My phone tells me I spend hours a day on social media.

Like, actual hours.

And I had no idea. I don’t even remember opening the apps half the time. Seeing those numbers properly scared me. So for Lent, I’ve been abstaining from social media.

Not because it’s evil or sinful—Instagram hasn’t sent me off the rails—but because it quietly became something I felt like I needed. What started as a want turned into a habit, and that habit started messing with my mind and time.

There’s a story in the Bible of a woman, Mary, who in an act of extravagant worship, pours expensive perfume over Jesus’ feet. The Bible tells us that “the house was filled with the sweet smell of her perfume”. Her worship was so extravagant that it affected everything around her. 

When we choose to abstain from things that we really want, from things that are good in our life, it’s like we’re choosing to pour out our own expensive perfume at the feet of Jesus. And the impact of that, like the scent from the perfume, should spill out into our lives.

It should change us.

My husband, Matt and I had our baby girl back in November.

It has been such an incredible time; time I know we won’t get back. However I had found myself spending a lot of this precious time scrolling through social media. Any mothers out there who have ever breastfed know how long you are sat in the same spot feeding your child.

My phone was always to hand, so I found myself opening up instagram and “doom scrolling”. I’d look back at my screen time overview to see that literally hours of my day were spent on social media.

Sometimes I would only stop when my phone ran out of battery.

As humans, we occupy a very strange place in the universe.

We are created as the image bearers of God, yet that nature is corrupted by the actions of Adam and Eve in the garden.

We can see this so clearly in the world around us, we are capable of creating works of such beauty that it makes one weep, and acts of such violence that we don’t believe the telling of it.

When I was a student and started following Jesus more seriously, I quickly noticed that some of what I did wasn’t compatible with how He lived. The things I once saw as normal - getting drunk, chasing wealth, casual dating - pursuing whatever felt good in the moment—suddenly didn’t align with the life God was calling me to.

That’s where sanctification comes in.

Abstinence is a deliberate choice to step away from distractions and focus on what truly matters. This verse challenges us to reflect on what occupies our minds and whether it aligns with God’s will.

“But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Against such things there is no law.”

Galatians 5:22-23

Some of us will be familiar with the list of the fruit of the spirit but how often do we consider the last one; self control?