Rented Land, Rented Worth

Something happened to me this week that turned out to be a great reminder about where to put your trust.

My replies and posts on the social media platform X got deboosted. This means no one can see my posts, and any replies I leave on others’ posts are hidden from view. Somehow, it came to see me as a “probable spam” account.

So my account there seems to be finished. There was no notice or explanation.

I was surprised at how disappointed I felt when I realized what had happened. It wasn’t a big account, I had just 785 followers.

But I’d spent the better part of two years writing there, and more importantly, being willing to push the publish button, which is the harder part.

X made it easy to post, so it had become my sandbox for working out the ideas in my head in real time.

And I made friends there, too, so it makes me sad that I can’t support them.

Ultimately, though, the problem isn’t with X’s algorithm making random decisions about my account.

The problem is with me putting my trust in such a shaky foundation. We all know social media is rented land.

But I’d let myself believe X was doing something for me.

Because if I’m honest, I was getting something from it.

I never went viral there, but I did get validated by the responses and engagement. It was nice to have people see my work and comment on it.

That’s what kept me coming back.

But getting validation from anyone or anything other than God will always, always, always leave you holding an empty bag.

Always.

There’s a story about this that Jesus tells at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. You’ve probably heard it:

The man who built the house on the sand was fast and had a clear bias for action. Maybe he thought he was fast-tracking this house thing so he could enjoy the fruits of his labor earlier.

Maybe he was so good at it that on a clear day, walking past, you couldn’t have told those two houses apart.

But the difference became noticeable once pressure was applied. Then it was blatantly obvious which house was anchored on a solid foundation.

And that’s the trouble with validation.

It looks and functions exactly like a foundation because it makes you feel good about who you are. When you look to external sources to tell you who you are, you’re in big trouble.

We do this in so many areas of our lives, don’t we?

Maybe you stay in relationships you already know aren’t moving you where you want to go. But because someone seems to validate who you desperately want to be, you can’t imagine not hearing and feeling those things.

The affection feeds you. But that’s super shaky ground you’re on.

Maybe you hold onto ideas about yourself that feel like facts.

• I’m not someone who finishes things.
• I’m too much for everybody.
• I don’t have discipline.

Someone handed you those ideas about yourself early on, and you never examined them. You just kept building on top of them.

So you take your significance from work, from your salary, from the applause of others that maybe, just maybe, proves those early beliefs wrong.

But what ground shifts more than work, money, and applause?

When we’re not looking to God as the source of our identity, we look to those things to affirm what we’re worth.

God already knows what you’re worth, and He settled it long before you produced anything.

There’s nothing you can do or say that will change how God feels about you.

An algorithm that has never known me decided I was probable spam. But it was that same algorithm’s approval I kept going back for.

You can’t earn God’s love, because you already have it. Why on earth would we look to any other source of worth than that?

It’s a foolish endeavor.

Finding value and worth in a social media platform, or in a relationship (even a good one), or in how well you perform at something are all dead ends.

This is why it’s so important to be grounded in God’s word every day.

God’s word always affirms what’s true.

And unlike a social media algorithm, God will never leave you hanging.