Jeremy Lin Reveals The Powerful Reason He's 'Fasting' from Instagram, Twitter

May 09, 2017 08:51 AM EDT

Jeremy Lin has revealed he's "fasting" from social media in an effort to remove "some of the distracting voices" that compete for his attention with God.

In an email sent to his digital prayer group, 28-year-old guard, who was signed to the Brooklyn Nets last year, asked his followers to pray for his prayer life.

"This week, I am fasting from checking any social media (if I posted anything, it's because I asked my friend to post for me) in hopes of removing some of the distracting voices of the world that compete for my attention with Christ," he said.

Lin, who has a whopping 1.2 million Instagram followers and over 3 million Facebook followers, added, "I want to invest more time in prayer and writing notes/requests in my prayer journal. Im hoping that by the end of the week, I will be really locked in on Christ and basking in His presence."

The point guard, who in February began playing again after missing 26 games due to a series of hamstring injuries, said he's thankful to God for giving him a "much-needed time of rest."

"the NBA season's always a grind and a marathon in some sense, so it's super important to recharge after the season," he said. "I'm thankful for awesome times with my family and friends. We traveled to different places all on the West Coast and vacationed, but I'm still giving myself another week or two before I get back into full-time training."

He added, "I also want to praise God for allowing us to finish the season strong with 11 wins in the last 5-6 weeks and that everyone on our team stayed healthy."

The Christian athlete also asked his followers to pray his upcoming trip to Asia will be the "best and most impactful" tour he's ever had.

"But in order to do that, it requires a ton of work and planning," he said. "My team and I have been working really hard trying to get a lot of this stuff done for the fans, but I need to remember to surrender the results to God versus trying to micromanage, stress and worry about everything."

He concluded: "Also prayer for my team that we would have patience and love for each other through the process because it's always a stressful time planning for the Asia Tour."


This is not the first time the athlete has revealed he's working to improve his prayer life. In a previous email sent to supporters, Lin said began reading Pastor Tim Keller's book Prayer to help improve his intimacy with Christ.

"I've recently been reading Prayer by Tim Keller (my favorite author)," he said. "I've been sharing for basically this whole season how I've been on this journey to improve my prayer life and intimacy with Christ and this book's definitely pointing me in the right direction."

Lin said that in his 2014 book, Keller discusses how prayer is a response to the conversation with us that God has already started through Scripture.

"I'm going to keep reading this book and wrestling with the concepts, but continued prayer that conversation with God would be second-nature," the athlete said. "If anything happens in my day or if I interact with someone, that immediately I would go to prayer instinctually and just converse with God."