…and stay alert to what God might be posting.

If you haven’t heard already, your Instagram feed will no longer be in chronological order.  Like Facebook before and Twitter down the road, the feed you follow will now be based on popularity and what you interact with the most, not what was most recent.

Basically, if you follow me and say, natgeo (National Geographic), my pictures will always be hidden down below whatever they post because they will get more “likes” and, in turn, will be more popular (for obvious reasons). Now, a well-framed picture of my son sloppily eating a chocolate ice cream cone will likely be lost underneath a majestic photo of a bar-pouched wreathed hornbill. Does this make sense? Many “instagramers” have responded to this change by asking that you turn on your notifications so you don’t miss their posts.

That got me thinking about how God communicates to me and how I’ve basically always functioned in the same way. The way I follow God’s feed (or listen to his voice) is too often based on what is popular and what I am interacting with the most. Even though he has consistently asked me to change my notification settings, my heart has functioned like Facebook and Instagram. Because my default setting is to be drawn toward the popular, I might miss the times that God is communicating to me through the simple and the mundane.

What if God wanted to say something to me through picking up the leftover leaves in my yard more than the sight of a beautiful sunset?

What if God wanted to get my attention through my daughter’s eighth-grade creative writing essay instead of a popular speaker’s eloquent quote?

What if God has something for me to hear in the stillness of an early morning kitchen well before he speaks through a powerful church service?

I need to turn on my notifications so that what God is saying doesn’t get hidden beneath what’s popular and what’s typical. It’s allowing the Holy Spirit to speak through whatever means he wants  and me being alert enough to those notifications.

Do what you want with your Instagram feed but I encourage you to adjust the settings of your heart and turn on your notifications to be alert to the voice of the Spirit. Be alert! You never know what you might miss.

“So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ — that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.” — Colossians 3:1-2 (The Message)