FOOD FOR THOUGHT
(11/15/2009)
TWEETS
FROM GOD
Cindy Hong
On a trip to Chicago a few months
back, I rode into work with aunt and uncle. By 7:30 am I was sitting in
the student center at the University of Chicago , still wiping sleep from
my eyes. I ordered a large coffee and snatched up all the free reading
materials lying around, including a copy of the Chicago Tribune. Since
I was in charge of keeping myself entertained on campus all day, I paced
out the reading with my own books and trips to the bathroom. I came across
an article in the Tribune by Eric Zorn, an op-ed columnist. He did a 7-day
experiment, sharing his thoughts, opinions, and broodings on Twitter,
letting his readers know what he was eating, what was on TV, and other
comments on latex paint, colonoscopies, and moldy running shoes. At the
end of 160 hours, he posted 310 times, lost 69 followers, gained 194 new
followers. When reflecting on his week, he shared about an unfamiliar
level of self-absorption and a hyper-awareness of wrangling whims that
wore him down, leaving little time for genuine reflection. Without such
an experiment, I do a pretty good job of jumping from whim to whim, absorbed
in my own half-baked notions and internal chatter. But imagine if I stopped
every few minutes and posted an update to God, asking Him for guidance,
saying a quick prayer for someone, whispering a verse back to Him. Perhaps
my abnormal amounts of self-absorption would be replaced with a dose of
God-absorption, however small the dose may be at first. Or what if, in
the midst of a crazy afternoon of flying thoughts and endless distractions,
every few minutes a beep sounded on my phone, signaling a tweet from God?
At 2:36 pm, I'm reminded that He is with me. Always. At 3:18 pm, I get
another tweet: “I, God, take great delight in you.” Then again at
3:55 pm, “My grace is sufficient.” At 4:15 pm, beep, it's God again,
“Be anxious for nothing.” A few minutes later, another post, “Come
to Me. Just come.” Could it be that after 310 messages in 160 hours,
I would have more of an hour-by-hour awareness of God? Could it make me
more attentive to His presence? Could it remind me to depend more on Him
and less on myself?
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