Old search items

Today I was on facebook and needed to search for something.  I forget if it was a brand I liked or someone from elementary school or anything important.  It doesn't really matter.  What does matter is the second I typed in a letter a suggestion came up.  It was a suggestion for a questionable page that I had requested be removed from Facebook because someone invited me to it and it was not appropriate for facebook. Because I had visited the page when I requested it be removed, it pops up in my search bar now permenantly.

This is a weird little facebook quirk that many people online have complained about.  Very often in the complaints it is the person saying that they searched for their ex and they don't want their current significant other to see that search as a suggestion.  It seems frequency isn't the main reason for it being suggested but still some old stuff gets dragged up right in front of our eyes next to the little magnifying glass.

This can be a moment of temptation.  Should I look at this page, this person's profile, this thing I looked at once only fleetingly? You cannot change these suggestions or delete them in any way.  You're stuck with what they give you.  Sometimes it may be a past sin that you're looking at, or the profile of someone that you hurt by accident or on purpose.  But there it is, right in front of you.  What do you do with that?

I think that more than a temptation it can be an opportunity of grace and humility- both on and off facebook.  Very often in our lives we are reminded, sometimes daily, of a big mistake we've made or an offense committed or a stupid action done for no reason.  Those reminders should not be a way of beating ourselves up.  If we've sinned and been forgiven, those things are in the past.  But, like all sin, their consequences and effects still can haunt our present.  The ghosts of old search items may plague our minds if we do not give them over to God and say, "these were my mistakes.  This is where I've gone wrong.  Left on my own to search, I will seek things for myself which will lead to my self-destruction.  You are the way, the truth and the Life.  You are what I truly seek God.  Help me to seek you always, and to put the past in the past."

These reminders certainly can test us or even trick us into thinking we are the same person we are now as we were when we searched for them.  But we are not.  We are the person God has made us today.  When you're tempted to look at an ex, remember who you are now, not the person in a faded relationship from the early annals of facebook.  When you are tempted to look at a page that could cause you to stumble down a rabbithole into sin, remember that rabbithole is a tomb that Christ has overcome.  God will give you the grace to avoid the hole but you need to take the opportunity to go around it.

There is no strength to be found in facing your biggest weaknesses head on alone.  We are often weak and will fail and fall into bad habits.  Go at it with God, and avoid the near occasion.  Don't let the old search items take up any more of your thoughts than they deserve. Stick to your guns and walk away, you'll much more surely win the fight.

God bless you all and keep you on the right path!


~OCG