Choosing how to be "visible" online

Thoughts on living public lives as Christians and being a legacy keeper

I've been deleting Instagram off my phone for days at a time. The other day I downloaded it again to post a spontaneous reel of clips from what felt like a perfect spring day.

Afterwards, I felt so odd. I can't fully explain it - it's like an uncomfortable, anxious feeling, almost gross? Like when you haven't had sugar or takeout for awhile and then you indulge, and you get that feeling of "oh, this is why I stopped in the first place. I don't like how I feel afterwards."

Which brings me back to the question I've been wrestling with and praying about lately: How do I want to show up online? Do I even want to share online anymore?

But I'm realizing I was misunderstanding the nuance of what God seems to be pointing me to. It isn't all or nothing. The root issue for me is my inputs:

Inputs (the content I consume, what others tell me I should do / be, what I think about)

→

outputs (what I share and teach others, the life choices I make, the dreams I build)

As Christians, our lives are public lives

The Holy Spirit stopped me in Luke 8 the other day:

"No one lights a lamp and hides it in a clay jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, they put it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light. For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out in the open. Therefore, consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they think they have will be taken from them." -Luke 8:16-18

To stop sharing what God is teaching me is disobedience to God. I simply cannot shut off the outputs, for this is my testimony of what He is doing in me and has done for me.

In Luke 8, Jesus tells His disciples that due to them being the Light, their lives, no matter how secret or seemingly insignificant, are public lives.

As such, as disciples of Christ, what we hear is intensified with a new sense of responsibility: it's no longer yours to keep, it's given to you to retain and steadily produce an abundant harvest - a visible harvest.

"But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who heard the word, retain it, and preserving produce a crop." -Luke 8:15

In his sermon, W. Clarkson writes:

"What God reveals to us and what is, at first, hidden in our own soul we are bound to bring forth into the light of day. It may be any kind of truth - medical, agricultural, commercial, economical, moral, or directly and positively religious; whatever we have learned that is of value to the world we have no right to retain for our own private benefit.

Truth is common property; it should be open to all men, like the air and the sunshine. When God, in any way, says to us, "Know;" he also says, "Teach; pass on to your brethren what I have revealed to you; 'there is nothing secret that shall not be made manifest, nor hid that shall not be known.'"

God speaks to us in the private moments - the "darkness" - and only once we've been poured into in private can we share in the day with others. To reflect the Light, you must be in the Light.

It doesn't matter how privately you want to live, when His light is in you, it must be shared and put to productive use. Because if we don't share the Light, we lose it.

The Light you "have" is based on two things

Here's what I noticed as I studied Luke 8: the Light you "have" is based on two things (these are the "inputs" within your control that determine your "outputs"):

1. How you "listen" and

2. How much of what you heard you give away

"Consider carefully what you hear," He continued, "With the measure you use, it will be measured to you - and even more. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them." -Mark 4:24-25

We are created to be a flow through entity (my fellow tax people will get this!). What God puts into us, He expects it to flow through us and out into the world to bring someone else comfort and edification.

If God encourages me with a lesson and I in turn go and share it, and let's say there are two other people who read or hear what I shared and are thus encouraged with that same lesson that God gave me — that's multiplication for His glory. That's what God expects of us as His Image Bearers.

"....who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with he comfort we ourselves receive from God." -2 Corinthians 1:4

But if you're a closed circuit and what God pours into you gets stopped up, shut in, and remains hidden?

Even what you have will be taken from you.

Now, that's a scary thought.

So, if we want more of His Light, His wisdom, His Truth, we must listen well and "give away" what we receive from Him.

How this is impacting the ways I show up online

Here's what I am understanding God is telling me in the context of how I show up online:

1. I need to clean up my inputs and be on guard with who I listen to and what I “hear” / allow to put roots in my mind / influence me.

2. I cannot stop sharing what God is teaching me and live an entirely private, hidden life, because His Light and His Word are meant to be shared and bring forth new life. Instead, I need to be visible online in an intentional, slower, God-glorifying, legacy building kind of way.

Practically, here are some boundaries to help me in this:

• Using social media to "post and ghost" - as in "share if I feel called to and then delete the app" → limit / eliminate scrolling and consuming content on social media

• Being very intentional with the online content I consume (if I see someone trying to tell me how to gain 1,000 subscribers in 30 days or how to build a $1 million dollar business, they'll be muted in my feed; same for trad wives or trad wife adjacent; etc - this is the type of content that tempts me and can make me "stray" from what I know to be true and good for me)

• Replacing TV shows with reading, podcasts, and life giving vlogs (TV, even as background noise drains me and makes me anxious, but a good podcast, book or vlog is energizing for me)

• Ditching "content strategy" - instead of feeling the pressure to post a certain amount of times per week or to have a cohesive plan or theme for what I share, I want to shift to sharing from "my outpouring" - meaning sharing what's on my mind and what I'm learning and growing instead of what aligns with my "personal brand" or what I think others want to read.

• Tuning out the metrics - I want to stop tracking all the numbers that writing online is often measured by (clicks, followers, subscribers, open rates, etc). I just want to write and share, without caring about how my writing "performs" or how it's perceived.

• No more trying to please everyone - in this day and age of cancel culture, it feels like you have to caveat everything you post and share online, and even then someone is still bound to disagree with you and point out how you left out this or that group. Pleasing everyone is literally impossible and I'm so tired of trying to tamper down and filter my writing as not to offend random strangers on the internet.

• Filling my mind more with God's word and less of the world - more time in His word, in prayer, in nature and in Christian fellowship.

• Resting from new content creation and the pressure to monetize my writing. For the foreseeable future, I am going to have no expectations of myself to create content or digital products for the purpose of monetizing my writing. If I feel filled by the Spirit to put something together and it pours out of me, I'll obey and work on it. Otherwise, I aim to not create anything new or feel guilty that I'm not feeding the algorithm and/or not making money off my writing.

• Keep focusing more on my offline life and tending to my "sphere of influence"

Women are legacy keepers

The other night at Bible study, a woman shared she was reading her mom's journals (her mom was in the room and clarified that she allowed her daughter to read her journals), and had taken away a certain spiritual lesson for herself from her mom's journals. The mom's journals were filled with what God was teaching her through the years.

Women are legacy keepers. We journal, photograph, document and make things beautiful. We carry not only our own stories, but the stories of those we love.

In this vlog, Lydia Millen was talking with her life coach and mentioned how her approach to creating content online is to think of internet footprint as a legacy:

• On your deathbed, are you going to look back on what you shared on the internet and be proud of what you shared?

• What will your children and grandchildren think when they read your words or see what their mom shared online?

• The old lady version of you - is she going to thank you for what you're doing right now?

• What will 80 year old you tell yourself now about how you're showing up online?

Whether you share what God is teaching you online or in your personal journal, write it on your children's hearts, or share on a podcast or in a small group or with a friend over coffee - our stories of God's grace and redemption in our lives aren't ours to keep.

Because it's not about us. We make it about us when we worry what people will think or say if we share or post something. We make it about us when we stay hidden.

Our lives are about who Christ is and what He's done for us and in us.

So, please don't hold on to your story. It's important. It's your experience with Grace. It’s your legacy.

And it all begins with how you listen. Especially as women, being a keeper of the home means being a guardian of our homes, so fiercely guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it (Pr. 4:23).

P.S. I came across this quote on another Substack and this speaks to me:

"You don’t have to choose between disappearing and oversharing. There’s a slower, more intentional way of being visible."

That Substack post also includes questions to ask yourself about why you're creating and sharing online - well worth bookmarking and referencing regularly if like me you’re evaluating how you want to show up online!