Habukkuk Revelation & 30 Day Social Detox Update

Hey sis!

Today I am dropping in real quick to give you an update on my social media detox experiment. If you didn’t know, I decided to delete the Instagram app for 30 days. I wanted to take you on a journey of what really happens to the numbers when we remove social selling. I am also walking you through my mental, physical, and emotional health journey of saying bye-byeeee to phone addiction.

Today I share what week 1 has been like, how the Lord gave me Habakkuk revelation and what’s changed in my motherhood.

I hope you enjoy.

Wanna give me feedback? Simply email me at support@stefaniegass.com. I’d love to hear from you.

Listen in to the rest of Stefanie’s IG detox!

Deleting Instagram for 30 Days

2nd Week

3rd Week

4th Week

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:

Hi friend, happy Friday. I hope you’ve had a great week. I have had my first five days of my Instagram detox and I promised you that I would be reporting back. So I’m gonna pop in here today, even though I haven’t had a full week, I think Fridays are the easiest for me to just give you a quick update about what’s been going on over here since you’re not hanging out with me on the IG, like usual.

So we’re going to go through just a quick update today. All right. So for those of you who are like, what are you talking about? I am doing a 30-day social detox experiment where I am deleting, I actually deleted both Facebook and Instagram from my phone. I did leave messenger for Facebook installed just for my students which I really don’t get any messages there. And I do still have Facebook on my computer, on my desktop for my groups, because I am running my Podcast to Profit program right now.

And we do have student homework that is due and also our student community group, both of which are outsourced though. So the management is outsourced, so I’m really not in there that much, so that’s what’s going on. Why am I doing this? Because I need a breather. The world is a lot right now. And social media is just all-consuming. It’s extraordinarily addictive, specifically Instagram for me. And it just puts me into a spiral and I need peace.

I need to protect my peace. I need to be yoked up with God and what he wants for me, my children, our lives. So many big decisions hanging out there in the midst for us as a family. Even as a nation, you know? And so having myself removing any distraction was a must. And then secondary, I always hear from my students, well, we can’t delete social, you know, it’s going to hurt our business.

So I’m doing a test to really see, does it actually hurt our business to delete the public versions of social, where we like push out content. We’re showing up on social, we’re doing all of these things. So I chose two periods of time where nothing was going on, I’m not launching anything.

Life is just pretty chill and I’m comparing that with being off of social during that same period of time. So it’s going to be good. All right. So let’s begin with the unknowns at this point. I tried to grab all my business stats to report back to you guys, but it’s only been five days, so I don’t have a comparison for the prior five days because it included a weekend.

So I’m going to have to wait a bit more to get any kind of idea on the business numbers. Because obviously as of now, all of them are down a smidge downloads, revenue, and the list, but it’s because it’s not been a full week yet, so I won’t have that information. So that’s an unknown at this point. I will go through the cons so far with you.

First con is that as with any addiction when you begin to break your addiction, you have trouble. And I, for the first day, found myself just picking up the phone like I always do when I first deleted it on the weekends, cause I already deleted it on the weekends. But I picked up the phone. I was sitting at my morning routine one morning, like reading the Bible, my coffee looked so cute.

My puppy was there and I was like, oh, I’m going to do a story. And then I grabbed my phone and I’m like, oh, I don’t have Instagram. I know what the weird part of that was for me was, do I still want this picture? Like, do I still want to take a picture? And the answer was no. And so that really made me think.

Why we take pictures? Are we taking pictures to truly remember a moment in time or a memory, or are we only taking pictures? Because we want to share it on a social platform for recognition, for validation, for whatever reason. And I’m really questioning that about myself, you know? Wow, Stef!. Why did you want to do that?

Like, was it truly to encourage other women, or was it just about you? And so I think I’m doing some work on that. Some journaling on that, and it also really made me question why we pick up our phone at all. And that’s one of the introspective things I’m working on over these 30 days is the phone itself because here’s the second con.

And this is just me being super open and vulnerable with you guys, you know, deleting social it has not completely helped me alleviate the addiction to my phone. I started replacing, checking social media with checking the news. Talk about replacing one problem with another, you know, like I started reading the news 24/7 and like updating the news.

