As Sam Gamgee once said, Well, I'm back.

For the last (nearly) three weeks, my wife and I have taken a break from social media. It has been a good experience, and last night I took some time to reflect on it. Here are a few things I learned:

1. During the break, I found that I had a lot less clutter in my mind. I wasn't worrying through the day about depressing national news, Twitter controversies, Facebook rants, or other online annoyances outside my control. And although I was missing some things that I would have been interested in, it was better for a few days to reconnect with a quiet soul.

2. I found that I just don't need to know the day-to-day news from scores of distant friends and organizations. I'm thankful for my friends and for these organizations, but I have only so much mental energy to use each day, and when I see tidbits from scores of people and organizations I follow on Twitter, it takes a cumulative emotional toll. I have enough to think about with my wife and kids, my church friends, my students, and other people in my current situation, so I have taken some time to greatly reduce the number of people/organizations I'm following. The goal is to have a less cluttered mind and a more quiet soul.

3. When I got back online, I was amazed at the amount of outrage on Twitter. People tweet their outrage at this and their outrage about that--social justice causes, etc. Although the causes are often good, it's simply not healthy to constantly be feeding on all this outrage. Simply living a good, virtuous real life is probably a better way to bring about real social change than lots of passionate RTs.

4. Without the option of Twitter or Facebook, I spent more time doing more worthwhile things. I read hundreds of pages. I spent time working on a new online class that I'm teaching. I wrote some poetry. I spent more time in engaged conversation with my wife. I played soccer out in the yard with my kids. Et cetera. This time was much better spent than flipping through my Twitter feed once again.

5. I was reminded that real life doesn't take place online, but in the incarnate world. Stuff on Twitter seems SO IMPORTANT. But I don't need all of it. There was once a day when we just lived our lives instead of tweeting/instagramming/facebooking whatever we were doing. It was nice to reconnect with that world.

In the future, I plan to spend a lot less time on social media, and taking more of these social media fasts. Real life is waiting for me somewhere offline.

Okay, now I'm gonna shut my laptop and go live my life.

G.K. Chesterton once remarked that the sight of a rhinoceros ought to inspire wonder in us, wonder that such a ridiculous looking being actually exists. What was meant by this witticism was that we ought never to take the existence of a thing for granted, as if it was inevitable or necessary. When faced with the sight of something as odd as a rhinoceros, we ought to ask ourselves “Why does this exist, and in such a funny shape?” Similarly, when faced with the sight of something as odd as Twitter, we ought to ask ourselves: Why does this exist? And why, instead of pondering this existential question, are most of its users simply debating the proper and improper ends to which it can be put? What does it say about us as a society that our ninth most visited website is not, say, a forum where people can donate money to directly aid victims of war-torn countries in Africa, but a forum where we can announce to both friends and strangers exactly what we’re doing and how we’re feeling about life?

Ben Garner, "Why Does Technology Even Exist?"

People are our favorite idol. . . . We worship them as ones who have God-like exposing gazes (shame-fear) or God-like ability to "fill" us with esteem, love, admiration, acceptance, respect, and other psychological desires (rejection-fear). . . . 

What is the result of this people-idolatry? As in all idolatry, the idol . . . soon owns us. The [people] we fear [overcome] us. Although insignificant in itself, the idol becomes huge and rules us. It tells us how to think, what to feel, and how to act. It tells us what to wear, it tells us to laugh at the dirty joke, and it tells us to be frightened to death that we might have to get up in front of a group and say something. The whole strategy backfires. We never expect that using people to meet our desires leaves us enslaved to them.

Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small

The most common reason we are controlled by other people [is that] they can reject, ridicule, or despise us (rejection-fear). They don't invite us to the party. They ignore us. They don't like us. They aren't pleased with us. They withhold the acceptance, love, or significance we want from them. As a result, we feel worthless.

[Examples of people in the Bible who struggled with this fear include King Saul (1 Sam. 15) and the Pharisees (John 8:45-50, John 12:42-43)].

