Pastor Tom Lundeen of Riverside Church delivered a great message yesterday about the constant negativity we are surrounded with in our daily lives. Much of the negativity we see has been exasperated through the rise in social media usage, making it feel like this must be something unique to today' world. Yet, Moses faced a lot of negativity and criticism when leading the people out of out of Egypt as the book of Exodus documents.
Pastor Tom's message is timely considering the highly divisive society we live in today, and his message connects deeply with a question I've been wrestling with myself:
"What did I know for certain 10, 15, or 20 years ago that I've changed my stance on, or question the certainty of today?"
As we mature we take in new information, which should be used to continually challenge our current beliefs for inconsistency. When we find holes in our current beliefs, and discover the belief we were certain about in the past now resembles Swiss cheese, we should be willing to consider whether or not the belief is worthy of holding any longer.
A couple key takeaways summarized by Pastor Tom during his sermon:
* Critics will always find something/someone to criticize.
* It takes no skill/ability to in a broken world filled with people (including us) that have spiritually defective DNA to be a critic.
* There is a difference between Constructive criticism is Destructive criticism. Unfortunately, Destructive criticism is what dominates our world today.
* The core of Destructive criticism results from a gratitude shortage.
* When we are faced with struggles/difficulties we can't control or solve, it's easy to turn to despair/criticism.
* A critical spirit finds a home in a heart/mind that thinks only pleasure and prosperity, not pain and adversity, should ever be experienced.
* A critical spirit causes us to see things in a distorted way.
* The spiritual discipline of gratitude is emphasized as important for followers of Jesus, in part, to divert us from the unhealthy path of negative criticism.
While some may find irony in reading a message about the spread of negativity through social media on a social media platform, I don't believe all social media platforms are created equally. Personally, I find some social media platforms more algorithmically programmed to display things known to bring about negative emotions, liken anger, frustration, and resentment. To the contrary, I find reading #Nostr notes on platforms like
@primal, where I, not an algorithm, determine what's in my feed, to be a more positive experience.
The biggest improvement we can make in our lives with regards to social media is being aware of what emotions are brought to the forefront on the different social media platforms. The next improvement we can make is to spend more time on the platforms brining about positive emotions, and less time on the platforms where negative emotions are produced.
You can watch Pastor Tom's entire message here:
Vimeo
Riverside Online [Sun Jan 18th, 2025 12:05 PM]
We’re glad you’re here! How can we be praying for you? https://myrc.link/prayer Notes for today’s message: https://www.myrc.chu...
