This is part 3 of a series called “You Are What You Scroll.” In part 1, we looked at how your screen is shaping your life. In part 2, we talked about how what you consume becomes what you crave.
And there is a lot to consume. As early as 1989, Richard Wurman noted that a modern person takes in more information in a single day than someone in 17th century England would have in a lifetime. Researchers Bernhard Jungwirth and Bertram Bruce, writing in the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, made the case that more information has been produced since the 1970s than in the previous 5,000 years combined.
We have all the information we could ever need at our fingertips. But to what end?
I’d argue that for many of us, the abundance of information and the ease of getting to it hasn’t made our lives better. Instead, it’s rewiring us to want something we were never meant to have. Here’s the tension this post is about: an instant world is often at odds with an intentional God. And if that’s true, we need to figure out how to put God back in his rightful place.
A Bush That Wouldn’t Burn Up
To get there, we have to go back to the Old Testament, to Exodus 3. God’s people, the Israelites, are living in captivity. The conditions are harsh, and they are desperate for an escape. Relief is coming, just not the way they imagined. Instead of a direct divine intervention, God chooses an unlikely man.
“One day Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock far into the wilderness and came to Sinai, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush. Moses stared in amazement. Though the bush was engulfed in flames, it didn’t burn up. ‘This is amazing,’ Moses said to himself. ‘Why isn’t that bush burning up? I must go see it.’
When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, ‘Moses! Moses!’
‘Here I am!’ Moses replied.
‘Do not come any closer,’ the Lord warned. ‘Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground. I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ When Moses heard this, he covered his face because he was afraid to look at God.” (Exodus 3:1-6, NLT)
There’s a deeply theological truth in this scene with some intensely practical implications: God is greater than everything we can understand, yet closer than we often realize.
Greater and Closer
God is transcendent. That’s what makes him God. He exists beyond creation and exceeds its limits. He is eternal, holy, and greater than anything we can fully grasp. Everything depends on him, while his existence depends on nothing outside himself. Paul points to this in Colossians 1, describing Christ as the one who holds all creation together.
But God’s bigness does not mean distance. God is also immanent, meaning he is present and active within his creation. He sustains life, steps into our circumstances, and draws near to people. His presence is personal, and we can encounter him in ordinary life. That’s part of what makes the Christian worldview unique.
Following Jesus often means holding competing ideas in tension: grace and truth, justice and mercy, already and not yet, faith and work. It’s not always comfortable to live there, but we have to. A.W. Tozer says it this way:
“God does all that God does; he does not divide himself to perform a work, but works in the total unity of his being.”
So God is greater and closer. He’s also beyond our control.
What This Has to Do With Your Phone
So what does God’s transcendence and nearness have to do with what we scroll? With our devices, everything we could ever want or need is available instantly. And sometimes God makes us wait.
Think about how fast AI took over. ChatGPT, the first publicly available large language model, launched in November 2022. Within two months it had 100 million active users. Less than two years later, almost half of Americans had used AI. Now, four years after launch, nearly two thirds of people use it daily. That’s faster than the rise of personal computers or the internet. It has genuinely changed our world.
You could fairly ask, what’s the big deal? So what? I figured the best way to understand the risk was to ask AI itself. Ironic, I know. Here’s what Claude said:
“AI is always agreeable, always available, and never has a competing agenda.”
That’s the problem. AI can be sycophantic, a yes-man that flatters you in the hope that you’ll stick around. You may have had a chat that went exactly like that. It will do or say nearly anything to keep you coming back.
Which should make us wonder less about what AI can do for us and more about what it’s doing to us. Author Carey Nieuwhof points to three threats as AI goes mainstream: tech-induced numbness, economic and mental health crashes, and deepfake deception. I’d add a fourth:
The immediacy of the digital world can rob us of the privilege of waiting on God.
When I ask AI a question, the wait is a matter of seconds. There’s not enough time to think my own thoughts, even if I wanted to. In a world where we scroll endlessly and our attention spans are at an all-time low, AI is one more digital tool delivering instant gratification. For a lot of people it’s become a replacement for their own brain, and it can become a replacement for God too. We look for more, better, and faster, even in our spiritual lives.
Moses Tried Instant
Remember Moses at the burning bush? Here’s what’s easy to miss. Moses had already tried to free God’s people on his own. He did it his own way, in a burst of rage, beating an Egyptian soldier to death and burying the body in the sand.
Quick and instant didn’t work for Moses, and it’s unlikely to work for us. An instant world is often at odds with an intentional God.
Using AI Without Letting It Use You
I get it. AI can make a lot of things easier, and there are times it helps us go further, faster. Some good uses:
Making sense of information
Testing your thinking
Learning something new
Doing something repetitive
Critiquing your work
Notice what’s not on that list. Making decisions for you. Being your therapist or your doctor. Being your friend. It’s counterintuitive, but new research from the University of North Carolina found that the more often a student uses AI, the more anxious and lonely they become.
And AI most definitely cannot replace God. AI only knows what it knows through statistics, probabilities, and existing human information. Try as it might, it will never have what God has:
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9, NLT)
When AI responds and it sounds like me, I’m reminded that it could never be God. His thoughts are different. His ways are higher. God is greater than everything we can understand, yet closer than we often realize.
Learning to Wait
So what do we do with AI? Use it, and use it wisely. Put it in its place. Of all the risks, the biggest is that the immediacy of the digital world can rob us of the privilege of waiting on God.
Waiting isn’t wasted time. In the waiting, we grow deep roots in our faith and learn to see God for who he actually is. Listen to how the psalmist puts it:
“Make your ways known to me, Lord; teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; I wait for you all day long.” (Psalm 25:4-5, CSB)
Look at what’s happening in that prayer. The waiting is where he’s learning God’s ways, seeing his path, finding his truth, and coming to know his salvation. Waiting isn’t just waiting.
So the next time you’re tempted to hand your questions, your decisions, or your longings to something that will answer in two seconds, remember what a patient God is offering you instead.
