Facebook is so new that my spellcheck doesn’t even recognize it.  Every time I type in the word “facebook,” Microsoft Word underlines it with a red squiggly to let me know it isn’t a real word.  Ironically, MS Word doesn’t recognize the word “spellcheck” either, which also gets a squiggly—I guess it’s technically two words though with time I bet it will grammatically merge into one.

I’m sure newer versions of spellcheck won’t dare leave Facebook out.  This social media site is so ubiquitous in our world it’s hard to imagine how we twittered our time away without it.  Or is that tweeted away our time?  John Piper said of these social medial phenomenons, “One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time.” Ouch.

 

There is a much older version of Facebook.  The ancient Scriptures liken themselves to a mirror that a man holds up to his face.  The apostle James uses this analogy.  As we peer into the Word of God we are immediately stunned by our own glaring imperfections.  Whoa—look at the little piece of spinach between my teeth! And those zits! But as we gaze deeper in, as we “look intently into the perfect law that gives freedom,”[1] and respond with obedience, we find ourselves not hating ourselves but loving Him more. The story line of New Testament life isn’t so much our own ability to attain to godly attributes but our hearts being stretched out in desperate, clutching love for Him. 

 

A man like that, who “looks intently”—gazes, stares, captures, ponders, meditates—and then follows through with obedience on what he sees “will be blessed in what he does.”[2]

 

Take some time today to look intently into the original Facebook.  It may not offer the instant gratification of social media but it will reward you with abiding joy if you can slow down your soul long enough to peer in.  You may not immediately like what you see in the mirror, when you notice your own imperfections, but you will sense the Author’s intense love for you.  And those moments in the mirror will stir greater desire in you to seek His perfect face. 

 

Maybe so much so that you will be inspired to post a status update about it.  We’ll be twittering our thumbs waiting.