Wonder is critical when it comes to living as God calls us to live. Wonder helps us realize our place in creation, it re-establishes the pecking order of power, and it reminds us not only of God’s greatness but also of the loving, kind, and gentle Heavenly Father he is—one who gives good gifts.
In our digital age it feels like we live in an Age of Wonders, yet few of our technological advances cause us to look past the object itself towards a greater source.
In today’s conversation we’ll discuss the importance of wonder, how to experience in our digital age, and why wonder is so important as we experience Wonder that is truly rooted in the Gospel.
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Today’s verse: Psalm 139:14
“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.”
Timeline:
0:00: Overview
1:00: Thank you’s
1:40: Check out Lome! (withlome.com)
2:10: What is Wonder?
3:00: Wonder Part 1: Amazement
5:30: When amazement goes askew
7:45: Amazement in the Bible
11:30: Tech should bring true amazement
15:30: Wonder Part 2: Awe (/terror)
17:25: Awe in the Bible
22:35: Awe exposes us. They begged Jesus to leave.
26:00: The purpose of Wonder
27:00: Making Wonder #1
27:30: Making Wonder #2
28:00: Making Wonder #3
6:15: What motivates your ministry to women and young women?
7:50: What does comparison look like in the digital age?
11:25: What can we do to help our daughters with comparison?
15:00: How can parents begin conversations about self-image, beauty, and the digital world with our children?
21:15: What advice would you give to your 12-14 y/o self?
25:00: What are some positive social media accounts and follows for young women?
30:15: What other resources can our families utilize for these important conversations?
37:00: Review & Closing
Resources to help your family use tech well:
Lome: go to withlome.com to use Lome for free!
Bark: A fantastic resource to help make the internet a more loving place for our kiddos. We’re such big fans of this resource that we’ve partnered with Bark: You can enter GospelTech10 at checkout for 10% off!
Gryphon Internet Routers are running a sale! Check out gryphonconnect.com to help build your family’s network hedge.
Gabb Wireless: Takes the guess work out of giving your child a phone. Your child gets a phone: no internet, app store, image-texting, or backdoors. They get a GPS, a quality camera, and the freedom to enjoy these formative childhood years.
Transcription:
Purposely. Your life. God’s purpose. Listen at onpurposely.com.
Hello everyone and welcome to the Gospel Tech podcast. My name is Nathan Sutherland and this podcast is dedicated to helping families love God and use tech. Today we are having a conversation about how we can continue to have wonder in a digital world.
So, last week it was talking about how we can have hope in a digital world. And this week it’s about how we can have wonder. And this idea leading towards Thanksgiving as we look towards how can we be thankful and what does it mean to be thankful in a tech world. Wherever you are listening to this, my hope for this conversation is that we will understand what wonder means in a biblical text or context, and that we will understand then what that means in our digital space, both how to gain it and how to maybe avoid losing it if we already have it.
That’s where we’re headed today. I hope that it’s encouraging for you. And with no further ado, let’s get this conversation started.[00:01:00]
Welcome to the Gospel Tech Podcast, a resource for parents who feel overwhelmed and outpaced as they raise healthy youth in a tech world. As an educator, parent and tech user, I wanna equip parents with the tools, resources, and confidence they need to raise kids who love God and use tech.
Thank you to everyone who’s helped make this podcast possible. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing and thank you for rating and reviewing. Wherever you listen to this, you can give us a rating out of five stars. I ask for five stars cause I’m trying to make a five star product here. And if you don’t think we’re five stars, would you send me a quick note, Nathan@gospel tech.net so that I can continue to make changes to improve this so it’s worth five stars.
And if you do leave five stars. Would you leave us a sentence or two about why this is helpful for you? It helps people find us. It’s the best form [00:02:00] of I guess encouragement and also compliment that you can give us is by telling other people about it. So thank you for that. Yeah, today’s conversation, oh, and, we have amazing partners that we’re partnering with, which is why I’m excited to introduce you to Loam. Loam is designed to help you create healthy family rhythms. It takes your family calendar and all the activities you’ve got and mashes them into one digital space that ties in with your Google Calendar, or even just available via text message or your web browser, and it lets you build your family plan based on your family priority.
