Social Sanity in an Insta World, with Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra

Does social media make you anxious? Are you wondering if it's time to delete all of your accounts? Learn how to navigate social media's potentials and pitfalls in this episode of Grounded. Guest Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra will help you think through biblical principles so you can honor the Lord online. 

Connect with Sarah 
Website 

Episode Notes
"Samuel's Story" video 
Social Sanity in an Insta World book
"Seeking God's Wisdom Means Admitting Our Insufficiencies" video
"A Right Perspective on Social Media" episode with Kelly Needham
"Silencing the Noise" blog post by Kelly Needham 
 

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Portia Collins: What's something that impacts more than 75% of women, but no one seems to have quite figured it out. Let's find out together on Grounded, I’m Portia Collins.

Erin Davis: I'm Erin Davis. What I know for sure is that most of you are watching or listening to this through social media right now. Almost all of us have social media of some kind, what platforms we're on or not on may vary. Portia and I have social media, as does Dannah, as is Revive Our Hearts, the ministry that we serve. We all have it. We all know it has pitfalls. We want to fix that on Grounded together this morning.

Portia: Hmm, I like that word flourishing. How can we use our social media in ways that it's flourishing and glorifying to God? I think sometimes that's hard. Because first of all, social media is always changing. 

Erin: Yeah. 

Portia: And there's so many voices and so much, that it can be overwhelming. Sometimes it's distracting. But the good thing is that it allows us to get . . . I've met so many people, and I've been able to share the gospel and just wisdom from the Bible in so many ways. 

Erin: We don't want to throw the social media baby out with the bathwater, but we don't want to ignore the challenges that are there either. I don't know if this happens to you P, but for me every Sunday, when I'm walking into church, I get that screen time report that pops up on my phone. The timing is just either really good or really bad, because I'm often like, “Holy cow.” When you see how many hours a day you're spending on your phone. It's not just measuring social media, but it's eye opening. I always feel like I need to repent. 

But I would love to just not have that ongoing challenge of feeling like, “Oh, I got to have it.” But I'm not always managing it well. Here's what I think is really odd, social media is here to stay. 

So, whereas maybe several years ago, we might have been debating if we were even on social media. We are, and we're probably going to stay on it. So, Portia asked the right question, how do we use this part of our everyday lives? It's not going away. How do we use it to God's glory? I do think it's possible. I think we have to wrestle with the real pitfalls and realize they do apply to us. That's not just somebody else. 

So, Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, who I hope I don't get that last name in a spelling bee, she's here. She's teamed up with some good thinkers to create a resource. The mission there is to shift our perspective, which we're all about that. You're on Grounded about social media. So, we're going to talk with Sarah really soon. But first P, you got a job to do. Our ladies are ready. They need some good news today.

Good News—8:03

Portia: Absolutely. And you know, I'm happy to bring it. Our good news might look a little familiar today. It's because it's you. I we had the joy of meeting many of you at True Woman ’22. We can hug your necks, and you guys did not disappoint. Okay, you did it. So many of you came up to us and told us, “Hey, we're Grounded Girls.” What a beautiful example of using social media well. We gather in this digital space with you week after week. We have forged friendships that are meaningful, out there in the real world. And so, you are one of the blessings of digital media. 

Without Grounded, our connections with each other may not have formed. And so, you're one reason that we can't just ditch social media altogether. We want to keep connecting with you. And we want to keep hugging your necks. All right. So, you are the reason that we do this week after week. Getting to meet you in person was an opportunity that we are still thanking God for. So thank you for being our good news. 

Those pictures. I love them. Okay, all of the smiling faces. It was the highlight. Check this out. I got another piece of bonus good news for you this morning. Our very own Nathan Bollinger is a vital part of our tech team that produces Grounded. Those of you who attended or watched True Woman ’22 saw the story of how Nathan and his wife Katie lost their son, Samuel, and they still gave God all the glory. Well, we have some very happy news from the Grounded family . . . trying to do this without crying. Nathan and Katie have welcomed their new baby girl, Natalie Joy. 

She came bursting into the world on September 29. She was seven pounds and eleven ounces. We love her already. I think we’ve got a picture of Natalie Joy, that we can flash across the screen. But we just want to say congrats to Nathan and Katie. We love you. And if you missed their powerful story, we've got you covered. We will drop a link to it in the chat. I encourage you to go check it out, and make sure you get your tissues ready. All right, Erin.

