In 2007 Justin Rosenstein co-invented the Facebook ‘like’ button.
He says his team was looking to bring joy into the lives of Facebook users - by allowing people to show their approval for a written post, photograph, or video.
But 10 years later, he did a 180: Rosenstein deleted his Facebook account.
“I had no idea what was being created,” he said. He believes the ‘like’ button has turned into a "bright ding of pseudo-pleasure" that heavily contributes to the damaging psychological effects of social media. Indeed, a recent study found that the more time a young person spends on social media, the more likely they are to become depressed.
Rosenstein summed it up this way, “It is very common for humans to develop things with the best of intentions and for them to have unintended, negative consequences.”
Now isn’t that just how life goes?
Here we are, created by a loving God, who put love in our hearts, and made it so the act of loving is a pinnacle of human experience. And there we go, finding out over and over again, how all of this potential can turn into a royal mess.
This is what you and I know as ’being human.'
We have great intentions, but often see even our most altruistic plans go to pieces.
When we baptize someone (which we will be doing this weekend!) the liturgy we use reminds us that there are two ways we see evil in the world: outside and inside. On the outside we see the omnipresence of a negative force - think about a mob mentality or a general cultural acceptance of something that is unjust. On the inside we find evil in desires that have been distorted. Think of the hurtful things we do out of insecurity, fear, and worry.
And while we’re not usually clear on exactly how things get messed up, we know they do.
This week we will hear the third part of our fall series called ‘Awakening to God.’ What I’m hoping to do here is to use our COVID holding pattern to cultivate in you and me a new love for God and for what God is doing in each of us - that we might be awakened, like never before to the abundant life Jesus promises.
You may remember the first week when we were awakened to love - and learned that we are created to love.
And in the second week we were awakened to gratitude - learning that the best way to grow in love is through gratefulness.
Now we are at week 3, when we will look at what it means to be awakened to sin - learning not only that are we broken, but that we actually like it that way (!).
What keeps us from living in abundance, from living the ‘eternal life’ that Jesus promised us here and now, is that we settle, and even develop a fondness for things that fall far short of truly satisfying us.
So let us open our hearts to God - and allow the transformation that awaits to take hold, by waking up to our sin which is always a precursor to being set free from it.
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