The praise of others--that wisp of a breeze that lasts for a moment--can seem more glorious than the praise of God. Jesus himself told the Jewish leaders, "How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?" (John 5:44).

Today we would be nice and call the Pharisees people-pleasers. We would say they "struggled with peer pressure." Since all of us are affected by it at one time or another, we are almost sympathetic toward such behavior. But this is perhaps the most tragic form of the fear of man. Teenagers are constantly making unwise decisions because of it. Adults, too, look to people for their cues. We wait for others to take initiatives of love We spend too much time wondering what others may have thought about our outfit or the comment we made in the small group meeting. We see opportunities to testify about Christ, but we avoid them. We are more concerned about looking stupid (a fear of people) than we are about acting sinfully (fear of the Lord).

Jesus stood in stark contrast to this Pharasaic concern. He did not show favoritism; instead, he reached out to male and female, rich and poor, and all races and ages. His teaching was not done by first taking a poll of what was popular. Instead, he spoke truth that was often unpopular but could penetrate the heart. "I do not accept praise from men," he said. . . . It was part of Jesus' teaching with authority, and it was one of the features that distinguished his ministry from that of all the other Jewish leaders.

Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small

If needing or fearing people is as universal a problem as it seems, then we would expect Scripture to be filled with rich descriptions and in-depth teaching about it. And that is exactly what we find. One of the Bible's dominant questions is, "Whom will you fear (need, be controlled by)? Will you fear God or people? Scripture gives three basic reasons why we fear other people ... [:]

1. We fear people because they can expose and humiliate us.
2. We fear people because they can reject, ridicule, or despise us.
3. We fear people because they can attack, oppress, or threaten us.

Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small

Regarding other people, our problem is that we need them (for ourselves) more than we love them (for the glory of God). The task God sets for us is to need them less and love them more. Instead of looking for ways to manipulate others, we will ask God what our duty is toward them [or, I would say, how to love them more].

Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small

[Christian psychologists wrongly claimed] that a better treatment for codependency is to know .. that God loves you more than you think. God can fill you with love, so you don't have to be filled by other people.

... But ... even this answer is incomplete. The love of God can be a profound answer to just about any human struggle, but sometimes ... it becomes a watered down verstion of a profoundly rich truth. For example, ... this answer misses the call to "consider others better than yourselves," or it ignores personal repentance. Sometimes it still  allows us and our needs to be at the center of the world, and God becomes our psychic errand boy given the taks of inflating our self-esteem. ...

Instead of "How can feel better about myself and not be controlled by what people think?" a better question is "Why am I so concerned about self-esteem?" or "Why do I have to have someone--even Jesus--think that I am great?" ...

The most radical treatment for the fear of man is the fear of the Lord. God must be bigger to you than people are.

Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small

Many of the people I've talked to ... saw the controlling power of other people. They awoke to an epidemic of the soul called, in biblical language, "the fear of man." ...

However you put it, the fear of man can be summarized this way: we replace God with people. Instead of a biblically guided fear of the Lord, we fear others.

Of course, the "fear of man" goes by other names. When we are in our teens, it is called "peer pressure." When we are older, it is called "people-pleasing." ...

"Peer pressure" may be submerged and revealed in more adult ways, or it may be camoflouged by your impressive resume (your perceived successes).

Are you over-committed? Do you find that it is hard to say no even when wisdom indicates that you should? [If so,] you are a "people-pleaser," another euphemism for the fear of man.

Do you "need" [affirmation, etc.] from your spouse? . . . For many people, the desire for these things has roots in something that is far from God's design for his image-bearers. . . . [A] spouse [can] quietly take the place of God in your life.

Is self-esteem a critical concern for you? This ... is the most popular way that the fear of other people is expressed. If self-esteem is a recurring theme for you, chances are that your life revolves around what others think. You reverence or fear their opinions. You need them to buttress your sense of well-being and identity. You need them to fill you up.

