I love Instagram. It is by far my favorite way to share my story with the world. I love looking at my feed, seeing what friends liked my photos and so on. I think it's the greatest social network out there. It's weird to think that I've been alive for the inventions of all the different social networks that have come and gone. While Myspace will always hold a special place in my heart, there is no doubt that Instagram is and will be my favorite.
This past month I challenged myself to have a plan with my Instagrams. I didn't want to post just because I could. I wanted to tell a story through my Instagrams about who I am and what matters to me. I even wrote down my Instagram mission statement : Through my Instagrams I want people to know that I am a passionate, happy, artistic person who loves life.
With the creation of all these social networks and ways to share parts of our lives we've taken off filters. We share things that we never would have shared or should have shared in person. We've all started telling the story, "THIS IS WHAT I AM DOING RIGHT NOW!!!!!!" We have started living with this idea that because we can post it, we should. And I think we need to stop. We need to think about the story we are telling to others. We need to have a plan for what we share. We need to start asking questions before we hit that send button. I always ask, "What is this adding to the conversation? Is this something worth posting? Does this go along with my mission statement?" If I can't say yes to those three questions then I cancel out of it.
With this idea of "what story are your Instagrams telling" I've been looking at a lot of homepages of people and here is what I have concluded. There are a lot of people out there who are telling stories about themselves in different places. There are people who are telling the story of their kids growing up. There are people telling the story of the sunset every night. There are people telling the story of stupid internet crap. There are people telling the story of what they eat. Beside the kid thing, I have done all of these things, so I am not saying they are bad. They are only bad without purpose and vision.
Psalm 107 1-2 says, "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, His love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story." If you are a Christian you are telling that story to anyone who is not a believer, so what story are you telling? Is it a selfish one? A dramatic one? Is it one where you shove bible verses down the throats of those following your feed? Or is it a beautiful one? Full of the great life that forgiveness has given you.