I have a love-hate relationship with social media.  It’s not for the typical reasons – the fakeness (though it exists) or the constant distraction (there’s a reason I don’t keep my social media accounts accessible to me 24/7!)  It’s just a terrible time sink.  I love the photos – they inspire me.  I love so many of the people – there really are a tremendous number of people on social media who are trying to do what is right and good and to follow either Jesus or their dreams.  I love seeing how people choose to display creativity and their version of reality on their social media pages.

So I love going on social media a couple of times and day and seeing what new adventures my acquaintances have been up to.  There are sure to be more than a few photos that are beautiful; an inspirational verse or two; people so excited over what they’ve had the privilege of seeing; so on and so forth.  But it’s still a terrible time sink.

The problem is that I do a lot of social media marketing.  I can’t just decide that I don’t feel like posting today.  And to stay on top of things, it’s a good idea to like and/or comment on at least a few of my acquaintances’ posts and pictures from time to time.  It’s part of my job.  But that doesn’t negate the fact that it is a terrible time sink.

So a few weeks ago, in the middle of a very busy season, I cried out to the Lord about social media.  I was frustrated with wasting so much time scrolling; tired of carefully crafting posts that seem to be interesting to only a handful of people, feeling that I could be spending my time in more productive ways.

But the Lord answered me.  He said, softly and quietly to my heart, “What if ‘well done’ looks like ‘liking’ Instagram posts?  What if ‘well done’ is posting whether the photos seem to go into a void or go viral?  What if ‘well done’ is as simple as commenting on a post to encourage the person that they aren’t here in vain?”

I hadn’t exactly thought of social media in that context before.  Here I considered it a time sink, but God saw it as a vital ministry of encouragement.  I thought I was wasting time, but God saw time well-spent loving the people who might never meet a Christian in real life.

There are plenty of things that we do in life that seem pretty useless – or necessary, but not much fun or without much return on the investment.  We wash the dishes, clear up issues that our coworkers have left us, pick up a piece of trash in the park, write on a blog that seems to have no traction, minister to a friend who doesn’t seem to be growing at all, follow a calling of the Lord on our life that seems to go nowhere.  There is a time to quit and a time to move on.  Quitting is tempting when we don’t seem to be going anywhere.

But there’s also a time to recognize that it’s the little things that are the “well done!” of our lives.  It’s being faithful to the things the Lord has given us – no matter how useless they appear right now – that can turn into the biggest crowns that we will place at the feet of our Savior one day.

Don’t give up on the small things just because they seem useless.  Don’t fret because of the time it takes to do what the Lord has put on your heart.  Don’t be afraid because things aren’t turning out the way you’d like them to.  If we can be faithful, God will come to us at the end and say, “Well done!”