Words create worlds and images create our reality. This has become increasingly clear to me over the last few years. In 2025, the idea for Beautiful Internet began to come into focus. I had this vague underlying sense that our digital lives were forming us but I could only go off of my own experience as well as some conversations with a few trusted friends. In front of my own two eyes, I was seeing a generation—and more broadly, the world—being reconstructed around digital rhythms and ways of life. I felt the change innately. Something radical was happening but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Recently, I returned to a book I’d started but never finished, Renovation Of The Heart by Dallas Willard. It’s about spiritual formation and how our humanity might be restored. I picked up about 100 pages in where I had left off. The first paragraph I read said the following; “Images increase the danger of inadequate ideas. They have the power to obsess and to hypnotize, as well as to escape critical scrutiny. The image one has of oneself, for example, can override everything else and cause one to act in ways contrary to all reality and all good sense” (Willard 100).

Sound familiar? I think this depicts what we are seeing play out in the world due to the mass increase of impure, untruthful, unhelpful and deceptive images we are seeing pass by our thumbs with each swipe.

Dallas Willard goes on to say that, “the process of spiritual formation in Christ is one of progressively replacing those destructive images and ideas with the images and ideas that filled the mind of Jesus himself” (Willard 101).

What are we filling our minds with? What are you filling your mind with? How do these images impact the way you see Jesus, see others, and see yourself?

We have made it culturally acceptable that stimulating our mind with never-ending, oftentimes (really most of the time) useless, and tempting images is a good and right thing. When was this ever at any point in history a good thing? Throughout the Old Testament we see God warning his people to not make idols and man-made images, because they would be tempted to worship them. Is that not exactly what is happening at a digital and global scale?

Willard ends with this convicting blow; “Failure to know what God is really like and what his law requires destroys the soul, ruins society, and leaves people to eternal ruin. […] This is the tragic condition of Western culture today, which has put away the information about God that God himself has made available” (Willard 103).

Hear me on this. Your digital consumption, in its current state, is costing you a deep relationship with God. How do I know this? I am unfortunately well acquainted with this reality. The things I consume on a daily basis impact my prayer, peace, and obedience. It is harder to hear God’s voice, read His word, and seek His face when I’ve spent six hours doomscrolling. It just is! You know it, I know it. So why do we keep doing it?

Yeah! Why do we keep on doing it? Well lucky for you and I, our good friend, the apostle Paul gives a beautiful answer in Romans 7:15,21-25.

To summarize, we need someone else to help us overcome the sin that enslaves us. Setting a screen time limit, or deleting certain apps is a good starting point, BUT you will find another way to scroll. Trust me, you will because I will. We are humans, we have the same tendencies.  We need supernatural help!

So, here are some final takeaways from my time reading Renovation Of The Heart:

We have lost our ability to think, to wrestle with hard truths, to come to a definite conclusion. Our current digital habits are sabotaging your ability to do this. They are designed this way! “The prospering of God’s cause on earth depends upon his people thinking well” (Willard 105).

“If God’s eyes are too pure to behold evil (Habakkuk 1:13) we had better think it might be wise for us to look away as much as is feasible—even if it is called entertainment” (Willard 111). You do this, I do this, and we need to stop. It is killing us and we need God’s help.

Dallas puts forward a poignant question for believers; “Have you decided to have God as a constant presence in your mind or not?” This seems simple but it is so profound. I know for me that most of my destructive digital habits come from one simple truth. I don’t trust God to be who he says he is. God is the supreme ruler of the universe, an infinitely loving being who desires to give me a life of freedom, peace, and joy, a humble servant who came to die for me so that I might live. Lord, help me help us to live in that truth so that we might glorify you in all things that we do.

So the moral of the story. Images form us, shape us, and change us into their image. “We need to be in the presence of images, both visual and auditory […]. These can [and should] constantly direct and redirect our minds towards God, Jesus Christ, the Spirit, and the church” (Willard 113).

My prayer for you is that God would continue to sanctify you, making you look more like Him. That your heart and mind would be filled with His words so that you may experience His promise of peace, joy, and self control.

With brotherly love,
Hayden

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