Coming from a town stationed right smack-dab in the middle of the “Bible Belt” of the south, your bottom is in a church pew from the time you can sit up on your own, and before that, it was stationed in a lap or a baby sling for the whole service.

Due to the large number of church-goers from a young age, when children become old enough to make their own choice to attend church and believe, they tend to stray. Usually, once a child gains a drivers license and the freedom to say “I’m not going”, they’ll hardly ever grace the doors of the church.

So what happens when they’re 20 years old and they decide just maybe its time to go back?

College kids have this massive movement all over the world. Experimenting with partying, sleep deprivation, and religion all at the same time. Often students come back to their born into religion after they wake up to their reality, and realize the way they’re living isn’t how they want to be.

But what happens when saying it and putting bible verses on your social media isn’t enough to fool the world into thinking you are living the holier-than-thou lifestyle?

Coming from a bible belt town, I have seen people steer in and out of religion. I have seen experimental times with Atheism, Buddhism, and anything else under the sun.

But what I have realized is this: When/if someone chooses to come back to their born into religion, they put on a front in their community, on their social media, and in front of their family, but they’re not fooling their friends, they’re not fooling the people closest to them because they know it’s all a front. Their front is paper thin, but they’re distracting themselves. They need something as a reassurance that they’re doing this life right, and that is self-gratification.

Because nothing says “I Love God” more than bible verses in social media bios, bible verses on the wall behind an aesthetically pleasing picture of an unmade bed, or singing with your hands raised at church, right? Wrong.

It’s all wrong.

When someone is living for something bigger than them, their physical appearance to everyone around them doesn’t matter.

Are you okay? Are you choking?

Let’s repeat that. When someone is living for something bigger than them, their physical appearance to everyone around them doesn’t matter.

Whew. That was a mouthful. Now, for an explanation.

Your actions don’t define what you believe, but your actions should portray what you believe.

So here’s some food for thought: reflect on what you show the world around you? Are you showing them what you say you believe, or just saying it? Because you can’t talk the talk without walking the walk.

If you continue to surround yourself with the same people who steered you away in the first place, doing the same things you’ve always done, you are not steering yourself where you need to be, you’re steering yourself to sitting on the fence. Proclaiming Jesus in your outer life, but not truly believing in your personal life.

Step out of self-gratification and social media religion, millennials. Your Instagram doesn’t get you a house in Heaven.