These are the days of acronyms. It’s like swimming in alphabet soup. LOL – laughing out loud. OMG – oh my gosh. IMHO – in my honest opinion. SMH – shaking my head. I’m sure there are many that I’ve never heard of. Thanks to texting and social media, we’re experiencing an ongoing explosion of ways for writing what we’re thinking without actually writing it out.
FOMO isn’t necessarily bad. When desktop computers first came out, some were resistant – me included. But here I am, writing on my computer, memories of manual and electric typewriters becoming ancient history. It might have taken a while, but we eventually tried out personal computers, partly due to fear of missing out.
The same applies to cellular phones, now known as smartphones. The first ones were nearly as large as a briefcase and only the affluent could afford them. As with most technology, cell phones became more advanced, less costly – and smaller. Now practically everyone has at least one. Why did we finally buy them? FOMO.
Maybe one day we’ll all have an electric car for the same reason, but that’s a topic for another time. In any case, I’ve learned fear of missing out can be a positive motivator. Even spiritually.
Years ago, FOMO prompted me to make an impulsive decision. Long before becoming a follower of Christ, I attended church occasionally but didn’t know the Lord. If you’d asked me then if I would go to heaven when I died, the best answer I could have given was, “I hope so.” Maybe I thought “punching my church attendance card” would help.
After getting a job in a new city, someone at work told me about her church. Again, thinking attending church was something I should do at least once in a while, I agreed to visit. At the time I didn’t know one church from another, so why not try this one?
During the pastor’s sermon, I understood him to say that anyone who’d not been baptized by immersion wouldn’t go to heaven. I’d never heard that, but the thought came to my mind, “I’m not going to be left out on some technicality,” so I went forward – and got baptized.
This isn’t to speak negatively about baptism in any way, and I know there are a variety of views on who should be baptized, when, how, and why. But the only reason I agreed to be baptized then was FOMO. I felt certain there was a heaven, and when the time came to leave this life, I didn’t want to miss out.
Lots of folks take their initial steps of faith because of FOMO. It might be a desire to know they’ll go to heaven when they die – or not go to hell. A cynic might say they want “fire insurance.” Others might have concluded there must be something more to life than constantly striving for more or the unending routine of daily living. They resonate with the old Peggy Lee tune, “Is That All There Is?” They’re missing out on something, but don’t know what.
Some may have observed a friend’s, coworker’s or neighbor’s life, seeing in them an inner quality they lack. They wonder what’s different about the other person’s life. “What do you have that I don’t?” they might even ask. Over time this can open a door for an honest conversation about the Bible and Jesus Christ – who He was (and is), what He did, and how we should respond to the offer described in Romans 6:23, “the free gift of God [that] is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Even for genuine followers of Jesus, those who’ve sincerely trusted in Him by faith, FOMO can be helpful. Because the act of receiving Christ, as described in John 1:12 – “Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God” – is just the first big step of faith. It’s the beginning of a lifelong adventure, a day-to-day process of having the Lord reveal what it means to experience the “abundant life” He describes in John 10:10.
We’ve all gone through the COVID pandemic which affected us in many ways. Maybe we need an outbreak of FOMO, causing us to stop going through the motions or relegating God to one area of our lives and letting Him infuse everything we do. Ephesians 3:20 says He is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.” I don’t know about you, but I have a healthy fear of missing out on that!
Who knows? Our “FOMO” might transform into JOMO, the joy of missing out. This can enable us to enjoy spending free time doing what we really want to do – especially cultivating a growing relationship with the Lord – without worrying that something more interesting is happening elsewhere.
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