You can go to withlome.com, W I T H L O M E .com, and begin intentionally planning your family’s calendar today. So, for our conversation today, we are talking about wonder in a digital age, and let’s just tackle the, the big idea first. What is wonder? Wonder is this idea that we are amazed or that we are in awe.
There’s really two parts of it, amazed is that we are absolutely blown away or that we are overwhelmed by how [00:03:00] amazing and incredible I, I’m using the word amazing to describe amazement, but how incredible. How over and above something is beyond our expectations, and from that we often overflow with joy and with praise for this thing.
So we are amazed oftentimes, like what people will praise in our reality will be like sports teams. If there’s an amazing play, if there’s an incredible game, if there is an athlete that we are just, we can’t even understand how incredible this person is and we respect them so much. We talk about that a lot.
Shows you run into people all the time. Oh, are you watching this series right now? You’ve gotta watch it. Like, the story’s incredible. The act is incredible. The cinematography is incredible. Like you’ve gotta see the show. It’s amazing. You will hear people talk about songs this way. They’ll talk about hikes or events that they attended or places they went.
Right. Nature often brings us out in us when we see a sunrise or see a sunset or whatever nature thing, we went [00:04:00] for a, a swim that really blew us away. We went for a run. I will actually say video game players, gamers have amazement down. They have the understanding of. How incredible scenery can be.
There are entire games that are built just to show off their water mechanics, just to show off their fire mechanics because the flames look so real or the water looks so real, those hills look so incredible. This would be a game that comes to mind would be a game like Red Dead Redemption Two, where it takes place kind of in the Midwest slash northwest of the United States, and it’s mountains and trees and some prairie lands and it’s gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous scenery.
Depressing storyline, but incredible scenery. And that is something that gamers get very well is amazement amazement of scale, how big something is, how far away something is, how fine the details are. Look at the blades of grass. You can watch them as they sway. That those are things that gamers understand.
Amazement. We as [00:05:00] adults, we can be amazed watching our children. All of us probably recall the birth of our children and the amazement that there’s now another human living in our home , who wasn’t here previously. It’s very hard for Anna and I to even remember what life was like. Like we see pictures.
I’m like, I kind of remember this Nathan, but I don’t. I remember him roughly, vaguely. He’s, I’m not there. That guy doesn’t live anymore. Like now, Nathan, right, with three humans in his home is here. And that completely changes. It’s amazing every day watching them both make mistakes and become more like Jesus like simultaneously.
Amazing. It’s incredible process and I think that’s something we look at when we think amazement, what brings out joy? What brings out praise? When we witness it, when we experience, and it just flows naturally. When we talk about in the digital age then oftentimes if we wanted to look for a way this goes askew, would be with social media. Almost every experience of amazement on social media, is [00:06:00] tinged with some negative effect. It’s envy, it’s jealousy, it’s comparison. It’s not necessarily what the, well I can’t say that, it’s not what the poster necessarily meant. Social media means for that to happen because they get more , If they can make you feel terrible, you’re more likely to use their product to try to feel better, which is then gonna drive you into this vicious cycle that we call doom scrolling now. That we’ve all experienced that at some point in covid of trying to feel connected and instead just feeling awful about ourselves that, that now has a title called Doom Scrolling. And social media’s often someone posting something great, they’re celebrating and they wanna praise God for this amazing, I don’t know, food that they ate at the restaurant or event they did with their family or success they had at their job or in their life.
But often the way that comes across us when it’s just a feed full of other people’s amazing events, we don’t praise God. We often gripe and go, God, why couldn’t I have, insert the blank? Whatever their victory or success or [00:07:00] incredible thing is. And this is the reason we need to talk about wonder in this month leading up to Thanksgiving in the United States, where we intentionally take time to be thankful, to be grateful, to praise God for the way he is providing our lives this year, the way he’s providing even when things don’t go the way we planned.
This wonder focus, this focus on amazement. Where can we be refocusing our eyes? Romans eight tells us that we set our minds on the things of the spirit because that brings life, and it’s setting our minds on the things of the flesh brings death. If you wanna know what things of the spirit flesh look like, breed Galatians 5:22, where we have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control and goodness faithfulness were also in there.