And I was like, I’m still touching my phone. I feel like just as much as before, but I’m replacing one addiction with another. And so the cool part about that though is like, I’m super hyper-aware of what I’m doing and I’m trying to fix, and I’m trying to heal and I’m trying to come up with these boundaries that are going to work for me in the long-term.

And so what I decided, what I’m working on for next week and this weekend is actually I’m breaking up with my phone entirely, not just social media. So my goal here is we have a foam basket that during dinner, we put our phones in, you know, no technology at the table. And so my goal for myself is to keep my phone in the phone basket all day, unless we go somewhere.

And I will have once an hour, a designated time to go read all the text messages, reply to everybody. I’ll have 15 minutes an hour to like deal with the phone. Everybody back, whatever I need to do. The beauty of this though is like, we don’t need to be on call 24/7. And I’m super sick of that. Now, yes, my kids are in school at the moment.

So that’s something that I have to navigate, like being, you know, as the nurse calling, like being afraid of missing a phone call or something like that. But I think, having it in the phone basket is really going to help. The other thing I was considering is creating a phone basket in my office so that the phone’s still has a designated place, but I can see phone calls.

I already have all notifications turned off. So I won’t be, you know, wanting to touch the phone by seeing a notification go off except if it’s a text or phone call, those are the only two notifications that are on. I’m considering that I might start with that to see if it works and if it’s not, and I’m still touching my phone well to the kitchen, it goes, you know, out of sight, out of mind. So that’s something I’m still navigating.

Let’s move to the pros. Oh man, the pros. So I’ll tell you right now, you know, I have a habit tracker where every week I have these goals and my goals are mornings with God, wake up at 5- 5 :15 in the morning, I spend an hour with God, then I tried to focus on eating paleo-ish.

I hit these health bubbles that my dietician and I work together on, I have a workout goal every day to work out four to five times a week. And then I have this 15 minutes of kid buck bubble, where like, I really want to focus on playtime with my kids. You guys, play is hard for me. And I don’t know why like it’s such a struggle.

I pray. I’m like, Lord gave me the desire to play with my kids. Like I will read with them, I will cuddle up, we’ll watch a movie. We can go on a bike ride, but like playing, you know, Legos or like imagination, it’s just super hard for me. And I don’t know why, even as a kid I wasn’t, I didn’t play very much. I was learning, you know, it was like gotta be a leader, got to work on my spelling test. Like it’s just who I am.

So that’s always been a struggle for me. And when I track all of these habits in my planner, the one that’s always lacking is the 15 minutes of kid. It’s always lacking of my goal there, which is at least I would like to do it seven days a week. You know, it’s 15 minutes, come on, Stefanie. Like, and it’s not to say I’m not doing things with them, but like the active playtime where like we sit down and we do imagination play or whatever they want to do. And I’ll do it three or four times, but I’m not hitting that consistently.

And I’ll find all these other excuses as to why I didn’t do that. Oh, well I had to clean the inbox or we watched a movie together and those answers are not adequate. That’s not good enough. So what I’ve noticed is so far, you guys, I have hit every single habit this week that I wanted to hit. Every day God time, every day my paleo/eating goals, every day a workout, every day my 15 minutes a kid, that’s incredible.

And so right there, I’m proving to myself that removing social media from my phone and Instagram completely from my life has allowed me to become more present. Because my habits aren’t lacking, like I’m hitting all of my habits, which is so cool. So that’s one thing I have noticed, and overall peacefulness has come back into my heart.

Not as much as I would like, and this is my fault because I’m still reading the news. I’m going to have to just lay that down. And I think in regard to the news, guys, like there’s a grey line here. Like I used to just put my head in the sand and like never, ever look at the news, but now, like I know I’m called to be a prayer warrior for other nations and other people and the oppressed and people who are struggling and children who are in desperate need of prayer.

And so knowing what’s going on in the world is important to me for my prayer life. But there’s like a line of being sucked into the realities of what goes on all around us and like wearing that, wearing that heaviness on our shoulders and like carrying that around and let it get affect our parenting and our mental health.

And then looking at it from like a bird’s eye view and going K, got it. Pray for them. God, I’m going to pray for this and my hand it to you, because like your girl can wear this all day. You know, like this is it’s too much to bear, Lord.