Grounded with God's People: Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra—11:36

Erin: So true. Man, I love a double dose of good news kinda day. I hope that you saw our smiles as we got to hug you, meet you, wrap our arms around you. You are good news to us every week. We want to equip you, and we want you to help equip us to use social media well. So Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra serves with us. She's the senior writer, and faith and work editor for the Gospel Coalition. She edited a recent project called Social Sanity in an Insta World. I have my copy, and my copy is already marked up because this is an area of my life that I want to run the race well with and just haven't always felt like I'm doing that. So welcome to Grounded Sarah. We are ready to learn from your wisdom.

Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra: Thank you so much for having me. What a joy to be here.

Erin: Okay, Sarah, do you have social media yourself? And if you do, what are the challenges you face in your own life as a follower of Jesus and a social media user?

Sarah: Okay, so listen to this. I had social media the whole time that I was writing this book, and I did a podcast which is called Girling Alone in which I talked to Gen Z girls about their use of social media. While I was talking with them, I was so convicted by what they were saying that six months ago, I got rid of all of my social media accounts.

Erin: You went dark. 

Sarah: I went dark about a month ago.

Erin: I applaud that. I made that decision with Facebook several years ago. My conviction was what I was doing was gossip. I'm not saying everybody who uses Facebook, but it was the way I was kind of voicing into people's lives. I've always been so grateful that I did that. There is a temptation to go dark. Maybe I'll get there someday. 

But I love what you learned that had that dramatic of a shift in your life, very cool. 

I want to get to some data. I know my audience well enough to know that some of them are gonna say, this isn't for me. The thing I always hear about Facebook and social media is I have it but I don't ever use it. I'm like, well, somebody's using it a lot. I don't think we're even honest about our own usage. 

So, here's some data that came from your book, “women use social media more than men.” I don't know that I would have affirmed that. Before I read that in your book, or known it was true, “We are more likely to repeatedly check in during the day.” That's the area where I feel like I'm out of control. I mean, I just click it mindlessly. “We use more hug and smile emojis,” which Yeah, we do. We love the emojis. “We post twice as often.” I think that's because we want to showcase what's going on in our lives and our families. “We post more selfies than men,” which I think is interesting. It sounds okay so far. But what do you hear about women about how social media makes them feel? We affirm all those things. We're heavy users. What is the result of that in our hearts and our minds, you think?

Sarah: I mean, we just see skyrocketing rates of depression, anxiety, isolation. We just hear a lot about women feeling like they're competing. You look at somebody else's stuff online, and you can genuinely feel joy and happy for them. But a lot of times you feel either bad about yourself, oh, man, her life looks like it's so great. Or, man, she's a mess, right? I'm glad I'm not like that. I feel like what you're talking about with gossiping, that's a real challenge. 

But I think you also touched on something. That's a huge challenge, especially for women who are maybe Gen X and millennial women, which is a time suck. It is a tremendous time that . . . and it's not just your screen time report. The author has a tail. So even after you log off, you're thinking about, Man, I wonder if I could do that too. Or if it's amazing that she did that, or, Oh, I'm so mad about that. Your emotions and your mind are far longer. You talk about it with your friends. You talk about it with your spouse. You're engaged in that a lot longer than what your screen time says they are.

Erin: Social media does have a tail. I never thought of it that way. When my husband and I get a rare night out without our kids, I was like, “Okay, here's the deal. We're not gonna talk about our jobs. Because we talk a lot. We're not gonna talk about our kids. Because I would talk about that alot.” So, we ended up just talking to each other about the emoji or the memes we saw that day. It was meaningless, but it's still in our mind. So, it does have a tail. 

Something that is interesting to me is the algorithm for me on Instagram that is always feeding me. Wedding dresses and gender reveals—which I'm out of that stage of life and married twenty-two years. My baby's four, but I must be drawn to looking at a different season of life on my own. Because you know, in these middle years, they're not that exciting. I mean, lots going on. But I'm not saying yes to the dress, and I'm not exposing that I'm having another baby. I think I'm kind of drawn to those more exciting seasons, which I think speaks to something in my heart. 