Or Galatians 5:19-21. It’s a whole list of what fruit of the flesh looks like. So we go Galatians 5:19-22 and Romans 8. Those would be our kind of foundational verses for this. And we go, All right, we’re setting our mind on things that blow our minds and point us towards God.
That’s [00:08:00] really our conversation here, and we’re recognizing a digital world it can be so easy to see the things that should make us praise God should make us celebrate with people and instead, it often is just overwhelming and, and it feels too much to bear and it makes us bitter and ornery and unsatisfied instead of satisfied.
So from a biblical perspective, let’s take just the amazement side of wonder. So a wonder has amazement and it has awe. On the amazement side when God intervenes in reality, when we see God step into someone’s life and it’s so real to them that God has just overcome some boundary, we often see amazement come out.
And this happens when Adam sees Eve for the first time and he burst forth in song as a surely this is flesh of my flesh in bone of my bone, right? This is woman and that is an incredibly good thing. And I’m praising God cuz this is not something that did exist and now it does. And she is amazing. Thank you. God.
That’s a cool example. We have Moses and Miriam singing about the Lord’s victory in Exodus 15, where Moses and Miriam, the [00:09:00] army of the Egyptians is destroyed and Pharaoh no longer can harm them. And they burst forth in song about the way God praises. And we see that similar song, praising God, even in the Psalms where David picks up these and says, Remember the Lord.
And the other psalmists say, Remember the Lord and how he provided for us. These are songs of amazement, songs of wonder. Looking to what God has done that is well beyond what they could have done. We see it when Mary and meet one another and Elizabeth burst forth in song you get this duet that’s very like Disney movie ish, where they both are singing together and they’re just praising the Lord by the Holy Spirit led into worship to sing true things, to be amazed by the Lord, and it’s not it’s not uncommon old and New Testament.
We often see people who hear the teachings of Jesus. even when they get excited and they wanna tell somebody and they wanna get out there and they wanna bring their friends and they wanna go, Hey, I heard this thing. You’ve gotta come hear what God is doing [00:10:00] or what God has done.
And it changes their actions and their attitudes and their lives. We see it with Zacchaeus, right? He climbs up in a tree cuz he’s heard of Jesus and he wants to hear Jesus. And when he does and Jesus dines with them, his life changes. His heart bends, his knee bends, and he repents and not just feels bad, but he actually changes his actions.
He gives money back and he verbally repents to Jesus himself and redirects his life. And Jesus says like, This isn’t just this guy trying to cosmetically like give back money. So I’m not mad at him, like salvation has come to this home. We see the disciples do this when they hear Jesus. We see two disciples who were following John the Baptist, who hear John the Baptist twice go, That is the lamb of God who’s here to take away the sins of the world.
The disciples like, Great, well that’s what we’re here for. Like, see you John. They start following Jesus and eventually are part of the process of like Peter coming to follow Jesus. And this is this process of amazement. They are telling people about [00:11:00] God’s good works. We look at the entire really sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5 through 8.
And in this process, Jesus is talking about all sorts of, like, he flips the social order of their world on its head that bless it, or the poor spirit, and those who mourn in the meek, he calls out heart issues. So he’s not, he says, Don’t just murder, but if you call your brother fool and you hate him in your heart like you’ve murdered him, and that’s a sin according to God.
So he’s done all sorts of things in the sermon, in these 5 through 8, chapters, 5 through 8, and in verse 28 of chapter 8, it says when Jesus finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching and we could understand why. Right? These people are amazed and they’re going out and they’re telling more people about this work.
They’re praising God, They’re recognizing God’s goodness in this. And that’s really the first part of wonder is when we are in our digital space, we need to be using things that make us amazed at who God is. And let us do the same for others, that we can praise God [00:12:00] and be amazed. So when we look at our games, are games helping us be amazed at God, are they distracting us?
Our books when we’re looking at our activities that we’re involved in. Absolutely sport and school can be an incredible way to be amazed at God. The more you learn in science and math and literature, the more you’re gonna see God at work in history and also at work in individuals. So, that can be a really cool way to be amazed at God.
