{"id":341,"date":"2010-04-07T10:05:17","date_gmt":"2010-04-07T15:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/?p=55"},"modified":"2013-04-19T04:38:00","modified_gmt":"2013-04-19T04:38:00","slug":"5-things-i-realized-while-fasting-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/2010\/5-things-i-realized-while-fasting-facebook","title":{"rendered":"5 Things I Realized While Fasting Facebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t really come from a liturgical background, so to speak.\u00a0So I wasn\u2019t raised with traditions such as Lent and the Epiphany and the like.\u00a0We just handled the big ones like Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving.\u00a0 You know, the good Christian holidays that still involve excessive eating!\u00a0 But I\u2019ve always been intrigued by the ancient traditions of the church and the symbolism that exists in what they do.\u00a0 So I thought, why not participate in Lent<\/a>?!\u00a0 So starting on Ash Wednesday I gave up going on Facebook for 40 days to Easter, and this is what I realized:<\/p>\n

1. There\u2019s more than 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This one took me a couple days to actually come across, but there\u2019s actually more so that you are supposed to take Sundays as \u201cfeast days\u201d and break your fast.\u00a0 It\u2019s a beautiful way of reminding yourself as you go along that Jesus is already raised from the dead and we have freedom and newness in Him already.\u00a0 And no, it\u2019s not cheating!<\/p>\n

2. It takes a while to stop thinking in 3rd person and status format.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jonathan Brooker found it hard for longer than he\u2019d like to admit to stop thinking for that split second that \u201coh this would be a great facebook status.\u201d\u00a0 He had to detox from constantly thinking of what was \u201con his mind.\u201d\u00a0 But he\u2019s ok now\u2026 at least we think so\u2026<\/p>\n

3. A change of pace helps you to see Who\u2019s always running with you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019d be lying if I said that removing myself from the world of Facebook for 40 days was easy.\u00a0 But I didn\u2019t really expect it to be quite as difficult as it was.\u00a0 The first week or two were pretty easy, but then it just got downright challenging and annoying.\u00a0 But it showed me how much time I was letting Facebook consume in my daily life and how little I was spending in prayer.\u00a0 I began to work on hearing from God more than hearing about everyone\u2019s day and current feelings about _______.<\/p>\n

4. We live in a generation of entitlement who finds sacrifice just\u2026 well\u2026 weird.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re giving up Facebook for 40 days?!!?\u00a0 I bet you can\u2019t do it.\u201d\u00a0 The confidence people had in me was overwhelming.\u00a0 What I began to realize, though, is that it was somewhat well-founded.\u00a0 We are all about getting more, having more, doing more, and becoming more.\u00a0 So for us to think of sacrificing something, anything, is somewhat absurd and foreign to us.\u00a0 It makes me wonder what more we could become if we were willing to get less, have less, and do less.\u00a0 And isn\u2019t sacrifice what the whole Easter story is about anyway?<\/p>\n

5. Friends aren\u2019t counted, they\u2019re experienced.<\/strong><\/p>\n

No matter how many \u201cfriends\u201d I had or have on Facebook, I was able to spend more time and better time with some people who are truly friends.\u00a0 You can have 1,000+ friends on Facebook and still be an incredibly lonely person.\u00a0 And you can actually not have a Facebook (there are 5 of them in the world, I think) and have some of the deepest, most real friendships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t really come from a liturgical background, so to speak.\u00a0So I wasn\u2019t raised with traditions such as Lent and Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonathanbrooker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}