Prepare Him Room

This program contains portions from the following episodes:

"The Tyranny of the Urgent"

"Social Sanity in an Insta World"

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Dannah Gresh: If you look back at your life over the last week, how much time did you spend on social media in comparison with how much time you spent reading the Bible? Here’s Erin Davis.

Erin Davis: You can be on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook, you could be on them ten hours a day, and your standing with the Lord is not dependent on that. But He's always leading us to a more excellent way. 

Dannah: Social media isn’t necessarily bad. But is it keeping you from making room in your heart for Christ? We’ll talk about that today.

Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend, I’m Dannah Gresh. 

December. As soon as I flipped the calendar to this month, I could practically feel the buzz of excitement. That’s not exactly true. This year I couldn’t wait to flip the calendar. I started decorating before Thanksgiving! And now it’s here! I know what usually happens. Before you know it, my days are full, but I’m running on empty! (I actually have a plan in place to avoid that this year; I’ll tell you about it in a minute.) I can’t be the only one who struggles with this, right? 

At Christmastime, or in any season when life gets busier and busier, how do we make time for what matters most? I have an idea to help. Here throughout the month of December, I want to work our way through a Christmas carol. I’m sure you’re familiar with it: "Joy to the World." We’ll just pick up on some of the most-known lines and soak in them. 

This weekend, I want us to pause on the lyric, “Prepare Him room.”

I want to ask the question: as we get closer to celebrating Christmas, are we preparing more room in our hearts for Jesus? What does that actually look like in our lives, both here at Christmas and in every busy season? How do we make Christ the focus of our hearts and lives when we have so much going on? This weekend, let’s remember why it’s important that we make room for Him—especially when it comes to one specific area of our lives: social media. 

So get out a mug of your favorite hot drink, and come sit by the fire with me. Let’s listen as Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth talks about how to use our time well, even when the “tyranny of the urgent” tries to distract us from what’s most important.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Learn to redeem the time, or as the Scripture says, “to make the most of every opportunity.” There’s a wonderful passage in Ephesians chapter 5 that relates so well to this point.

The apostle Paul says, “See then that you walk circumspectly [or carefully], not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time” (verses 15–16, ESV). Or as another translation says, “Making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. . . . Be filled with the Spirit” (verses 16–18, NIV).

There’s a contrast here between foolish people and wise people. Foolish people live for the moment without thinking about the future, but wise people are always making decisions in light of eternity, in light of the long run. Will this matter five years from now? Will this matter in eternity?

Foolish people live for themselves, but wise people live for the glory of God and for others.Foolish people are careless with their time—they’re just reacting to life, but wise people are thoughtful and intentional and purposeful in how they use their time.

The Lord is helping me to find some practical ways to take advantage of every opportunity. And by the way, when you do your little time log, you’ll find there are probably some segments of time that are just really being wasted, that could be utilized more effectively. That’s why it helps to look at that time log and see what you’re really doing with your time.

But I find that there are segments of time, and not always big ones. If you’re a mom with little kids, you may never have a whole uninterrupted hour. But you may have five minutes while you’re sitting in the car waiting for your daughter to get out of school.

You may have a long time while you’re sitting, waiting in a doctor’s office. In fact, I’ve got in the habit of always taking with me things that need to be done that I can stick into those little moments. I usually have thank you notes, blank cards that I can use when I have moments here and there.

Often when I go the doctor’s office, I’ll take something with me that’s an editing project that I need to work on, because I know in the doctor’s office I’m going to have to wait. In fact, I can remember a couple times, sitting, waiting for a long period of time while I was getting editing done on projects that needed to be done. The doctor would come in and apologize for making me wait so long. And I’ve said, “Please don’t apologize. This is wonderful. This is the only place where I don’t get phone calls. This is the only place where I can’t get interrupted. I was able to get a lot of work done while I was sitting here waiting for you!”

So rather than sitting in the doctor’s office and reading the magazines that they choose for you, why not take the reading material that you really need to get through, the things that are important.

If we’re going to take advantage of the time God gives us, to redeem the time and make the most of every opportunity, does that mean we can never relax; we never have fun; we always make sure we’re doing something important with every spare moment? And this is an important thing to me because I grew up in a home where my dad really emphasized the danger of wasting time.

In fact, in our home we didn’t have a television, and we didn’t take a newspaper. His biggest reason for that was people waste a lot of time with newspapers. We did find ways of getting the important news, but he emphasized the importance of not wasting time.