So, it's not it's not as cut and dry as I think we sometimes think. You share this idea that we could use this sacred to sanctified approach of embracing our limits, which I think this is where the conversation needs to go for women. What do you mean by embracing our limits as it pertains to social media?

Sarah: Jen Wilkin writes one of our first chapters. She does such a good job. She revealed to me as I was reading that social media promises you that you can be limitless. You can be friends with everybody. You can know everything. You can know everything immediately as it's happening. It just promises you can be everywhere. The more technology we get, the more it makes us feel like we're like God in those omniscient and omnipresent ways, and social media is no different and it promises to us a limitless existence. 

However, I am not God. I cannot work in every situation that I see on social media in a way that gives glory to God and brings good to the world. And so, as a limited creature that has finite resources and time and attention, for me to scroll through a newsfeed and the hurting family, followed by an ad for Hobby Lobby followed by a gender reveal party followed by somebody's kid did this followed by somebody went camping. It's just a lot for our brain to process. 

We don't process it fast enough, and it makes us anxious. That is one reason why I'm feeling so anxious about that anxiety all the time. So, embracing your limits, remembering that you're limited. Is one of your keys to success.

Erin: Come one. And that's the heart of this issue. I've never heard anybody explore before, which I was hoping we get to some of those like really deep heart issues, which yeah, I am trying to be everywhere at once. I am trying to see everything all the time. I am trying to be engaged on multiple fronts. And the jury's not out. The jury is in that as anxiety has skyrocketed, so has our social media uses or vice versa. So, it's good for us to be aware that we're having an internal reaction to all that we're seeing. 

A word I don't hear much at all, but especially tied to social media is the word discernment. But that's a pretty churchy word. So, what is discernment? As you've walked through these months, I'm sure of studying social media and God's Word, how have you walked out discernment in your own life?

Sarah: That's really good. Discernment is using wisdom to choose the best path. And there's a million definitions with that one. I think for us as women on social media, it's the easiest path, right? It's social media. I'm getting bored. I'm tired. I want to check out a little bit. I feel like I need a break from whatever I'm working on. Social media is our easy go to drug of choice for that, like, that's just going to fill up our time and give us a little bit of a lift. But if we're really using discernment and thinking ahead about how we want to spend our time, the return on investment we get for social media is very low. We did a survey of 1,500. We sent it out to TGC-related women—the women who go to our conferences or buy our books. These are women who have pretty strong theology and love the Lord and go to church regularly. 

They said that the primary reason that they go to social media is to connect with friends and family. I'm sure that resonates with you, right? We want to go there because we love people. We want to build community. We want to show them Jesus, and we want to walk with them. 

And yet less than 2% said that when they want to connect with friends and family, social media is the primary way that they go. If you want to tell your mom something you call her, if you want to tell your best friend something you say come over for coffee, or you go for a walk or you whatever it might be. But our return on investment for like the amount of time that we have invested in social media. And the return we're getting back, which is like, Suzy from ninth can see our posts. It doesn't match.

Erin: Yeah, you're right. You're so right. I mean, my inner circle . . . I'm only on Instagram. I'm trying to think of my closest group of friends, how many of them follow me or I follow them on Instagram. It's a very, very small percentage. I've tried to protect that because that world doesn't feel real. It's composed of thousands of people I may never meet. So the wisest path, I love that idea. Take us to Psalm 119:37. I'll have you read it to us. Then just give us a social media application because this was written before social media. But all Scripture is God breathed and useful for instruction. So how do you apply this specific verse to social media?

Sarah: Yeah. It says, “Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and give me life in your ways.”

There's a lot of worthless things that are out there. I don't necessarily mean sinful things, or bad things, even. If my choice is looking at my children who are in front of me, or looking at my work that is in front of me that I'm getting paid to do, or looking at a book a biography of a person that is really admirable, when you think about that, versus Philippians, about what we are to set our mind than how much of that aligns with looking at advertisements or the gossipy stuff that we look at online . . . 

I'm not saying we should never go there. I'm just saying that if you were building a pyramid of how you want your life to look, Brett McCracken built a wisdom pyramid. And the very tip top where you should spend the smallest amount of your time is social media. And the rest of it, we should be like cramming our lives full of the Bible and worship music and planning for our families in our own lives, volunteering in our church. 

Erin: Being outside without photographs being watched. 

