"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Matthew 6:33
I think the title to this post is stupid.
I have no idea if Jesus would tweet somebody were he walking around today, and if he did - what would it look like?
"2:24pm...Hey, I'm going over to this gal's house who is a little under the weather....oops, hold on, somebody just touched my khakis....update you in a few".
"2:56pm...Sorry for the delay... the guy that grabbed my pants is back to normal...and I just fixed this gal's leg (and her roof)"
"4:14pm....praying.........4:46pm....still am........."
If Jesus were tweeting, I would subscribe. I'm just not sure if he would or wouldn't tweet. I can only speak for me.
And I won't.
Ok, let me give the disclaimer - "I in no way consider tweeting unspiritual, demonic, or foul. It is simply a choice that I, an individual Christian am making; thus, I have no desire to impose my view on you or imply anything condemnatory by my actions." I think I said that just like my attorney wrote it......
There are a number of reasons why I won't be tweeting any time soon (or any time later), and I will go ahead and list a few:
1. I am cluttered enough. Like I now need to manage my life second by second for the public who is waiting with baited breath for my next tweet - right; I need that like I need a cactus sandwich.
2. It's only virtually relational - not really relational. There is an aspect of relationship that simply can't be covered with technology - the actual face to face human interaction that generates feelings of varying kinds and develops a bond.
3. The motivation of why I would tweet, and why someone would want me to tweet them is a bit scary. Seriously, why would I want to list out all my moves in life for people to follow? Do I think people are that interested in me? If I do, that's scary. And, why would I want to follow someone else's life that closely? It's like virtual stalking. I love people, but I seriously don't care about your dilemma at Hobby Lobby of whether to purchase the Snuggie or the Sham Wow. On either side, as a tweeter or tweetie, I am just not following the motivation. Same could be said for blogs that do in macro format what Twitter does in micro format.
4. It would interfere with my 6 hours a day "poking" on Facebook (joking...not on there either).
What ever happened to simplicity? It is a discipline of the spiritual life that can get lost so fast in this real time "tweeting" world that we actually forget that simplicity is what Soren Kierkegaard said, "Purity of heart is to will one thing." Basically, with this definition, you have the opposite of duplicity (two competing loyalties or priorities). Simplicity eliminates that which detracts from our ability to seek first the Kingdom of God, and keeps us focused, centered, and prioritized. In this day and age, that should not be underestimated.
Clearly, I'm not anti-technology. I'm blogging right now about simplicity (seems sort of funny). Even better, I recently read a blog about simplicity, and at the top of the blog the guy asks you to track with him on Stumble Upon, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Digg, and of course provides an RSS feed. That's even funnier (more ironic maybe).
Technology is fine. It's a moral neutral - it's all in how we use it. And technology is not the issue of this post - the human heart is. When we don't find our satisfaction in seeking first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, then we feel the vacuous nature of our heart and mind. As a result, we have a need to fill the gaps with activity - something to take our minds off of our emptiness and lack of purpose. For some, we live through other's lives (tweeting, FB, etc.). Others fill those gaps other ways. But all of us must come back to the words of Jesus and realize that if we don't first seek Him, then we are going to be radically off center and increasingly frustrated in our spiritual growth.
That's why a few of these choices I make in my life are because I can't afford the clutter. Sometimes my heart and mind is cluttered enough. Sometimes I have trouble concentrating on Jesus and His Kingdom even without all the distractions. Adding too much to my life, even when the culture is pressuring me to do it, is simply counterproductive for my spiritual development. Maybe you could ask yourself the question, "What have I filled my life with that is making me more cluttered and wrestling my attention away from the things of the Kingdom?" I don't know what your answers might be, but some of mine are obvious. Tweet Tweet.