Do you ever feel as if you might be exposed as an impostor? ... The sense of being exposed is an expression of the fear of man. It means that ... their possible opinion that you are a failure [controls] you.

Are you always second-guessing decisions because of what other people might think? Are you afraid of making mistakes that will make you look bad in other people's eyes?

Do you feel empty or meaningless? Do you experience "love hunger"? ...

Do you get easily embarrassed? If so, people and their perceived opinions probably define you. ...

Do you avoid people? If so, even though you might not say that you need people, you are still controlled by them. ...

Have you ever been too timid to share your faith in Christ because others might think you are an irrational fool? ...

Fear of man is such a part of our human fabric that we should check for a pulse if someone denies it.

Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small

I have spoken with hundreds of people who ... are fairly sure that God loves them, but they also want or need love from other people--or at least they need something from other people. As a result, they are in bondage, controlled by others and feeling empty. They are controlled by whoever or whatever they believe can give them what they think they need.

It is true: what or who you need will control you.

Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small

When I was first married, I knew that Jesus loved me, but I also wanted my new wife to be absolutely, forever smitten with me. I needed love from her. I could finally handle small amounts of rejecction from other people, but I felt paralyzed if I didn't have the love I needed from her. I needed unconditional love. If she didn't think I was a gret husband, I would be crushed. . . .

This led to [an] awakening. I suddenly realized that I had mutated into a walking love tank, a person who was empty inside and looking for a person to fill me. My bride was, indeed, gifted in being able to love, but no one could have possibly filled me. I think I was a love tank with a leak.

Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small

What a mess! I reflected. I live like a frightened kid. I am so controlled by what other people think or might possibly think. But that was about it. I didn't know where to go from there. . . . As far as I could tell, there was no way out. This was my life. Self-consciousness, being controlled by the opinions of others, or whatever it was called, could only be managed, not cured. . . . Every rejection, every perceived failure, every person I wanted to be noticed by who didn't notice me reminded me that I was still the kid sitting in the back of the high school auditorium.

Edward T. Welch, When People Are Big and God Is Small

I was attaching myself to a certain identity because it made me feel smart, or, more honestly, it made other people tell me I was smart. This was how I earned my sense of importance. ... By doing things to get other people to value me, a couple of ideas became obvious, the first being that I was a human wired so other people told me who I was. This was very different from anything I had previously believed, including that you had to believe in yourself and all, and I still believe that is true, but I realized there was this other part of me, and it was a big part of me, that needed something outside myself to tell me who I was. And the thing that had been designed to tell me who I was, was gone. And so the second idea became obvious: I was very concerned with getting other people to say I was good or valuable or important because the thing that was supposed to make me feel this way was gone.

And it wasn’t just me. I could see it in the people on television, I could see it in the people in the movies, I could see it in my friends and family, too. It seemed that every human being had this need for something outside himself to tell him who he was, and that whatever it was that did this was gone, and this, to me, served as a kind of personality theory. It explained why I wanted to be seen as smart, why religious people wanted so desperately to be right, why Shirley MacLaine wanted to be God, and just about everything else a human did.

 Later, when I set this truth about myself, and for that matter about the human race, next to what the Bible was saying about who God is, what happened at the Fall, and the sort of message Jesus communicated to humanity, I realized Christian spirituality fit my soul like a key. It was quite beautiful, to be honest with you. 

This God, and this spirituality, was very different from the self-help version of Christianity. The God of the Bible seemed to be brokenhearted over the separation in our relationship and downright obsessed with mending the tear.

...  [We] go walking along, thinking people are talking a language and exchanging ideas, but the whole time there is this deeper language people are really talking, and that language has nothing to do with ethics, fashion, or politics, but what it really has to do with is feeling important and valuable. What if the economy we are really dealing in life, what if the language we are really speaking in life, what if what we really want in life is relational?

