This year has been quite the rollercoaster journey; emotionally and physically. In February, i decided to make some lifestyle changes to improve my overall health. I began the Keto diet/ way of eating and lost 30 pounds over 5 months. I stopped working past five. My official office is my home so it is very easy to keep working. I found it liberating to be done with work and knowing that everything can wait until the next day.

The biggest change I made may have been taking a break from Facebook. Like anything everything else in this world, Facebook can be a good thing. But I found myself spending too much time mindlessly scrolling, becoming frustrated with political opinions that, quite frankly, were an embarrassment to the name of Jesus, and growing jealous over the ministries of friends and other churches.

Over the summer, I decided to completely delete my Facebook account before heading out on a two week vacation. I created an alias so I can continue operating Grace Life’s accounts and then stepped away from Facebook altogether.

The first week strange. Do you know how many times you check Facebook? I would go to open my Facebook app while in line at Walmart, at dinner, and in all sorts of random moments. It’s pretty remarkable to catch yourself figuring out what to do with your thumbs when you can’t find the Facebook app on your phone.

The vacation fast went so well that I decided to continue. In fact, I had decided to never go back to Facebook. The negatives outweigh the positives and I no longer saw a benefit for the social media platform. From June to October, I unfriended Facebook. The Facebook fast was an incredible hiatus from a service that was impacting me more than I cared to admit. 

Recently, after discussing it with my wife, I decided to get back on Facebook, mainly because there is a value that can be utilized on social media platforms for discipleship purposes. Instead of letting the posts of other people impact me, I want to use my account to impact others.

In order to remain “Facebook healthy”, I set a few parameters in place.

• I am continuing to keep Facebook off of my phone. This prevents me from wasting time on Facebook when I’m around my family or when I could occupy my mind with other, edifying reading.
• I unfollowed people who constantly post about politics. This included family members. I’m not against political posting, but a constant bombardment of political opinions, memes, and conspiracy theories was too much. 
• I blocked certain people from seeing my posts. There are some people that are constantly attacking. They are bent to be a negative. 
• I unfollowed pages that weren’t edifying. The reason I love Twitter is because I control the content I see. I’m treating Facebook the same way. 
• I’ve allowed my wife to pull the plug if I start to go backwards. 
• I plan to take a Facebook fast every summer.

Hopefully, by God’s grace, I’ll be able to use Facebook to be an encouragement and have an impact for discipleship purposes. I know that good things can be redeemed to be used for the advancement of the Gospel.