Cutting the apron strings

photo credit

Today is my 6 month anniversary of being Facebook free!!!  Today, my last ties to social media networking are being cut.  I was one of the first of my friends to join Facebook, back in my junior year of high school, and today I am going to be one of the first to leave.

People don't understand why I'm walking away from connection to the world.... but that's just it.  I don't want to be plugged in.  How can I work on being not of this world if my life is so consumed with being connected to the world.  I admit that I don't have all the answers.  I don't see what choosing this path will do for me in the long run.
But I do know that for me, this path, this choosing to turn off Facebook is me choosing the narrow path.  Matthew 7:13 and 14 says this:

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.   Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it."

I also really like the way that The Message words verse 14.

The way to life-to God!-is vigorous and requires total attention.

Total attention.  Every. single. ounce. of my being, of my strength.  Total attention is all encompassing.  It means that I'm giving everything to my Redeemer.  I will let nothing stand in the way of my relationship with Him and with the work that He has given me to complete.

I'm not at the point of 'total attention' yet.  But this is one more step of purposefully walking down the road that the Lord has assigned to me.  We've all been given different paths to follow, all narrow, and all leading to Jesus.  That's what we have to remember.  When we come around a bend to find downed trees in the middle of our country lane, it's not wisdom to leave the path and find a way around it.  Wisdom is camping down under the stars for a night and thinking about how Jesus made it through our downed trees.  He didn't stray from the path in order to find an easier route.    We have to stay the path we've been given.  Maybe that means we wait until God brings someone else down our country lane in order to help us pull the branches away, or maybe the Creator of Heaven and Earth will leave a chainsaw by our pillow in the middle of the night.  He will always provide a way, and provision along with it. 
Matthew 6: 25-30 (emphasis added)

 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
“So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;  and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

What can you scale down or eliminate in your life in order to let God have your total attention?
I'm working on my problem with unjust judgment and simplifying.


This is what the Lord says:
"Stand at the crossroads and look;
Ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is,
and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls."
~Jeremiah 6:16 (NIV)

-Kaitlynn Marie