Recently I have been preparing for a July Bible study with my older church girls. The theme of the lessons will be “Securely Woman”, based on a book I found from Striving Together Publications. In pondering how this theme affects every aspect of our lives as women, something really clicked for me that I wanted to share with you!
Selfies are more than “all the rage” in our culture. These days, they are perfectly normal…so normal that even toddlers attempt them! There is nothing inherently wrong with selfies. It’s fun to try to get the right angle when taking a picture with someone (though it was more of a challenge back in the day when we didn’t have reversible cameras on our phones!). Selfies can make for great laughs and capture special memories.
But Satan has cleverly captured an angle on our selfies, too. Think about it: so many selfies today are of one person, taking a picture of himself/herself. Such selfies are usually taken seconds before they’re posted; the person might have taken the selfie just to have something to post. Then, he/she posts and subconsciously checks his/her social media a dozen times in the next 30 minutes to see who liked their picture. Come on, we’ve probably all been guilty of this – you know what I’m talking about!
“She got 42 likes on her selfie, but I only got 12. My smile is way prettier though.”
“His selfie with that pro athlete got 116 likes! Why did mine only get 24?”
“Nobody liked my selfie for 2 hours. I must not be as cool as ____________.”
See how easily selfies feed the wrong kind of security? As Christians we are supposed to be secure in Christ, in Him alone. And yet, we easily fall prey to the world’s means of finding security — focusing on ourselves.
The point here is not to say that all selfies are wrong and and that any selfie will cause a “security breech” in our lives. If you go on my social media profiles, you’ll see selfies sprinkled throughout my pictures (but not a whole bunch, because I am really bad at taking selfies, haha!). My exhortation is that we need to consider why we post selfies in the first place. The why behind our selfies is where a security breech might be lurking!
Are we posting to get someone’s attention? Are we posting to show off our gorgeous hair? Are we posting because “everyone else always posts a selfie when they drive through Chick-Fil-A”? Are we posting because we are feeling insecure and want to make sure people still like us?
“See then that ye walk circumspectly…” ~ Ephesians 5:15a