It also can become a goal in and of itself like, well, once I get that degree or that job or those grades, then things will matter. And now I’ve turned the focus onto myself instead of on celebrating God in the process. So, our amazement needs to be God focused. And then we get to awe. And before we move on to awe, I want to share just like a story my pastor does often, and I love this visual and the visuals simply when we’re talking about things that are supposed to point us back to God, like things that are amazing when we misuse them.
So his example would be, imagine you’re taking your family somewhere incredible. So for my family here on the [00:13:00] west coast of the United States, like the coolest thing my kids could imagine going to right now is Disneyland. We got the opportunity to go last year and they had their minds blown. And if I told them kids were driving to Disneyland, they would be all up for it.
Even though it’s an 18 hour drive, even though it’s 1100 miles away. , they would, they would be so pumped. And if we drove for 17 and a half hours, and we got down to within 30 minutes of Disneyland and there was a big sign that said Disneyland. And we pulled off to the side of the freeway and if I got my kids out and we started taking pictures and posting to social media and like calling family and sending them the picture, right.
And we’re just amazed, like there’s the sign for Disneyland, Woo. And then we get back in our car and we drive home. That’s what some of us do with our amazement, right? That we treat the thing that’s supposed to absolutely blow our minds and bring us joy and spontaneous praise, and we use it as the final destination because we’re using it for the feeling.
So for some of us, this could be an incredible worship service. It might be an amazing church. It might be a convicting message. It might be someone [00:14:00] who’s absolutely blessed and Holy Spirit empowered as a preacher. It might be a way God has supernaturally provided. It might be a miracle, a healing or a word of knowledge or something that has happened in our life where we have seen God intervene in our reality and provide in ways that we could not have expected him to do.
And then we end at that. We start talking about, You guys gotta hear this preacher. You gotta hear this sermon. You gotta go to this place and be part of this worship. You’ve got to hear this song. This band has got it going on. You’ve got, you have to hear that my, my son got healed. My son is now fine.
Like, and we tell the whole story about my son and we leave it at my son is healed, which isn’t the point of amazement. The point of amazement is to lift our eyes and to get us to look beyond the reality that we were struggling with, to the one who can make our reality matter. We need to not stop at the sign for Disneyland and go, there’s a sign for Disneyland, and then turn around and go home.
We gotta make it to Disneyland. Right. You gotta go. And in this case, like we gotta not stop at the amazing worship of the incredible preacher or [00:15:00] even the God reality breaking work that we just experienced and arrive at God and remember that he is the greatest good and the greatest point of all of these.
And our amazement is actually nestled in him, not what we can get from him. We’re not pursuing God for his blessings. We’re not pursuing God even for his attributes. We are pursuing God because he’s God. Because he good because he is love, because he is great in mercy and rich in forgiveness and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
And he is God deserving of praise. He is righteous and holy and other. That’s why we worship God and our amazement should point us back to that. It’s little daily reminders of our need that we can’t even access without that. Cuz this is the positive side where we’re break into song. There’s another side of wonder and this, the, the if amaz, excuse me.
If amazement is, like seeing the sunrise and seeing the mountains and the birds and nature and all those incredible [00:16:00] things. Awe is the one that comes a little bit closer to terror. It’s still part of wonder but, but there’s a fear in there. It’s that moment when if you would imagine like amazement is you’re at the zoo and you see the tiger and you’re like, Wow, tiger.
That’s incredible. Can’t believe God made this gigantic kitty cat. And it’s beautiful colors and graceful, and sleek and powerful and you know, all of these amazing adjectives you could put in. And that’s amazement. Awe would be realizing you’re in the tigers cage and you, you didn’t intend to be there right?
Awe is that moment when you recognize there is no safety net. It’s just you and that creature, and all of a sudden that creature’s way higher on the food chain than you are. Like, that’s, that’s awe. It’s going to make a difference in how you act. You’re gonna step a little lighter, You’re gonna be a whole lot more alert.
You’re gonna change, or at least be really thoughtful about the, your tone and the words and your actions. You’re gonna choose ’em all really carefully. You’re going [00:17:00] to be very, very intentional. And this is awe .And biblically speaking, so that’s just kind of the visual that I have. CS Lewis has that great quote when one of the children in Narnia is asking like about the Lion Aslan,, like, well, is he safe?
