It happened again. It just amazes me how sneaky Satan is when he tries disrupt the good we do. In a way, I felt like this blog would be a ministry. A way to reach out, share a nugget of truth from God's word, and in the words of Lysa TerKeurst, "let people meet my Jesus" because they saw Him in me, through my words and the life I live.
So I got excited. This will be great! So I registered with a couple of blog-type services. I'm new and have no idea what I'm doing, so I signed up to monitor statistics, and to ping stuff, and to subscribe quickly, and most of it I have no idea what I just did. I started out thinking it's just a good idea, or even just fun trivia, to see how many people actually read what I posted.
And then it happened. I found myself checking my stats several times a day. Wondering why I had 14 hits last night and none all day today. And it suddenly stopped being a ministry, and became a numbers game. A popularity contest. It stopped being about God, and started being about me.
Thankfully, it did not take me six months to come to this realizaton like it did with my knitting ministry. I hope that means that I actually did learn a lesson in that experience, and will not repeat the same mistakes.
So, I am not going to check my stats constantly. I'm not signing up to ping anything else, or boost my search engine ranking, or anything else that is remotely about me.
I will only check my stats either once a day or once a week. I'm waiting to hear from my God about that. And when I do check them, I don't want to say, "What's wrong with MY numbers? Look how MY blog is doing." I want to say, "Wow! Look at that! God used my little blog to reach someone 2,000 miles away from me today. Look what God is doing."
I want that new perspective. And my Jesus will give it me...
Great post. I started being obsessed with how many people from different places were seeing my blog after I signed up with site meter. I had to quit checking it every day just to get back to reality.
ReplyDeleteKnitting ministry? What were you knitting for? I started a knitting group in order to have more experienced knitters teach "newbies". It's been a lot of fun.
Thanks for stopping by my blog - love the picture of your baby.
I started a class to teach new moms with babies in the neonatal icu how to knit. My baby (in the photo) was there for 11 days and it's a place for Satan to wreak havoc with your mind. I thought knitting would be a great distractor. I bought supplies, assembled kits with instructions, yarn, needles and patterns, made 50 invitations (one for each incubator) every other week, and taught the class. It was a lot, and I couldn't get anyone else to help me do anything. Then some weeks, no one would come to the class. At all. And I let Satan's lies get me down, and I stopped the program...Sometimes I think about starting it again,but I'll let God confirm that in me first...
ReplyDeleteI agree with Karolee (my cousin) ~ it IS easy to get hung up over stats and numbers and comments and archives, etc. Especially when you're new.
ReplyDeleteBUT I do think it's encouraging to see your ministry grow! How do you think your pastor would feel, preaching every Sunday with a blindfold on? Certainly a growing church would be encouraging to him, and I consider blogging in somewhat the same way. It helps me keep doing what I'm doing. The key is to find balance somehow, and it looks like you're well on your way!