Last week, I made a choice.

In a moment where I normally choose to do other things, I decided to choose stillness. I made a freaking delicious white chocolate latte (you may be impressed), and I sat. In a quiet house.

I sat on my couch, with the light pouring in, and drank my latte. And Jesus sat with me. It was such a still, quiet, rare moment – that I just cried. A psychologist would simply call this self-care, but it was so much more than that. It was a holy moment. I knew the Holy Spirit was meeting me in my stillness.

As my day went on, I found myself wanting to tell people about the gift of those few minutes of super rare, sacred moments.

But I was immediately stopped. The conversation in my head went like this:

Me: I’m always complaining, why don’t I send something encouraging to my friends and tell them I had a great morning?

Also me: But what if they’re having a bad day? You’ll probably just make them jealous/discouraged, and they’ll think you think you’re better than them.

Me again: You’re right. Let’s just keep it to ourselves.

Is it just me? Am I the only one who’s afraid to share the good stuff out of some weird fear or insecurity or assumption?

If I were really super honest – the reason I normally shut it down is because I know how I would react. When I see other people’s beautiful, still, quiet moments, I’m jealous and bitter because my current moment is chaos or busyness.

What on earth would the world look like if we would just allow ourselves to all be in different places at different times – and let it be okay? That your beautiful moment doesn’t take away from my crappy one. Just as much as I need my friends’ support and prayer in the chaos, I want them to share in the beauty, too.

I don’t want to limit God’s power by keeping His goodness to me to myself for fear of making it seem like I have it all together.

I’m afraid we’re living trapped in the idea that if we’re not struggling, we must not be doing it right. We’ve somehow made it a competition to see who’s life is harder.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – social media is not our enemy. We have an actual, real life enemy who points the finger at whatever he can find. He wants us to keep God to ourselves, and he definitely wants us thinking that everyone else has it much more together than we do. If we would all just make a pact that it’s okay to use filters sometimes and share the beautiful moments we want to remember; then maybe we could let go of the comparison that keeps us up at night.

What would our little lives look like if we all agreed that no one had it together, and we could just let each other (and ourselves) off the hook? We’re fooling ourselves by thinking these little twinges of envy don’t get to us.

James 3:16 tells us that evil of every kind stems from jealousy.

You can’t compare your life to someone else’s and not fall into sin. Why?

When we compare, we are devaluing what God is doing inside of us by wishing we were someone else.

And let’s be real; most of the things we are comparing ourselves to are just assumptions. We don’t know the ins and outs of their life, and they don’t know ours. Aside from a few really close people, I have no idea what goes on in the every day life of the people around me. Their insecurities, their fears, their deep hopes for their life.

Listen, there are moments that are meant to be just between you and God. I’m not saying to blast your life all over Instagram. But God wants His goodness to you to be known. He is good and kind and merciful to you so that a broken world will see Him and know Him. Don’t keep it to yourself. And don’t use other people’s God moments to take away from your every day moments.

So I will share about my sacred latte moment to tell you that the Spirit of God filled my house on a Thursday morning, and reminded me that I was seen, loved, and known. To remind you that you are seen, loved, and known.

Let’s allow the beauty in our lives to be seen, and let’s stop apologizing for it. Let’s give space for those around us to want to share their good, too. Let’s be someone who people want to share not only their struggles, but their joy and their beauty, too.

And maybe most importantly, let’s experience God and give Him away.

“You’re here to be the light, bringing out the God-colors in the world.                                    God is not a secret to be kept.” Matthew 5:14