Unplug and Power Up by Anna Quesada
Today’s guest blogger is Anna Quesada. Anna is the founder of the Christian Women’s Small Business Association, created to Ignite a movement of women trailblazers from around the globe to fearlessly live out their God-calling. Founded in 2006, the organization now encourages over 90,000 entrepreneurs daily online.
Before starting cwSBA, Anna spent a decade in the marketing industry working closely with inspirational speakers, life coaches, ministry leaders, and small business owners. She also blogs for the San Antonio Express News web site and runs a full service digital agency, helping multi-million dollar clients dominate the online business world via search engine optimization, social media, and web site branding.
What would happen to your life if Facebook and Twitter ceased to exist? Seriously. Think about it for a moment. Because of my work in marketing for small businesses, the last eight years of my life have been immersed in every aspect of social media. My livelihood depended on it and by God’s grace, I experienced tremendous results. Even in the early days of MySpace, I was able to leverage these powerful communication tools to draw over half a million unique visitors to various websites I managed every single month. I still remember the first time someone “retweeted” one of my tweets on Twitter six years ago. In seconds, with one click, a simple 140 character message could reach thousands of people.
It was exhilarating and I was hooked, but sometimes entirely removing yourself from a situation is the only way to get a proper perspective. I say all of this just to show you what a mind-shift this post is for me. Over the last few weeks, I’ve felt God calling me to unplug, be still and wait on Him. From one day to the next, I fell of the face of the (cyber) Earth. I’m pretty sure I experienced withdrawals during the first few days of my social media fast, but almost instantly, God’s voice became the loudest sound in my head… and for the first time in a very long time… His voice became the only one that mattered. Besides some completely life-changing news God revealed to me within the first 4 days of my surrender (seriously, LIFE-changing), I’ve also learned that as followers of Christ, we must continually unplug and press into His presence to become all that He created us to be.
In all my work with social media, I’ve learned that it can make us somewhat delusional. It causes us to think we “know” people just because we saw what they ate for breakfast via Instagram or because we observed every single one of their Facebook timeline vacation photos from 2003-2007. The truth is that life happens in-between our picture-perfect posts. Real relationships are built over coffee breaks – lots of them – or late night phone calls when we finally let our guard down and share pieces of ourselves and our struggles.
It happens over dinner – when you talk about nothing at all and everything important to us, all at the same time – when you laugh at nonsense and create memories and inside jokes.
It happens when we encourage one another through the difficult times and rejoice together in our victories. We may see glimpses of it in our social media world, but the bulk of it almost never happens there. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, even blogs – they are all just tools to enhance relationships, not replace them. AND In the end, I’m learning that our relationship with God is the same.
You’ve been invited into God’s holy presence. Consider it the ultimate “friend request” and not just the kind where you share photos and status updates. It’s a real life, hand-in-hand, stick by your side no matter what, kind of friendship. Before Jesus paid the ultimate price for our sin, this was not the case.
In Solomon’s temple there was a veil that separated the Ark of The Covenant (God’s presence) from the people. Many scholars say it was 60 feet tall, 30 feet wide, and almost three feet thick. It was for the good of the people. God’s presence is so powerful, perfect, and majestic, that the weight of His glory would kill them if they entered in unprepared. During this time in history there was a High Priest who represented the people and even he could only enter the Holy of Holies once a year on the Day of Atonement to offer a blood sacrifice and incense.
Author and pastor, Greg Laurie, shares more insight at Jesus.org. “When Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, that heavy curtain was torn from top to bottom. It was not ripped from bottom to top, as though a man were ripping it. Instead, it was ripped from top to bottom, because God was ripping it. God was saying, You are no longer are on the outside. You can come in. My Son has made a way for you.”
What a gift! When we were outsiders to God, HE paid the ultimate price to give us direct access (not only to His throne), but to sit directly on His lap and rest our head and troubles on HIS shoulders. I guarantee you that there is no sweeter relationship than that. You’ve been invited to trade your worry in for wonder and your wounds for worship. Why do we often settle for so much less?
We gaze at HIM from afar – skimming through His comments & posts with a smile or a chuckle. We watch on like spectators – giving THE creator of all the universe our occasional “like” or “retweet”. BUT God wants to make Himself known to you. Sometimes, because of my own complacency, it feels like I’m an outside fan more than a dear daughter to the King of kings. I don’t want to live a life without reverence for who GOD is. I don’t want to settle for knowing about God when He’s invited me to KNOW Him personally and intimately. Let’s not take the present of HIS presence and unending love lightly. The same GOD who named the stars, commands the rain, and conquered death is worthy of our awe, affections, and time. Get comfortable with unplugging often to surrender all you are to Him… not because He demands it, but because we have the amazing privilege of calling HIM a real friend and Father.
I’m sure I’ll be back in the social media world soon, but until then, I’m enjoying life away from my computer screen – no internet connection required. Find out more about my work or get my daily doses of encouragement at http://www.Twitter.com/empowered and http://www.Facebook.com/cwsba