The Facebook Live Test of Morality by guest blogger Kim Thames

“How do we continue making a fearless and searching moral inventory?”
 I so naively asked this when leading our Across the Bridge class discussion a few weeks ago.  A humbling answer came to me this week.
Wednesday afternoon I was accidentally broadcasting live on Facebook for 30 minutes.  What this means is that for 30 whole minutes my phone was picking up everything I was saying and doing for anyone who was online to hear.  Thankfully it was mostly broadcasting the ceiling in my office, but still.
It only stopped because I got a desperate call from my son, “Mom! You are Facebooking Live! And you have been for 30 minutes!”   I was actually outside writing down bus numbers when he had started calling me.  My friend heard my phone ringing and was worried when she saw that Josh had called me several times.  My other friend brought me my phone and took over my duty so I could call Josh and see what was wrong. 
I immediately stopped the broadcast and deleted the video.  I was embarrassed.  I was afraid my son was embarrassed for me, too. Yet, he turned around and posted the whole story on Facebook.   Instead of shaming me, he told the whole world (well, all our FB friends) what I had done and that he was proud to be my son.  He is confident I would never say anything I would not want overheard by everyone.
Wow. 
In just a matter of seconds, I had gone through a lifetime of emotions - from deep concern, to tremendous relief, to embarrassment, then gratitude and humility.   Then I had to finish writing down bus numbers.
Later I began to think how this incident might really help me continue a fearless and searching moral inventory.  How would we live if we knew all our words and actions were being broadcast live? Then I realized that it is not the fear or the embarrassment that galvanizes us to change – it is the grace and the confidence that God has in us that sends us to our knees in gratitude and repentance.  It was Josh’s faith in me that had me gulping great tears while monitoring the bus lanes.  It is his love for me that makes me want to be as good a person as he thinks I am.  This I think might be the gospel