Well, does that mean that we should never do anything that’s fun, or that’s relaxed? No, it doesn’t mean that. But it does mean that when we are relaxing, when we are recreating—having recreation—it should be intentional. It should be for a purpose of a higher priority. It may be that you realize you need to be spending relaxed time with your children. For you to sit on the floor and crayon with your toddlers for an hour is not a waste of time if you’re nurturing that little life.

That’s why you have to know—what is the season of life, and how can I take advantage of the moments God has given to me in that life?

Dannah: Oh, yes. That resonates with my heart. I hope this message from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth encourages you to make the most of every day, to make Christ your focus, whatever season of life you’re in.

So what does it look like to “prepare Him room,” particularly when it comes to social media? I ask because . . . well, I have a problem. I end up feasting on mindless, endless photos of food on social media. Of course, it's Christmas food these days. But I also get wrapped up in in looking at pictures of that perfectly wrapped gift. (I made a joke and didn't know it.) How is that going to make my day better? I admit, I do waste time scrolling, but I don’t want to. So, how do you balance your time on social media? Are you in control of it, or is it in control of you? If it’s got you locked in, you might not have room in your heart for Jesus. Social media can squeeze Him right out! 

Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra has been off social media for six months. She shares a few pitfalls that we may not see on social media in this conversation with our own Erin Davis.

Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra: 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. 

Dannah: Yes, true that is. How are you spending the majority of your time? Are you rooted in reality? It’s one way we can make more room for Jesus in your heart. You know, Sarah’s husband has had to lock her out of Facebook. (He would change her password and give her certain times to be online because she had such a hard time staying off.) He keeps her accountable. 

Who is in your life who can keep you accountable? This year for me it’s actually Erin Davis. A couple months ago, she released a book called Fasting and Feasting. It’s a devotional about having balance in the way we approach food. And, well, since food and social media and shopping and . . . well, all of it . . . throw me off-balance in December, I decided to save this little gem of a book for this month. I’m reading through it right now as my Christmas devotional. I know it’s a bit off theme, but I really want to “prepare Him room” in my heart this year like never before. So, I’m fighting all the appetites that crowd Him out. This is my personal way to do that. What’s yours? Incidentally, you could get a copy of Fasting and Feasting by Erin Davis at ReviveOurHearts.com and you can join me if you want!

Maybe you need help in the area of social media use, eat fewer Christmas cookies, stay mindful of the budget. Or in this busy holiday season, what if you ask someone to keep you accountable to do some positive things like read the Christmas story with your kids, or maybe you’d like to memorize parts or all of the Christmas story. Get creative with finding ways to prepare your heart for the Lord. 

Well, as we just heard, we know social media has its challenges. Have you been thinking about the influence it has on your life? How much weight does it hold in your heart versus the weight of the gospel? Here’s Portia Collins with some thoughts about that. 

Portia Collins: 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. 

Dannah: Amen. I hope you’ll let that truth Portia just shared really sink in: Your value rests in Christ. Isn’t that freeing? And when we stop to consider the reality of the gospel, the reality of who Jesus is, it makes me want Him to be the focus of my heart more than anything. More than my appearance on social media, more than accomplishing my great big Christmas to-do list, more than trying to keep up in the busy seasons, I want to prepare room in my heart for Christ and keep Him as my priority. Do you? 

I hope today’s episode has encouraged you as you go about the rest of your day/weekend. Through everything we do at Revive Our Hearts, our prayer is to help you and women everywhere thrive in Christ. In the storms of life, the challenges, the uncertainties all around us, our only hope is to cling to Jesus.

When you support Revive Our Hearts here in December, you’re helping anchor countless women to Jesus, the solid rock. And with your gift this month, it will be matched—dollar for dollar—through our matching gift campaign. That means your support will have twice the impact in reaching women around the world with the hope of Christ. Make your gift today by calling 1-800-569-5959, or go to our website, ReviveOurHearts.com.

Has today’s episode got you singing "Joy to the World"? We’re going to keep singing from that Christmas carol, and next time we’ll explore this line: "Repeat the sounding joy." 

Thanks for listening today. Thanks to our team: Phil Krause, Blake Bratton, Rebekah Krause, Justin Converse, Michelle Hill, Micayla Brickner, and for Revive Our Hearts Weekend, I’m Dannah Gresh

Revive Our Hearts is calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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