So I think that finding that gray line for me is what I’m searching for, and I’m not quite there yet. The other thing that I have discovered is, God is speaking to me much more clearly and directing me in my morning routines, so typically I’ll do like a Bible study and read something from the New Testament.

Well, I’ll sit down with my Bible and, I pray over these pages, I pray that you would bring these words to life for me and just allow me to transform into these words, allow me to like jump into these pages of what to come alive and be implanted in my heart. Show me exactly what you need me to see today and help me understand what I’m looking at, help me Lord, help me to understand this and help me to do what I need to with this information for the Bible this morning.

And so what’s super interesting is God’s been like, directing me exactly what to read which I think it’s so interesting, and I’m still deciphering through some of it so I’m not going to tell you too much about what He’s been asking me to read except for one chapter because this is so relevant to all of us. And that’s Habakkuk, and I really hope I’m saying that right Habakkuk.

I started with Habakkuk, I could not, it’s like real hard but it’s such a fun word so Habakkuk is my guest, I actually did not Google this before saying it, but I think that’s what it is. So, the Lord led me to Habakkuk, and love me if I’m not saying that right, just love me. Basically, this Habakkuk is a prophet who received a vision in roughly 612 BC and he’s speaking of a time on the edge of disaster.

And he is frustrated, he’s upset, he’s questioning God, he’s afraid, he’s unsure of why all these things are happening. And he’s complaining. That’s what he’s doing. And so when you look at this, it starts out with, oh, so this is Habakkuk 1:12, just starting at the very beginning and it says, ‘How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?’. I wrote, same in the margins I’m like, oh my gosh, this is what’s happening in our world.

‘Must I forever see these evil deeds? Why must I watch all this misery?‘. Same. ‘I see destruction and violence. I’m surrounded by people who love to argue and fight.’ Same, you guys, I’m like Oh my gosh, the Lord is speaking to me right now and He is. The word is God, and God is the word and so He is speaking to us through His word.

Next one. ‘The law has become paralyzed, and there is no justice in the courts. The wicked far  outnumber the righteous, so that justice has become perverted.’ Oh, I’m like, Excuse me, but the Habakkuk’s complaints are my complaints, I’m feeling this right now. And so the Lord replies to Habakkuk. And He says ‘Look around at the nations and be amazed. Look around and be amazed‘.

And then he goes on to share that he is raising up the Babylonians. I thought this was so crazy. It says ‘I am raising up the Babylonians, a cruel and violent people‘ like, God knows exactly what’s going on all across the world and sometimes he’s even doing this, back in this time he was raising up the Babylonians. God’s hand is in every single thing, orchestrating, moving, think about like chess pieces, like God knows what the end result is and He knows exactly what has to happen in order for everything to come to pass.

And so I thought it was super interesting that God was raising up the Babylonians, and then he went on to talk about like how awful they are, violent, they are just awful, they are deeply guilty, blah blah blah. So he goes on to talk about their damaged character and their sinful nature. So then, Habakkuk comes back and he’s like, Well, excuse me, you know, I have more complaining to do.

And he said, ‘Lord, my God, my Holy One, surely you do not plan to wipe us out?’ – this is Habakkuk 1:12. And then he says, ‘You are pure and you can’t stand the sight of evil. Should you be silent while the wicked swallow up the people that are more righteous than me?’ so like again he’s questioning this will of God, like, Lord, why are you allowing all these things to happen. I don’t understand.

And then the Lord replies again. First of all, Habakkuk, you are treading on thin ice, honey. You’re questioning the Lord, then you’re questioning the Lord again. And so the Lord replies to him. He says, ‘Write my answer on plain tablets and carry it to others’. So he’s about to tell him some serious wisdom, some prophetic wisdom, and he’s telling Habakkuk to go out and share the news.