And Mr. Beaver says, No, he’s not safe, but he’s good. And that, that’s a beautiful picture of when we talk about, awe, we do, there is this amazement where we praise God. And then there’s this part where we have a healthy fear of this God who, who isn’t safe. He’s not safe. You don’t get to create universes and bring all of existence into being from nothing.
And, and like somehow also just be our you know chauffeur and be our gopher and like take directions from us. That’s not what we’re dealing with here, but we are dealing with the God who’s good. In biblical examples, we see this when Jesus is doing his signs and wonders. So in Luke seven 11 through 17, we read soon afterwards, he went to the town [00:18:00] called Nain and his disciples and a great crowd went with him.
And as he drew near the gate of the town, behold a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. We skip forward, he raises the dead man up and in verse 15, and the dead man set up and began to speak and Jesus gave him to his mother.
Fear seized them all and they glorified God. And when we see that in this verse, we’re seeing fear seize them and the word means fear. It’s awe. This awe is the correct response. They are petrified by the fact that this guy just raised the dead. And, it’s not just that one time we see it throughout the New Testament.
Sometimes there’s amazement and there’s praise and joyful singing, and sometimes they’re just silence. You’ll see these times where like, and there. Awe of him, and no one asked anymore questions. Right? Like they’re, they just, they know, they, they realize they’re in the cage with the tiger. And this isn’t a fair fight.
Like, choose your words wisely. Don’t go poking any dragons. [00:19:00] Like this, this is an important moment for us. We feel awe. And it often is brought about by either silence or reverence, but at least intentionality. We see this when when in Revelation 1:12-18, when John the apostle, the disciple Jesus loved, who was laying on Jesus’s chest at dinner who is close with Jesus.
He’s one of the three. He got to be there for the transfiguration. Like this is a guy who knew human Jesus in his bodily form. He then is on the island of Patmos. He gets this vision from the Lord. And in verse 12, he sees the one, like the son of man that Daniel talks about in Daniel chapter 7.
And this is the experience he says then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven gold lampstand. And in the midst of the lamp stands, one like a son of man clothed with a long robe with a golden sash around his chest. He goes on to describe his hair and his [00:20:00] eyes and his skin and his feet.
And in his right hand he holds seven stars. His mouth came a two edges sword and his face was like the sun shining at full strength. Verse 17, when I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. And that, that’s when we talk awe. This is a guy who knew Jesus personally, it’s not that Jesus has somehow magically become someone different.
He doesn’t change. God doesn’t change. He’s the same person he was on earth, but he is not the same body. He’s the resurrected body, , and it is such an awesome experience. Awesome coming from the word that would mean fear or terror, an awesome experience. It’s such an awesome thing to see the resurrected God.
The wonder is so great that he swoons, he passes out , he falls down on the ground, not willingly, not like a, like a graceful bow, like he just collapses. His senses are completely overwhelmed by seeing Jesus in his resurrected form. And this is really important for us to [00:21:00] recognize. It happens actually a similar sort of awe happens in Jesus’ lifetime after the Sermon on the Mount.
So if we were to go after chapter eight in Matthew at the end of chapter eight, Jesus jumps in a boat, crosses the water to the region of the Gadarenes, and he meets a guy with a legion of demons in him. And the mark account helps like add some. If you go to Mark 5,, you can see kind of some overlaying that’s a little more detailed than shows up in the Matthew account. But basically we need to recognize that people knew this guy like they had tried to stop him. They had shackles on him, and he kept breaking the shackles off. He couldn’t be controlled. He ran around the, the graves and the tombs.
He would eat the food apparently that was left out to like, for the spirits of the dead. That was like his food. Not a super popular dude, probably at this point. Certainly not someone people were happy to have around. He brings himself to the feet of Jesus. Keep in mind, this guy’s got a couple thousand demons and he is still in control to bring them.
[00:22:00] And we know the demons don’t wanna be there because they start begging for mercy. What are you gonna do with us? Are you gonna throw us in the pit? Don’t do it. It’s not our time yet. So they’re trying to make a deal with Jesus. Which he actually goes with. And I think this is an interesting point when we talk about, awe, Jesus chooses at this point, Mark 5:14, a single soul over 2000 pigs, which is a really expensive investment.
