F.O.M.O.
“So when Peter saw him, he asked Jesus, “Lord, and what about this man, what is in his future?” Jesus said to him, ‘If I want him to stay alive until I come again, what is that to you? You follow Me!”
“What is that to you? You follow me!”
Words to live by I guess.
Fear of Missing Out is a real thing, now with a real name. If you ever move away from home in this social media-heavy climate, you’ll get to watch everyone you love have more fun than you, and all with each other. You’ll get to know FOMO.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll start to wane like the moon on the inside when you hear about things that happen back home, things you wish you could’ve been there for.
You’ll deflate when you’re no longer invited places because, duh, you live across the country now.
And, if you’re not careful, you’ll let the flattening screech all the way down into your soul.
Suddenly, it’s not just “fomo”, cute and meme-ish.
What is felt turns into a very odd lack of self-worth.
“Who am I if I’m not there?”
“What good am I if I’m not with everyone?”
“Who am I without everyone else?”
In my own season of solitude, that last question rings in my ears often.
One night I was sulking around our apartment and landed at the piano. Somewhere along the way, amidst big fat tears, I felt like God opened my mind to a very important image.
In the beautiful metaphor of “running our race”, mentioned by the Apostle Paul, I got this picture of my own “lane”– heading up and around to a different place than the others I was running alongside.
I realized that the lanes for marathon runners are very thin and small. Just big enough for one person.
In my own lane, I can’t carry everyone I’ve ever loved with me on my back.
In my own lane, I can’t tie a wheel barrow full of family behind me and run them through my own course.
I can’t stare to the right or the left and watch those beside me run, instead of watching my own two feet.
And I can’t grab onto the the ankles of my friends who are running in their own lanes, either.
You can either opt out of your own race and live vicariously through everyone else’s, or you can brave the harder part of your trail.
Should you choose the latter, you’ll find that eventually, your lane thins out. The route gets emptier and quieter. There is no one to see you fall, or to cheer on your enduring strength as you track the gritty pavement.
There are no outside voices except that of God himself and the thoughts in your own head.
You can hear your feet scrape the ground and your breathing finds rhythm.
But nothing else. No one else.
Aren’t these the moments when we finally see ourselves, know ourselves?
When we finally hear God?
Why are we so afraid to be by ourselves, with ourselves? With God?
And why is it a dagger in our hearts when we see others running their race well?
Don’t we see our own lane? Can’t we hear our own hearts pounding in our own action?
Why are we so fixated on all the fun everyone else is having without us? Why do we let our relationships define who we are?
Has my whole identity really been based on what others say about me?
If that’s the case for me, or any of you reading, then I regret to inform you that none of us actually know ourselves.
I believe knowing oneself is really important when it comes to following Jesus.
On the solitary trail, God wants to show me the wild inside of my own heart. He knows the landscape so well…he was studying it when I was studying everyone else’s:
“I should be there.” “Why wasn’t I invited.” “What I do is nothing compared to that.”
Meanwhile, there’s so much overgrown beauty and hidden treasure in my own soul that God wants to uncover, to dust off, to prune, to polish and shine…
He has work to do inside of me, in the wilderness and quiet.
And now that He’s finally got me alone, all I can do is ask him about everyone else?!
I’d complain about where others would end up, in my life or out of it.
Would they be successful? Would they eventually have more than me?
“Jesus, who will win, me or them?”
“What is that to you?” He replies. “You follow me!”
What if the silent road, just me, myself, and God, wasn’t something to be wary of, anxious about, or dreaded?
What if it was a time to be seized?
I think knowing yourself is an invaluable part of the Christian journey, but because it’s invisible, with little external praise and payoff–it’s neglected. We don’t know how to accept ourselves or really even see ourselves.
This, in turn, makes it really difficult for Jesus to reach the parts of us we’ve never seen, to talk to us about the things we didn’t know were there.
For me, pouting is still a very real thing out here in this concrete jungle, and my FOMO is still ever-so-often-evident,
but if God thinks I am worth His time and work, just me all by myself in the boring beautiful quiet, then I will agree with Him.
I will embrace the solitude. I will embrace my own lane. I will throw myself into this path. This humble, sacred chance to finally hear myself think, my heart speak.
I will be here, completely 100% present.
I will stop trying to talk about everyone else when I am with Him, and instead, simply follow the undiscovered places in my own heart.
If you’re feeling like me, if you’re questioning the worth of currently running in your lane alone, dying to wiggle free or take a hard turn,wanting find some self worth in social action, a high five, or an applause– I pray you would learn to lean into this season with a new kind of excitement and hope.
If you’re somewhere like me, please know that you don’t have to be on the outside looking in, with a bad case of FOMO.
You are on the inside of an inner-trail, with the chance to look in at you, with God himself as the tour guide.
So, here’s to a new adventure, just for the two of you.
