According to a 2017 article from Social Media Today, the average American will spend 5 years and 4 months of his life on social media. (And that number is increasing every year. In fact, according to Statista, time on social networking has increased from a daily average of 90 minutes in 2012 to 135 minutes in 2017. That’s a 50% increase in those few years!)
With the time we spend on social media, we could do the following things:
-
Fly to the moon and back 32 times
-
Walk the Great Wall of China 3.5 times
-
Climb Mt. Everest 32 times
-
Run over 10,000 marathons
-
Walk your dog 93,000 times
And this is just referring to our social media intake! According to the first-quarter 2018 Nielsen Total Audience Report, nearly half an adults’ day is dedicated to consuming media content. In fact, American adults spend over 11 hours per day listening to, watching, reading or generally interacting with media.
When I read this, the first thing that I thought of was “balance”…or better, “out of balance.” We are a people who are out of balance and out of bounds. Anything done to excess (work, sleep, eating, entertainment, exercise, etc.) is unhealthy. We tend to either do too much or too little. We tend to take the good things that God has created and given to us, and turn them into bad by giving them priority over God.
Is there anything that is out of balance in your life? Is there anything that has taken priority in your life that should only be given to God? Jesus said we are to “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). When we are out of balance and out of bounds with certain areas in our lives, we tend to squeeze God out of our lives. The other “stuff” takes over, and God is moved out. The Bible refers to that as idolatry. It’s putting anything or anyone on the throne where only God should reside. It’s taking what God has created (which is good), and making a god out of it (which is bad).
Are you out of balance in some area of your life? Let me mention a few ways to determine this:
-
THOUGHTS…What occupies your mind and thoughts?
-
TIME…How do you spend your time (especially your free time)?
-
MONEY…How do you spend your money? Do you find yourself going into debt, or spending too much money, on a specific area in your life that is unnecessary?