Sarah: Yes, being outside, yeah. 

Erin: Yep.

Sarah: Yep, exactly. So, choosing the better way. I think is how we can apply disarming here.

Erin: I love that. You can be on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook, you could be on them ten hours a day, and you're standing with the Lord is not dependent on that. But He's always leading us to a more excellent way. You're helping us ask the right questions. Is it a sin to be on social media? 

Well, we need to paint it with a really broad brush, then no. But is it turning your eyes away from worthless things? For me, it's the cooking videos. Man, I could watch videos all day and then be too tired to cook dinner for my family. Watching all the videos, they're not really helping me be a better cook. There's nothing sinful about a cooking video, but sometimes it can be pretty worthless. 

There's a section in the book on posting well, which I love. Actually, this is something that my pastor will approach from the pulpit regularly, which I appreciate. But what are some of the guardrails that you've learned to implement? Now you’re social media free, but before what were some of the guardrails for how, when, why, you post?

Sarah: Yeah, I think we just fall into a couple of traps. And one is sort of aspirational posting. We know we do this and we keep doing it, which is like, everything is going so great, or you're really just posting when good things are happening. I'm not saying that wrong. I think probably that's the right use of social media is another way we can fall off the trap. It's happening to Gen Z girls, you get into vulnerability posting, when you're actually posting inappropriately, too much bad stuff that wasn't really meant to be shared with everyone. 

Erin: Yeah.

Sarah: So to choose kind of that middle way. One of the best ways you can do that is your social media should be an overflow of your real life. And so, when you're just on social media constantly, you start to just sound like a repeat of everything else that's on social media. But if you're going to actually come up with something original to say, and a good connection to make, or an insight into God's Word or observation about the world around you, you have to be rooted and mostly living in the real world. 

Erin: You froze a little bit, but you were given us some good stuff there. I'm glad you're back. For me, I felt that as a writer, I started writing like all these other social media voices. One thing I have to protect as a writer is my own God-given distinct voice. We've become a melting pot, and maybe not a great way. 

All right, last question, I want to ask about accountability, and here's why. I feel like we're the blind leading the blind, I really cannot point to anybody in my life that I say I really admire the way that they are using social media, and the way that it reflects in their real life and vice versa. So, it's a little hard for us to hold each other accountable when none of us are doing it well. How do you have accountability in your own life, even off social media, but what some accountability steps we can take?

Sarah: Yeah, so I think the first place you could ask is your family, your husband, or your mom, or your really close friend, or somebody who knows you? Well, to talk honestly about it with you, I started the book this way. My husband used to lock me out of Facebook, because I couldn't keep myself off. And so, he would lock me out and change my password. Then he would log me in and say, like on Sunday afternoons, “Okay, you can go for a little bit.” That didn't solve my problem. But that is one example of literally giving your password to someone else and saying, “Would you help me with this?”

Erin: That’s addiction language there, which is important because we are addicts. 

Sarah: So another great thing you can do to break that. So, you can even start to think about it, because I'm gonna be honest, I feel like I'm coming out of a fog. I feel like I'm thinking clearly for the first time in years after being off of it. And so, I think even if you take a thirty-minute, or a thirty-day break from it . . . I mean, this is a lot harder for you guys, when you're in ministry, and you have a public face and things but for your average woman taking a thirty-day break, should be something that you could at least aspire to and work toward. 

Once you do that, you can kind of get yourself grounded again and think clearly about how do I want to be on social media? Do I want to be there? Is that worth my time? And then what do I want to do while I'm there? Is my primary goal to connect friends and family? Could I do that better? Another way, is my primary goal to show the love of Jesus? What's the most effective way I can do that? Is my primary goal to learn how to do cooking or fold my laundry or whatever? In which case like, okay, let's limit myself. But I think before you even get to accountability has to be what am I even doing here? What am I trying to be held accountable to?

Erin: That's good. Let the Lord do some of that heart work for you, do the hard work of putting guardrails? Yeah, we're I mean, we're mid-November here, we're heading into the holiday season, which to me feels like a really great time to turn it off and enjoy your family without the phone. My kids, I think my kids would tell you I'm on it too much. I also have noticed my kids want me to take a picture of them for every single thing they do. They already without their own social media accounts have this instinct to ascribe value to it. And I would just love to have Thanksgiving Day without posting my turkey which will probably be beautiful or Christmas to New Year’s or whatever. That's something you can start thinking of right now. Where you're going to pull the plug so that you can be more fully present here.

