I posted this because it spoke to me way back when (and also because I couldn’t think of anything else better).

I think the part of smiling without selfies speaks to being able to exist without social media. One of my favorite parts of the year is during Lent when I give up social media. Not because I hate it or because I am against it but because I always find how freeing it is to live without it.

I never was into drugs or alcohol, so I can’t really speak to that much. I do think caffeine is my vice. I wonder what it would be like if I had to give that one up. Sure, I’d miss coffee, but I suppose there’s always decaf and hot tea.

I think above all, the idea is to live content and surrendered. To not be caught up in the eternal race of more and never enough is to have already won. To be able to say, “No thanks, I have enough” is to be counter-cultural to a society where being driven into debt to buy what you don’t need to impress those who don’t even know you or to fill a void with more stuff.

I think if you belong to Jesus and don’t just live as someone who marks Christian on religious preferences because of upbringing or whatever is to be radically different. You won’t look or sound like everybody else. Some automatically won’t like you — Jesus said that if they hated Him, they’d hate you as well. But that difference is maybe one of the best parts about your testimony. You have found a better way to live according to God’s ways, and it shows.