And what He says is, ‘This is a vision for a future time. It describes the end and it will be fulfilled, it will surely take place’. And then He goes on to say, ‘The end is coming, the end is coming. Look at the proud! Wealth is treacherous. The arrogant, never at rest in their greed they’re swallowing up many people’. So, he’s going on to talk about again, all these horrible, awful things that people are doing. And he says ‘What sorrow awaits them?‘

It’s just crazy. So then we go on and on. And Habakkuk, it doesn’t want fair, and it all comes together for me at the end. At the end of Habakkuk, let me give you the exact verse, it starts with 3:16. Here he is, he’s like he excepts ‘I will wait quietly for the coming day when disaster will strike these people. Even though the fig trees have no blossoms and there are no grapes on the vines. Even though all the crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren. And, even though the flocks die in the field and the cattle barns are empty. I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in the God of my salvation. The Sovereign Lord is my strength.‘

So, God promises us redemption. He promised His revenge on the simple, on the things that were happening to Habakkuk, and he says, ‘I will wait quietly for the coming day.‘ And then he says, ‘even though‘. Even though we are going to face adversity and the world is going to be hard and simple and dark. People are going to come out as a nation, they’re going to come against nation, and we are going to be in the middle of it. Even though. Rejoice in the Lord, be joyful, and then find strength in the Lord.

This to me it was such a beautiful gift from God because what God told me through reading this chapter is that you are going to sit in the middle, girl. It is not going to go away. Maybe things get better for a time, but then they will get worse. Maybe things will get even worse than they are, and then they will get better, because we live in a fallen world, this world is never going to be pure, clean, and healed, until Jesus Christ comes again.

We don’t know when that will be. We do not know the Bible says you will not know. So we can come up with these ideas and these thoughts and these hopes and these prayers about when Jesus is coming but all we can do is hang on even though. He says, Habakkuk, even though there’s no blossoms, there’s no grapes, there’s no crops, the fields are empty and barren and the cattle barns are empty. Even though you are called to rejoice in the Lord and be joyful and find strength.

And to me, I was like okay. All right, God. So, you’re telling me is that if I bear this weight of everything that’s going on, I will crumble. And instead, after rejoice in you, and spread your good news, and find happiness in my day, find happiness in the journey, even though. And then the other amazing thing that he promises is that we will get our rewards in heaven and the people that are sinful and awful and killers, and murderers and adulterers and liars and whatever else there is because I know there’s a lot right now and I there’s always been a lot.

There’s always been a lot. It’s another thing, this is not new, it’s just highly publicized, there’s always been a lot of evil, guys. And even though there is, they will get there’s. It’s promised. There will be a great judgment day. And He promises that they will get what is coming to them. So I love this so much. In the last verse, just to leave you with, and I would recommend everyone go do a Bible study on Habakkuk right now, go read it, but it’s about Habakkuk 3:19.

‘The Sovereign Lord is my strength! He makes me as surefooted as a deer, able to tread upon the heights. So if you want to be surefooted, which I wanna do right now, if you wanna be steadfast, if you want to be full of peace, if you want to be joyful, and strong, the Lord is the answer. That’s it.

We cannot cure, we cannot control. We cannot fix, but we can pray, and we can lean on the Lord. And we can show up for him, we can partner with God, we can come close to God so we can come close to us and we can lean on him, and He can carry us through this, justice he will carry us through every other thing that we’re going to face in our lives.

This is not the end, my beautiful friends. This is just the middle, and there is no end. All we are, are human beings we are but dust sitting in the middle, waiting for our rescuer. So yeah, that came through this week. My thought was like, Whoa, like, Thank You, Lord God, You are so good to me, because I’ve been praying for peace.

I’ve been like spinning, and so that really helped me feel more grounded, that you know, the middle will always be here, I can’t escape the middle, but I can navigate the middle with joy and strength, and rejoice in Him every single day. So that’s what I got for you.

It’s Friday, so now I’m going to continue my detox I got three more weeks of my Instagram detox that I’m doing. This weekend we’ve got some family coming in town. We’re going to go swimming at my mom’s house, I’m just gonna pour into family at home this weekend. And I’m just so excited for what God is doing sometimes. I want to leave you guys with this one thought, not sometimes.

God creates miracles out of the mess. And we know there are messes going on, left and right, in the government, in the world, in nations, in our schools, in our homes, unseen, like there are messes everywhere. But if God makes miracles out of messes, who are we to question the outcome? And all I know is that God knows the answers, better than I do.

God loves the people that I love more than I do. God loves this nation, this world, and all of his beautiful incredible children. This includes you more than anyone else does. And so if he loves us that much, He’s got us. And this is a test of our faith right now. This is a test of how much we’re willing to trust Him and love Him through the heart. I don’t know about you but I choose him. I’ll see you guys back here next week. God bless you.