It is sometimes hard to be in this digital world, which is intriguing and interesting enough to draw us in, but lecturey and alarming enough to chase us out. I think the secret to the balance is having only a few issues of focus – a couple of hills you’d fight for on a battlefield.
One of mine, for example, is religious liberty. For all. The basic premise of my faith is “free will,” so all must be free to choose their faith, and I hope with that freedom, they’ll find our One True God. So I keep up on what’s happening with America’s religious liberty but also the world’s: the persecution of the Nigerian Christians and the enslavement of their Ighyur Muslims in China are two areas currently on my radar.
Another hill of mine is the poor. Since I had a childhood in the 3rd world, Americans are never truly poor to me, but I do feel a pull toward some areas where the people lack hope: a small town across Mobile Bay, and an area of Appalachia that haunted me when we drove through it last Summer. Online, I focus on the world’s poor, and am currently following the exciting ideas of the current Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, who is encouraging the citizens to focus on agriculture so he can focus on export. Also, I watch the work of Mercy Ships off the coast of Africa and cannot wait to join them in their work for a season.
By having only a few battlefields, I can skim other news as it comes by. This is not the same as having a head in the sand, nor of “silence is complicity.” If I saw an injustice in front of me, it would no doubt become a new battlefield I would add to the others.
This is how I keep balance between life and social media. Not that I am always balanced! But when I’m not balanced, I know how to self-correct: focus on my home, family, creativity, and nature, limiting the news to my chosen battlefields.
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