Selena Gomez was recently dethroned as the Instagram Queen when Cristiano Ronaldo surpassed her as having the most followers. While that's big news for some of her fans, it's no big deal to Selena herself.
Meanwhile, the Unfollower's App for Instagram is currently notifying millennials that a number of people just unfollowed them. Some people roll their eyes because it is what it is and others take it directly to the heart.
They spend hours researching ways to become an influencer. Partially because the income would be nice, but mostly (and sometimes secretly) because they want to be known. They want to inspire change in people.
I think the core of that can be summed up just by saying that we want to matter. We want to mean something to somebody and I totally get it. It's part of human nature to want to belong.
However, it is one of our flaws as mankind to long for fulfillment in all the wrong places. Social Media is one of the most relatively new places.
We define our influence by the number of followers that we have and that's scary. Influence is actually defined as "the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself."
In order to influence someone, we try to find the widest platform before we even think about modeling the change we want to inspire. It's why we have so many people accused of "not practicing what they preach." We're too excited about the opportunity to be known that we forget about how we might be known.
Fulfillment will not come from the ability to influence someone. The ability to influence will come from our own personal journey to fulfillment.
You see, we will search the world and we'll never find it which is why we cannot search through earthly things. We must "set our minds on things above" (Colossians 3:2) because the Lord "satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things" (Psalm 107:9).
I don't know Selena Gomez personally, so I won't pretend to judge whether she cares about how many Instagram followers she has. But I think I can say she's reminded of the influence she has on people through the response of her fans. I'll even go as far as to say her fans influence and motivate her as well. They inspire her to make music, to be in movies, and to perform on stage. She may have a big platform, but the platform only defines the influence's possible reach not the actual influence.
Ladies and gents, log out of Instagram for a while and put down your phone. Come matter as you are at the feet of the One who truly satisfies.
Remember that it's okay to be an Instagram influencer, but that influence is not more important just because there's a larger platform.
"You can be much more influential if people are not aware of your influence."
-Anonymous
