I need to repent.
I went viral one time and lost my mind.
Two and a half weeks ago I wrote a post called “Coffee & Jesus”
It was a Thursday afternoon and I found myself in a “flow state” and a “self-reflective” mood at the coffee shop after working for several hours. I’ve found I do my best writing when those two things overlap.
So I wrote Coffee & Jesus.
I had been dealing with some sort of insecurity that day (which is true almost every day) and felt the need to post the article as an act of rebellion to my insecurities.
Well, that post ended up gaining traction and went viral.
I mean, viral for me. Who defines viral anyway? For me 20 extra views feels viral.
Anyway, the thing took off.
And as I saw the views rise, the comments flood in, and people start to say so many nice things about my writing I had an unexpected thought cross my mind. Should I be posting more than once a week?
According to the views, and the comments, and the compliments — yes.
According to the increased number of subscribers I received — yes.
According to the excitement around it all — yes.
I mean, listen, I was thrilled. I love to write. Out of all the components of what it means to be a minister, my personal favorite is the part that involves getting what’s in my brain down on a blank piece of paper.
I saw the views stacking up for the thing I love doing and I loved it. I love writing and I would love the opportunity to provide for my family through my writing. So as the thought crossed my mind, “Should I be posting more than once a week?”
The answer became abundantly clear. YES. Unequivocally, yes.
So I decided I would go all in.
2-3 posts per week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Some free. Some paid.
I saw Jonathon over at Dear Jon talk about being up every morning to write daily and I thought, “I’m already up at that time. I can do that too!”
But with each passing day (mind you, this only continued for a few days) the insecurity in my heart kept growing and growing.
I would post and habitually check the stats.
I wasn’t just checking to see how many views I was getting, I was longing for the next viral post. I was insecure about the lack of a comment or share. I was insecure no one upgraded to paid. I was insecure about what people were thinking. I was insecure about everything. It was to the point I felt paralyzed.
Eventually I sat still long enough and God spoke loud and clear. “You didn’t ask me if this is what you should do.”
And gosh, even as I write today — about 5 days after the Lord’s statement to me — I feel the same level of conviction. He was right (of course) and I knew it immediately. I was in the wrong. I had sinned against Him.
I had sinned against Him in a few ways
I didn’t ask for His guidance
I went all in on finding my worth and validation in the views & comments and not from Him
I set up a Golden Calf of a life in my mind and made my decisions based on that
I acted out of haste, not wisdom
Ultimately, I told God I wasn’t happy with how quickly He was moving along the growth of my blog. I needed it to move faster so I took matters into my own hands
So should I have began writing and posting so much?
According to my pride — yes.
According to my God — no.
As I finished my run last night I was reflecting on all this with God and said, “God my concern is how quickly this developed.”
And it’s still my concern. What’s going on with my heart? Why did I so quickly abandon God for a cheap idol? When did things change for me?
I’ve always been confused about the Israelites and the Golden Calf story.
They had been led to freedom by the Lord after seeing miracle after miracle and barely a month later they are worshipping an idol.
It stands to reason that they didn’t know what was going on. Moses is up on the mountain receiving commands for how to live and the Israelites do what they know best from Egypt (make an idol out of gold.)
They were physically free from Egypt but clearly Egypt still had a hold of them.
I’ve found out there is something deep in my heart that desires to be very successful. I want to be known. I want the high praise.
I knew this used to be a thing, but I thought it had gone away. When I played professional baseball I wanted to be able to provide more than enough for my family and I wanted to be wildly successful and well known for it.
When professional baseball ended I thought I worked through all of that. I quickly saw this same desire developing in vocational ministry and confessed all of it I could. At that point I thought I confessed everything to the Lord and uprooted all my sinful desires around money and success and notoriety.
Clearly, I was wrong. As soon as my heart saw a new avenue of potential for success, it leaped at the opportunity to worship a false idol again and long for the opportunity to be known by lots of people.
What a mess.
When I posted Coffee & Jesus it was an act of rebellion. I posted this Note that afternoon:
And I don’t think I was wrong. I was scared to death that if I posted too much people wouldn’t read my articles. Sending out that post was me saying, “I’m not a slave to fear!”
But what I didn’t know was hidden inside my act of rebellion was a seed of insecurity.
Once the article gained traction it was like my flesh said, “Oh, they do like me!”
And that was enough for me to become a slave to that thought and keep looking for affirmation again, and again, and again.
Anyway. I could keep going.
If I kept telling you all the wicked things God has shown me about my heart over the course of the last 5 days, this article would be a 20 minute read. It’s been a mess. I’m a mess.
But God is good. He is not a mess. He is faithful to us and He is quick to show mercy. He won’t tolerate gimmicks and He doesn’t put up with sin. And he sure as heck doesn’t want His people worshipping idols.
Is there a future that involves me posting articles daily? Maybe. But it’s not right now. I can’t start doing that because it’s compelling to see the views or because it’s strategic for “blog growth.” I can only do that if the Lord leads.
My encouragement: ask the Lord to search your heart and show you if you have any subtle idol worship going on. If there is any subtle idol worship know that if you’re committed to holding onto it, it will eventually kill your relationship with God. That’s my experience anyway.
My second encouragement: are you doing everything you’re doing because God told you to? Or are you doing whatever seems best to you? According to the book of Judges, doing whatever seems best is one of the surest ways to walk away from God. Which is also my experience.
Thanks for reading along and thanks for showing me grace. God is good and He deserves all our obedience.
If you read this whole thing and you’re like, “Wait. This guy played professional baseball?” I’ve written my story in this post:
And I’ve written about the difficulties of retiring from baseball in these three posts:
Also, as part of my repentance, I’ve made last weeks post completely free.
Originally it was posted as mostly free and partly for paid subscribers. It’s on seeking the presence of God and I list out 7 practices we can implement to actually seek God’s presence.
Thanks for reading along. See you next Wednesday.
—Brandon
I'm so proud of you, brother. I've had to do the same thing. Also, just FYI: Now that it's summer, the 4:30am wake-up calls have taken a bit of a break. 😉 I'm still doing a post every day, but now that the kids are out of school I'm able to enjoy a little bit of a different rhythm.
Wow!!! I just love hearing the thoughts inside the mind of someone in love with Jesus. Your openness is captivating. This style of writing keeps me believing that our patient God is just smiling along the way.