Fast

Ten things that are fast:

10. Getting dinner from Little Ceasar's (5 minutes there and back with a Hot n Ready pizza)
9. Usain Bolt (27 mph)
8. The ThrustSCC jet-powerd vehicle that holds the current land speed record (763 mph)
7. Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird aircraft (2193 mph)
6. Light in a vacuum (670,616,629 mph)
5. The speed in which information travels the world
4. The speed in which anyone can contact me and I will contact them back
3. How quickly I neglect maintaining relationships with friends and family who have shaped my life
2. How quickly the time I have left for my wife and kids at the end of most days passes
1. How quickly the time I have left for God after that is given to other distractions.

     For these and other reasons I have decided to "fast," that is abstain from one thing in order to reaffirm the priority of another. In this case I want to reaffirm that God is first in my life, my family is second, and everything else is somewhere behind that. The thing I am going to abstain from should fall somewhere in the 1000-2000 range of my priority list, but it has somehow managed to weasel it's way up to undeserved amounts of attention. You know what it is before I even say it, Facebook!

     Go ahead and moan out loud and roll your eyes at yet another person who is so self-centered that they feel the need to announce to the world their planned absence from a social media site so that people are "prepared" with tissues and emergency supplies for the impending devastation that will surely befall the planet during their "Facebreakation" (<-- it's a real word. Look it up on Google). I deserve the scorn, because I am pretty self-centered. I know my ultimate motivation for writing this blog is not as arrogant as it appears, but in all honesty there is a part of me that hopes that my Facebook friends will grieve my absence. I would be a little disappointed if when I log back in to Facebook on a future date there are no messages, friend requests, or even annoying requests to do some digital deed to improve someone's imaginary life in "The Ville."

     Therein lies the problem and my motivation for this fast. Since when did I become Pavlov's dog by responding to dings and white numbers in little red circles or message bubbles or people silhouettes in a moment's notice? Why can't I sleep until I have checked the latest news from the "Custom Van Appreciation Society" (yes it's a real group I am part of :-D)? What does it say to my family and my God when I choose to hit the refresh button to see if there is anything new posted in the past 30 seconds from one of the 420 or so people on the planet who mean less to me than them rather than closing the laptop or turning off the tablet? These questions reveal something somewhere deeper in my life than merely my time on Facebook, but the journey to find out has to start somewhere.

     So here's what I'm doing. Starting midnight on 9/1/12 I will not be logging on to Facebook for 40 days and 40 nights. I'm deleting the Facebook app entirely on my tablet. I'm deleting links and using a filter to block Facebook in my browser. I'm giving permission to my family, co-workers, and friends to verbally or physically rebuke me in whatever way they see fit if I even mention the words "face" and "book" in the same sentence. I suspect some of them will look for opportunities to entrap me to test the limits of the punishment I will allow.

     Simply ignoring Facebook for 40 days and 40 nights isn't necessarily beneficial so I have also decided to proactively plan out something for each of those days to address the issues presented in my top 3 items in the list. My top priority in that time is to listen to and be led by God through additional times of worship, prayer, and study. I will also be going on a 3 day retreat from 9/6-9/9 where I will be "off the grid" so to speak from even my family, but that has been planned for several months.

     Additionally, I have made a list of some people in my life that I consider to be among the most valuable relationships I have had in the past and/or currently have in my present. I am dreaming up some ways to either reconnect or deepen my bonds with those people. Some of you reading this may be on the list and will learn more about that later. Many others didn't make the list, maybe even some that deserved to, but right or wrong I chose who I chose for my own reasons. I am considering possibly sharing some of what I end up doing and what happens as a result of that in future blog posts.

     Don't be mad at Facebook. I'm not. Facebook is just a tool, equally capable of performing good and evil depending on the character of the one using it. I'm more mad at myself for allowing myself to get to a place where I feel the need to do such a thing to straighten out what I've made crooked. Don't assume that Kim has put me up to this just because she tried this same thing not too long ago (although she helped spark the idea in my head). Our relationship is not in turmoil and neither of us has had some sort of great moral failure that required us to leave the big FB. In fact both of our decisions have had more to do with choosing a better available option than trying to escape an "evil" force of social media. I currently have every intention of returning to what I hope will be a healthier use of Facebook somewhere around October 11th. (Mark your calendars! :-D)

     Likewise, my faith and hope in God is not in doubt. It's not as though I have abandoned all the spiritual disciplines of our relationship and am about to crumble into a rebellious and bitter life. If anything my love for God has grown deeper in recent years and maybe it's brought me to a more mature place where I can acknowledge that I can and should be doing more to walk with Him than what I and others have been content with so far. My goal has never been to do good enough but to do the best I can. I am pretty excited about the opportunity to worship God in this way over the next 40 days and nights and for those of you willing to pray for me during this time I would be grateful for you to do so.

     I shall leave you with these wise words from Philippians 3:10-16:

10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. 15 All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 16 Only let us live up to what we have already attained.