1 Corinthians 3:3 NLT “For you are still controlled by your sinful nature. You are jealous of one another and quarrel with each other. Doesn’t that prove that you are controlled by your sinful nature? Aren’t you living like people of the world?”
Wow, Paul really knows how to call us out, right? This verse reminds us that sometimes, we get caught up in our human ways—jealousy, arguments, comparing ourselves to others. It’s so easy to slip into that mindset, especially with social media and all the pressure to keep up with everyone around us. But here’s the good news: God calls us to something higher. Instead of getting tangled up in jealousy and fights, He invites us to live by the Spirit—showing love, kindness, and patience.
I remember when social media did a number on me many years ago. In fact, I had just returned to Instagram after a long break. The break involved me deleting the app from my phone entirely. When I came back, nothing had changed. Instagram was still as stressful as it was when I left. Everyone seemed to be living their best lives, raising superstar kids, and completely figuring out life, love, money, and parenting. Not very helpful to my mental and emotional health, you would agree.
My reality was pretty different. I was still very much in the “one day at a time, sweet Jesus” zone. More than half the time, I wasn’t even sure I knew what I was doing, let alone if I was doing a good job. I kept thinking of the perfect people I followed on Instagram (I won’t say their names here, lol).
In my insecurity, I turned on my children, poor things. I would ask them, mostly whenever I saw them watching TV or just being kids, “When was the last time you studied? Are you learning coding? Do you know about Bitcoin? When was the last time we won an award in this house?” Shameful, I know. They’d roll their eyes and groan, “Not again!” They were, and still are, amazing children, and I was just being very silly and insecure, of course.
I even put them under pressure to enter a kids’ writing contest that year. Poor things, they hated every minute of it. But no, I kept pushing. We ended up submitting our entry at the very last minute via the very overpriced SHL and were all very stressed.
I told the kids that it was okay if they didn’t win. I just wanted us to start and finish something in spite of all the odds. They kept asking, over and over, “Why are we even doing this?” My heart knew the truth, even though I said nothing. My heart knew that we were doing this because of all the oversharers and fake perfectionists on Instagram. Because some kids we don’t even know won something (relevant or not), and their mom floods my Instagram feed with it, and now your mom feels insecure about her (amazing and wonderful) kids.
Yes, I was crazy, I know. Thank God I came to my senses pretty quickly. I went back into another long hiatus and focused on the things that really mattered—loving my family, neighbours, myself, and my God. Nowadays, I still venture into Instagram, but only consume in very small doses. I also typically don’t take anything I see on there seriously.
This experience taught me that it’s so easy for jealousy and malice to creep into our hearts. We envy, we quarrel, we lie, we bear grudges, and refuse to forgive because we are still controlled by our sinful nature. As Christians, we must submit to the Holy Spirit. The Bible says we have the mind of Christ.
So today, let’s ask God to help us see others through His eyes. Let us ask Him for the grace to love as He loves and to crucify the flesh, yielding to His Spirit more and more so that we may truly be Christlike in every area of our lives.
