Why do I blog?

There have been times in my life when I have become obsessed with the blogosphere. They are often short-lived and I am glad for it.

What do you read blogs for? Entertainment? Research? (Arguably the latter could be properly identified as a sub-category of the former...) Dialectical theological debate? Keeping up with old friends and acquaintances?

Often with me it tends to be a mixture of motivations and goals, but if I'm really honest it almost always starts with boredom. "I need some entertainment," I think. "Let's check the blogs."

Next I do something completely narcissistic. I check in with my own blog. Often I re-read the things I have written and think about how much I agree with them. "Yeah, that's good stuff," I think. I look for comments, little signals that I'm popular and important. But pretty soon I get bored with my own thoughts. So I go look for others.

At this point I find something I agree or disagree with. And I leave comments. My very important and highly valued praise or my superb, dismantling criticism pepper the melting pot of ideas like the saffron of the textual idea world.

Now sometimes, when somebody says something I really disagree with, I leave a critical comment, and come back several times that day to see what they said in response. This is where the obsession comes in. Pretty soon, they come back with a retort, and I shoot back, and we're having a "friendly" competition over who is smarter in the very public arena of cyberspace. We can be talking about the loftiest, holiest ideas, but as my obsessed behavior reveals it is about more than the ideas. It is about my ego.

It seems like such a waste that such an incredible blessing like the internet be resigned to the mire of my sinful nature. There must be a way to interact with people over the internet that isn't all about proving my worth to myself or others through what I write.

Some things I don't do often enough that seem to help:

1. Pray before posting. Pray to Jesus. Ask Him to fill my fingers with His words rather than my own self-centered ones. Then only type words that I wouldn't be ashamed of if He read them. (Because He is reading them!)

2. Recognize my humanity. Recognize that a lot of the time I'm dumb, selfish, and only see things the way I want to see them rather than the way they actually are.

3. Recognize the humanity of others. Other people have the same limitations that I have, and other people are people. There's a post-er behind every post and that person is made in the image of God, and Jesus died on the cross for that person.

Any other suggestions?