And this would be a conversation maybe for another day. But what’s important to know is that when the people from the town come out and they see this guy in his right mind, they see him wearing clothes. Cause apparently he had been ripping clothes off the same way he’d been smashing iron shackles. They see this guy and it, actually, I’ll read it to you.
So it’s Mark 5:15, and they came to Jesus, the people from the town and saw the demon possessed man, the guy who used to be demon possessed, the one who had had the legion. And they saw him sitting there clothed in his right mind and they. Afraid. [00:23:00] Mark 5:15. And then if you skip two verses later, it says, And they began to beg Jesus to depart from their region.
Please don’t think this is just like biblical metaphor, like, Oh, they’re afraid that would be cool. Like, no, they’re afraid to the point where they recognize the work Jesus did. They recognize it as a miracle and they want no part of it. This is, this is scary to them than the Demon guy who they apparently just let, like hang out.
As long as he didn’t come too close, like, sure, you can stay over there. Just don’t bother anybody. And they’re like, Jesus, you gotta go. Like, you gotta get back in your boat and leave. He doesn’t stay. He doesn’t go in anyone’s house. He doesn’t like, pick a night. He literally did the Sermon on the Mount whole beattitudes piece through chapter eight.
Served some people, maybe left at nighttime or stayed the night and left the next day, crossed the water, did this one thing, and came back because they wanted no part of it. Like when we talk about awe, we need to recognize that it is a fear aspect and sometimes it breaks through when we’re tempted to just look at the sign that’s supposed to point us back to [00:24:00] God.
We look at the miracle or the wonder, or the preaching or the worship and we’re, we’re having fun with the amazement part. Sometimes it’s easy to just settle at amazement. We see Jesus provide food for the 5,000 and we go, Yeah, we could take this Jesus around. We’re amazed at you. High five. Jesus, thanks for providing.
And then they start talking apparently about how they’re gonna make Jesus king by force. Where in John, I wanna say it’s chapter six. Whether, and Jesus has to leave and he goes away by himself because like, No, no, no, you’re not gonna make me king by force. That’s not the plan here. You’re not getting this amazement.
It’s not pointing you to God. You’re just settling on food. And so he brings in awe , and he does things like release a man from demon possession. And people go, Oh yeah, no, that doesn’t feel quite as controllable. So we’re not as comfortable here anymore with what’s happening. And yet that was bringing glory to God, and yet that was part of God’s will, and yet that was Jesus’ point.
It wasn’t, I’m buddy Jesus, everyone come to me so that you can do whatever you want, but I’ll [00:25:00] pick up the tab. He said, No, no, no. I’m a God who’s reckless in his love of pursuing people, and I’m willing to sacrifice even your amazing business as pig farmers. I’m willing to sacrifice that for one soul.
So Christian, if you’re listening to this, I need you to know, believer in Jesus, we need to recognize what wonder is. Wonder is not simply acknowledging that God is cool. It’s not even experiencing the incredible power and love of God. That’s part of it. That that’s, that’s an amazing amazement is an amazing part of wonder.
But we also need awe. We need this understanding of who God is and who we are, and I think it’s put best by the centurion of the foot of the cross. When you witness the way Jesus died, the centurion looks up and simply says, Truly, this was the son of God, Matthew 27:54. Truly, this is the son of God. And that’s the point of wonder when we are in our digital spaces, when we are living our digital lives and we’re bringing new technology into our homes, when we’re asking these big [00:26:00] conversations about how do we have a family tech framework? It needs to always come back to where’s our heart focus going?
What are we setting our minds on? Where are we spending our wonder? Is it on awe, an amazement that just stops at the experience? Or is it pointing our eyes back to Christ? Are we setting our eyes on him? The author and perfector of our faith, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross scorning its shame and sat at the right hand of the throne of God and we consider him, who endured such opposition from sinful men so that we will not grow weary and lose heart. That’s coming out of Hebrews 12, and that is what wonder should do for us. It resets our focus and resets our eyes. So this week, how do we do that? Now that we kind of have this big picture, we understand how it applies in the real world.
