Wednesday, October 26, 2011

a season of sincerity

Blogging is tough. Or rather, blogging when you hope people like what you read and want to keep returning and yet you love the Lord and don't want it to become about the people but want it to be for Him, is tough. (Still with me? ;) )

It's a dilemma I've increasingly faced in these past few months, especially with the increasing presence of stats within blogs, posts and comments. In Bloggers old interface you at least had to click on a button before you saw your stats. With the new interface they appear on screen when you log on. While it can be fascinating to see how many people are reading, what they are reading and where they came from, it brings with it the temptation, for me, to get too focused on the stats. To feel excited or disappointed based on the peaks of the stats tracker graph.

Knowing this, I had begun praying to the Lord about keeping my eyes fixed on Him, online and off. I began to pray for friends and not followers. For authentic connections with others in this virtual world that would blossom into friendships. For reminders to pour into the relationships with my friends who are close to me geographically.

And I feel like He's honoring these prayers in many ways. He's blessed me with a new friend. He's giving me ideas on how to deepen fellowship with my friends here at home. And He's asking me to examine what I share and why I want to share it. I'm deeply grateful for this last part, but it can be a decidedly uncomfortable process at the same time.

I will totally and completely miss the mark at times, getting a little too much of me and not enough of Him, in my writing. But I wanted to share this in the event that you struggle with these same challenges (online or off) so that we might encourage one another to keep pressing on with our eyes fixed on the One who writes and perfects our faith. And I wanted to share it because it goes with the season of sincerity. A season I hope will last a lifetime.

No comments: