MySpace, MyGod and MyPriorities

Seeking God or searching Google with all your heart? Colin Chuang explores God, MySpace and the priorities we give to them.

Blogging. Comments. Friends. It’s the lingo of the current craze of online social networking with things like MySpace, Facebook, Blogger and lots of other sites.
MySpace is one of the biggest of them all.

For those that are less internet savvy or are over the age of about 30, MySpace is a website you can personalise, use to inform “friends” about what you are up to and what you have been doing with life. You can post photos, videos, music—anything really. And other people can write you comments on it as well. Not a bad invention, I must say.
But like all good things, there is always the chance to abuse it.

Don’t get me wrong—I love it and I use it regularly. It’s an awesome creation where people can come and interact with each other on a very casual level. And the great thing is that it’s non-confrontational and very informal—unlike email and phone calls. Another great thing about it is I’ve been able to locate people I haven’t heard from in a long, long time, and read up on what they’ve been doing and where their life is now headed. And then I can post a comment to them on their page.
An awesome way to keep in touch! But here is the dilemma.

As great as MySpace is, it is amazing how most of us, each day, will spend hours and hours on it but won’t spend even a few minutes conversing with our creator God.
We spend endless amounts of time chatting, commenting and blogging for no real reason other than “because I can,” yet some days we won’t even open our Bibles.
It causes me to wonder where our priorities are. Don’t get me wrong—MySpace has a lot of good things to offer—but are we spending more time in the “unnecessary” instead of the “necessary?” Doesn’t the Creator of the universe, the God who has provided everything we could ever want or need, the Jesus that died to give us hope and a future, deserve a whole lot more than most of us give Him? God does not require our attention— but He is surely more than worthy of it.

And it may not just be MySpace. It could be television, movies, work, sports, hobbies or anything that takes up large amounts of our time. These are not in any way bad things. In fact, they are extremely good things when used properly. But they should not take over our lives and become more important than our Christian walk.
The Bible makes it quite clear who should have priority. Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (NKJV, emphasis supplied).

In order for us to be effective Christians, we need to know the God that we serve and love. We need to be connected to Him daily, regularly, constantly putting in the time and effort to get a grasp on how great our God really is, and how He deserves our highest praise.

Granted, there are times when spending time with God and searching for answers becomes frustrating, sometimes boring and other times downright impossible to grasp.
But the assurance is that when we seek God with all our hearts, He will take us as we are and our efforts to know Him—however big or small—and use us in an amazing and powerful way. To be used by the Creator of the world should be seen as the most privileged opportunity that exists, ever! King David put it this way: “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him…” (Psalm 37:4,5 NIV).

Even Ellen White, in God’s Amazing Grace, stressed the need to spend time with God.
"By beholding we become changed” (page 224).
I’m not for one second saying that MySpace is bad. It’s awesome to be able to keep in touch with people regularly, especially those random ones you discover whom you once crossed paths with a long time ago.

But for the God who has given us everything we could ever need—and more—don’t you think He deserves more of our time and attention than most of us are willing to give? Just like any relationship or friendship, in order for it to grow and develop, you need to spend time together—quality time. And you make the effort to do so.
The same applies to a relationship with God.
What will you do with the time you’ve been given?