What the point of wonder is, is we’re looking towards Thanksgiving and how we can be thankful. We need to first of all take time to pray. We need to take time to be with the Lord in [00:27:00] conversation and prayer. Jesus sets out in that wonderful sermon on the Mount, a very practical and simple way to pray The Lord’s Prayer is what we now call it.
But he says, Our Father, we’re talking to God in a personal way who is in heaven. We’re setting where God is. And the difference that that odd wonder that exists between us, holy is your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, meaning it’s not. Always being done on earth. It’s always being done in heaven.
And that is why there will eventually be a judgment. That’s why there will eventually be a new heaven and a new earth. That’s why we needed a savior is because his wills not being done. And if for it to be done, we need a Holy Spirit to change our hearts cuz we can’t just will, God’s will to be done. We have to have him do it in us.
Your kingdom come and, your will be down on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us, not in temptation, but deliver us from evil. And then he goes on to say for if you forgive. So that’s Matthew 6, [00:28:00] coming from 6:9 through 13.
And that is where we start, we start in prayer, in conversation, then we go to worship and we worship, not for the experience per se, but for the opportunity to get beyond where our words and our minds can go and get the opportunity to praise God in truth. So we say true things about God and to really break through the clutter that we have.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes when I sit down to pray, my mind’s going a thousand miles a minute and I’ll pray for 30 seconds, maybe a minute and a half, and all of a sudden, I’m four minutes into work. I’m four minutes into worry about my, my family or my fight that I had with Anna or whatever, like stupid thing I did.
And like I’m all those things I forgot to do and I start making a list, right? So sometimes worship gets us beyond the distractions and God’s given a song as a wonderful way to celebrate him. And then another opportunity is relationship and being known. And this is where belonging to a church listener, if you do not belong to a church and you love Jesus, you don’t love Jesus yet, but you want to.
[00:29:00] Belonging to the church, capital C, big church body, meaning a group of people who trust and follow Jesus. They’re not gonna be perfect people. Don’t just look for the “good ones.” Look for the ones that love Jesus, that love his word and that want to know him and do his will, right?
That love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. And that’s gonna be the third way we experience wonders, wonder in relationship. Where they get to speak into our lives. We get to speak into theirs, we get to hear how God is working, and we get to recognize when there are struggles that don’t have a solution yet.
We so often share our testimonies about what God did way back when, but in relationship we share about God is yet to do, like, here’s a solution. I don’t have yet guys. I am actively struggling with X. I actively am questioning Y and I need the Lord to show up, and we get to celebrate and experience the wonder of a living God working in our lives in those relationships.
So it’s prayer, it’s worship, and it’s relationship through the church, the corporate body of Christ. So I hope that this was encouraging to you. I hope that as you think through [00:30:00] this conversation, you go, All right, what does wonder look like in my life? That you don’t simply go, Well, is this tech good or bad?
We go, All right, what am I amazed at by this tech? And is it drawing out amazing things in me, right? Is it bringing out Galatians 5:22 and setting my mind on the things of the Lord? If so, cool, thumbs up. If it’s not, if it’s bringing Galatians 5:19-21, then prayerfully seek the Lord on that. What does it look like for you?
Maybe it’s something you need to adjust. Maybe it’s something you need to get rid of. Maybe there’s something you need to add, like a layer of accountability or a layer of distance and separation or time boundaries. I don’t know. I would say that you probably know, and you might be making excuses right now in your head.
Or, making a plan right now to tell someone to get the support you need to be able to make those decisions, to be amazed and to truly wonder at the Lord as we look towards the season of Thanksgiving. So I pray that it will do exactly that for you, allow you to be thankful and more of who God is calling you to be.
If you enjoyed this, would you please share it with someone? Would you tell ’em about it? Would [00:31:00] you send ’em a link? Would you tell them what we’re doing here at Gospel Tech as we look to empower parents to have these conversations, get these tech wins with their kids, and raise kids who love God and use tech?
Would you check out gospeltech.net? Or even gospeltechworkshop.com where you can look up how to make a family tech framework. Would you think about bringing out Gospel Tech to your church, your school, your community? We’re booking out in February and March. Our weekends in March are basically full, but we do have some midweek stuff and then into April and May.
We’re booking the spring now. And would you join us next week as we continue this conversation about how we can love God and use tech?
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