ending. He’s waiting for us to connect with Him—to get our fulfillment from rejuvenation in His Word and in prayer…not in the amount of likes we get, how many followers we have, or who’s messaged us.

In Exodus 20:5, the Lord states, “I the Lord your God am a jealous God.” Isn’t that amazing? When we start to make other things a priority over spending time with God, you can bet that He is jealous. The One true God of the Bible wants us to spend time worshipping and honoring Him because He created us and loves us. 

Praise the Lord! Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!

Psalm 106:1

No matter how wonderful our friends are or how many people viewed our stories on Instagram, Jesus Christ offers true love and acceptance for His children that is unconditional and unending.

keeping the right perspective

It’s easy to get to the end of the day and regret not making God a larger part of it, but then feel too tired to keep our eyes focused on the print of our Bibles or have thorough prayer time. So when we’ve spent the vast majority of our spare time glued to social media–connecting with others–we need to stop and take a moment to reorder our priorities.

If that guy you like doesn’t message you, instead of feeling sorry for yourself and lonely, unplug and read about how God deeply loves you and wants to have a personal, deep relationship with you. 

Or if that one friend you were dying to chat with isn’t available after all, challenge yourself to spend time talking with God, thanking Him for always being available and being the most faithful friend you could ever have.

Starting my day with prayer and reading Scripture instead of checking social media first thing has helped me massively to change my view on the day and reset my priorities. It’s still something I’m growing in. Join me!

Let’s be honest with ourselves by answering these questions:

• Do I have a tendency to care more about what other people think of me than what God thinks of me?
• Has social media and being online kept me from being present with the people around me? (family, friends, coworkers, etc.)
• Has connecting with others become more important to me than spending time with God? In what ways has it become an idol?
• How can I reprioritize my time? What time-sucking habits can I break and new habits can I create instead? What verses can empower and encourage me?