I took a beautiful picture of the beach recently. Just me, the beach, and the relaxing waves. If you were to look at it, you would’ve thought I had the whole world to myself.
I’ve thought about that picture a lot because it wasn’t the truth. What you didn’t see was the large amount of people that I was careful not to include. You didn’t see the cars driving up and down the beach or hear the loud, distorted music booming from their stereos. You also didn’t see the ridiculous amount of dead jellyfish littering the beach.
Social media is like that beach picture. It was created and designed for us to post the highlights of our lives, carefully editing to make life look better than it is.
As I was reading the Bible recently I smiled at the fact that God didn’t edit his story to make himself or his people look better. The story of God’s family is laid out without a filter. Murder, greed, adultery, racism. You name the sin and God’s people have excelled at it. If I was writing a book about my family, I might hide the cringeworthy parts but God displays it honestly and says, “This is us but you can do better.”
We are tempted to make our lives look pretty. We use the filters. We edit out the flaws but maybe it’s time we get real with each other. Maybe it’s time to admit that life is a struggle and none of us are doing the best we can. Maybe it’s time to come together and confess that we’re all hurting. We are all a bit jaded. We all have our wounds. We all need one another. God set the standard. He got real with us. Let’s be real with one another.