 Now this changes things quite a bit, because if the gospel of Jesus is just some formula I obey in order to get taken off the naughty list and put on a nice list, then it doesn't meet the deep need of the human condition, it doesn't interact with the great desire of my soul, and it has nothing to do with the hidden (or rather, obvious) language we are all speaking. But if it is more, if it is a story about humanity falling away from the community that named it [God/Eden], and an attempt to bring humanity back to that community, and if it is more than a series of ideas, but rather speaks directly into this basic human need we are feeling, then the gospel of Jesus is the most relevant message in the history of mankind.

 Donald Miller, Searching for God Knows What

The temptation for each of us to measure ourselves [is] insatiable. . . .

A child learns early there is a fashionable and an unfashionable in the world, an ugly and a pretty, a valued and an unvalued. Where this system comes from, God only knows, but it is rarely questioned, and though completely illogical and agreed upon by everyone as evil, it remains in play, commanding our emotions as a possesion. It isn't something taught to us by our parents; it is something that comes naturally, as though a radioactive kind of tragedy happened, screwing up our souls. Adulterated or policed, the system can grow to something more civilized, but no less dominant as a drive of nature. In youth the system is obvious. If you want to hear the operating system to which humans are subjected, step into a classroom of preteen students and listen to the dialogue. You will hear the constant measurements, the talk about family wealth, whose father drives what car, who lives in what neighborhood, or who is dating whom.

Here is how it feels: From the first day of school the conversation is the same as it would be if hundreds of students were told to stand in line ranging from best to worst, coolest to most uncool, each presenting their case for value, each presenting an offense to the cases of others, alliances being formed as caricatures of reality television (or vice versa).

Donald Miller, Searching for God Knows What

From Donald Miller's Searching for God Knows What:

[If an alien came down to earth to study human nature, I wonder what he] would think of our television shows. He probably wouldn't understand any of it, because all the plots have to do with getting and finding the thing that is missing in our souls, only not getting it from God, but from other people.

If the alien wasn't missing the same thing we were missing [in our souls], he would sit there in my room with Grant and me, watching basketball but not understanding why we play the game. Why do they do that? the alien might say. It's a game, a competition, Grant and I would answer. But why? Why do they play the game? What are they trying to decide?

They are trying to decide who is the better basketball team, Grant and I would say. The better basketball team? the alien might question, wondering out loud why twenty thousand people would show up to find out which basketball team was better than the other.

Feeling a little judged, Grant and I might change the channel to find that new show on E! called Rank, the show that ranks people from best to worst, based on some random criteria. The episode might count down to who is the most eligible bachelor, who is the hottest couple, who has the best eyes, best smile, whatever. Then, knowing the show was again proving the alien's point, just like basketball, we might turn the channel to that show Survivor, and then over to The Bachelor, and then over to Last Comic Standing, or Fear Factor, or whatever. And then we would sort of feel bad because all of our television shows are trying to figure out who is better than who, or if they aren't, they are presupposing that one kind of person is better than another and building their comedy or their drama on this presupposition.

You guys, the alien might say, you are obsessed. You have to wear a certain kind of clothes, drive a certain car, speak a certain way, live in a certain neighborhood, whatever, all of it so you can be higher on an invisible hierarchy. It's an obsession! You are trying to feel right by comparing yourself to others. It is ridiculous.

Miller goes on to imagine the alien writing a description of human beings. Here's how the alien would describe us:

"Humans, as a species, are constantly, and in every way, comparing themselves to one another, which, given the brief nature of their existence, seems an oddity and, for that matter, a waste. Nevertheless, this is the driving influence behind every human’s social development, their emotional health and sense of joy, and, sadly, their greatest tragedies. It is as though something that helped them function and live well has gone missing, and they are pining for that missing thing in all sorts of odd methods, none of which are working. The greater tragedy is that very few people understand they have the disease. This seems strange as well because it is obvious. To be sure, it is killing them, and yet sustaining their social and economic systems. They are an entirely beautiful people with a terrible problem.”