Comments on my recent facebook post....

"Why does facebook have to become a forum for our inner stream of consciousness to become public knowledge? Can't some thoughts just be thoughts?!?!"

This was my most recent facebook post. And it's true. I love facebook. There can be value in facebook. It can be used for many purposes and with many intents. I enjoy using it to keep connected with friends at home in the states. It makes me feel like I'm not quite so far away from home. But there are dangers to facebook, too. Facebook has now become a forum for whatever passes through our heads to be visually displayed to the world. When I was younger and had wild, crazy thoughts, the only person that would know about it would be me...well, maybe the pages of my diary would burn a bit with my pithy, teenage angst...or perhaps my best friend would hear an ear-full on the phone. But for the most part, my thoughts stayed in my head. Sure I would roll them around and have many inner discussions about them, but for the most part no one else was privy to them. After, like, 5 minutes, like I would be onto something new and for the most part the world was brighter again. Thought in, thought out.

However with the modern invention of facebook, we can verbally vomit our every thought and whim for the world to process, comment on, like, dislike, hash and rehash over and over and over and over and over and over. The problem with this is that while you may be inside your own head and know what you're talking and raving about, the rest of us are not. A simple comment may be taken a hundred different ways and out of hundred different contexts. People may misconstrue a sentence and it sets off like wild fire in other's hearts and minds (Proverbs 26:20
Without wood a fire goes out; without a gossip a quarrel dies down). Instead of just one person thinking, processing, and coming to a conclusion about a situation, thousands are now involved.

Out of such comments comes much danger. When do we cross the line into unfair judgment, gossip, worldy and empty chatter based on what someone else says about an issue that may not even involve us?!? Do we not see how are our options about other people and situations can be easily shaped just a few ill chosen words on a computer screen? Even the Bible warns against this, saying in 2 Timothy 2:16: "But aviod wordly and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangene". Proverbs simply states, "He who goes about as a talebearer reveals secret, but he who is trustworthy conceals a matter," and "He who conceals a transgression seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates intimate friends."  

Am I saying to abandon facebook? No. That is not my point. I am saying we need to be careful, myself included, in what we post as well as in what we say. Let some things stay private thoughts and let us discuss our issues with only the people they involve. Let us look Biblically again in how to handle our lives and personal matters!!! Our words have weight. They have impact. I will leave this post with Jesus' thought on the matter from Matthew 12.
 

³³ “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad,

for a tree is recognized by its fruit.

³⁴ You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good?

For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

³⁵ A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him,

and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.

³⁶ But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment

for every empty word they have spoken.

³⁷ For by your words you will be acquitted,

and by your words you will be condemned.”

 May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart
   be pleasing in your sight,
   LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

(emphasis mine)