Sarah, you gave us a whole lot to think about. I'll give you the last word as you've thought holistically about Scripture and social media and being a child of God and living in this tech-filled world. What was the heart of the matter that you took away from all that?

Sarah: This is the message I would want to tell people, it is worth thinking about. It is worth thinking about the amount of time you spend there. It is worth taking some time to pray about this. It seems like such a small dumb thing why would you even pray about it? But the time it takes shows that it is not, and it is affecting your heart in real ways. So, it is worth reading a book, talking to friends, praying, taking a break, thinking intentionally about it. This can this will change your life. We're being discipled here, so think about it.

Erin: Yeah, let's not be lemmings, church. Let's use the discernment muscles. God's given us each other. God's given us Scripture. God's given us so that we can really be discipled and disciple others. Well, you said read a book. We want you to ladies to read your book, because it's so solid. So we're gonna give a link to that book. Give us the title one more time.

Sarah: Yeah, it is called Social Sanity in an Insta World. I edited it. But there are chapters in here by Jen Wilkin and Melissa Krueger, and Ruth Chou Simons, and the Risen Motherhood girls. I just looked for people who are smart at this and asked them to write a chapter.

Erin: All of them except Jen Wilkin have been on Grounded. So there's some you can claim as your own, but we also claim them as our own. 

Sarah: Yeah, they’re just good girls.

Erin: Yeah, good Grounded girls. Sarah, you've given us a lot to think about. I really appreciate it. Thanks for being on Grounded.

Sarah: Hey, thanks for having me.

Erin: Portia, let's get grounded in God's Word.

Grounded in God's Word: Eph. 2:4–10—28:50

Portia: Yeah, so so good. I was just sitting here thinking about how that was just chock full of so much wisdom. I think that is like one of the things that we need when it comes to our use of social media, using wisdom. One of the things really quickly that I've started practicing is, I will sit with something before I post it for a little while. Meaning that if it's a thought, or because there are a few things that I want to filter that through. Is it biblical? Because I don't want to be just out here saying anything. Also, is it necessary for me to say this? Is it helpful? 

So, I think using a lot of the things that you guys talked about is just going to help us to use our social media more in wise ways and for God's glory. And with that, would you believe that I created my first social media account sixteen years ago!? That's right. I know, I look like I'm sixteen right now. But yes, in 2006, I signed up to join Facebook and get this: during those years, you actually had to receive a special invitation to sign up. Like somebody had to send it to you; you couldn't just go and sign up on your own. 

A lot has changed with social media since 2006. But one thing still remains the same. Social media carries a great deal of influence in many of our lives. And while I can appreciate many aspects of social media, I must admit that I'm often very concerned about the long-term effects that this influencer culture has on us as believers. 

You know, from what I've seen, influencer culture ascribes value to people based on the number of followers you have or likes. And unfortunately, this system of perceived merit can lead us to think that we aren't important or valued because we don't have a plethora of followers or likes or content that everybody is sharing. 

I experienced the reality of this problem just a few weeks ago at the True Woman ’22 conference. A sweet Grounded sister approached me and she excitedly said, “I watch Grounded and watch you on Grounded. I follow you. I feel like I know you.” Then she said something that broke my heart a little bit. She said, “You don't know me. I'm not anybody special.” And she started talking about how she didn't have any platform or just an average social media account. I immediately grabbed her hands, and I told her, “Yes, you are special; you are very special.” And I know it may have seemed trite to respond in this way, but it is true. As beloved sisters in Christ, we are all special. The gospel of Jesus Christ makes each of us so special and so loved. 

You know, the interesting thing about the message of the gospel is that it goes against the grain of everything relative to influencer culture. The gospel takes what is despised, the gospel takes the ugly and makes it beautiful. The gospel calls the last to be first and the first to be last. Th e gospel says the road of the servant is more blessings than the road of the served. The gospel gives worth not because of who we are, or how many followers we have, or how much we're liked, but all because of Christ. 

I want you to listen to the words of the apostle Paul, from the book of Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 4 through 10. It says, 

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us,made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.

Sister, I want you to hear this and hear me loud and clearly, you don't have to be the influencer. Your value to the kingdom of God does not rest in your platform, or your social media presence, or the amount of likes that you have. It all rests in Christ. You are His workmanship. Christ is the one who crowns us with all dignity, value, worth, and honor. Rest in that truth today, amen. 

Well, it takes humility for us to admit that it is hard for us to control our appetites and behaviors when it's particularly when it comes to social media. And so, the first step toward wisdom in this area in any area is humility. And here's more on that idea. From our very own Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. Watch this one-minute clip.

Video Clip: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth—35:37

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Now to seek wisdom, as we're praying in this petition today, is an expression of humility. Hey guys, we say, “Lord, please give me wisdom and discernment.” I say, “Lord, I don't have my own wisdom is not enough to deal with this situation. My wisdom is not sufficient to deal with this problem.” 

You may be saying, “Lord, my wisdom is not sufficient to deal with this child for whom no textbook was ever written. I need your wisdom.” By the way, this is one of the reasons that I think God delights to put us into circumstances, in situations that are too big for us, too hard for us to great for us to handle. It may be marriage to a difficult man, it may be the loss of a mate, it may be a perplexing situation in the workplace, and maybe a difficult relationship and maybe a financial conundrum. We say, “I need You. I need Your wisdom. I don't know how to deal with this situation.” 

Erin: Do you need wisdom when it comes to social media? I do. I'd love to hear from you. I want you to leave us a comment. You just have to write, “I need wisdom” because I do think when it comes to how to wisely navigate social media, we're all out of our depth. God has given us that promise that when we ask Him for wisdom, He doesn't have any qualifiers about what we're asking for wisdom about, He's going to give it to us generously. And so, we always want to help equip you to live out the things that we're talking about here on Grounded so this Grounded is not just about filling your head with more information. We hope that what we talked about here makes it to your feet or makes it to your thumbs in this case. 

And so, we want to give you some tools to walk out that wisdom that I know God's gonna give you. We've got a Revive Our Hearts podcast episode to recommend you. It’s called “A Right Perspective on Social Media.” It's a conversation between Dannah and Kelly Needham and other Grounded guests that we love. And we always just want to put that right at your fingertips. So we're gonna drop the link for that into the episode notes. 

Kelly has also written a ReviveOurHearts.com blog post called “Silencing the Noise.” And it may be that God is calling you into a season of silencing your social media. It may be like our guest, God's calling you to turn the volume all the way down on that. But social media is loud. And how do you navigate that? When do you get quiet, if ever you need quiet, I need quiet. So we're going to drop the link to all of that. So, you have it at your fingertips as well. 

Portia, I don't know what I expected from this episode. But I'm walking away way more equipped than I thought I was going to be with a whole new group of questions about social media that I'd never asked before I just kind of wanted to put it in good or bad. And it's neutral in terms of whether it's sin or not. So, we’ve got to ask harder questions. Is there a question you heard in this episode that was a new thought for you?

Portia: It was so much in this episode. 

Erin: I think some of us are gonna need to take that step. Yes.

Portia: I think that's a burden. I do.I'm concerned about how it affects us. But I'm really concerned about how to fix those younger than us and what we are communicating with our use of social media. 

Erin: I agree. I know that if I asked my family, they would say that I'm on my phone too much. I don't want that to be the case. I want to be very, very present. I feel those boys are moving towards adulthood at lightning speed. But I just get sucked into it. 

So, I love the thought about accountability. We want to be that for you. We want you to be that for us. So, I was thinking one application is that we could issue just a really practical challenge that we could all take starting today, a simple step towards wiser social media usage. And that is to make the decision that we're not going to look at our social media before we look at our Bible. If that means that we’ve got to get up earlier and get to Scripture first, so be it. If it means we don't look at our social media all day because we haven't had time to dig into God's Word, so be it. But I feel like that's something we could all say yes to. 

So, for the remainder of this month, which is you know, three weeks or so, if you would make that commitment that you're not going to look at social media before you look at your Bible. Let us know that you're with us. I'm going to take that. I'm going to ask you to hold me accountable. And I want you to do the same.

Portia: Likewise.

Erin: You're in, two of us at least.

Portia: I'm in. Well, I guess there's nothing else left to say other than wake up with hope together next week on Grounded. 

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