The Bible Unplugged Podcast

J. Brent Eaton
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  • Christianity
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The deepest and most profound insights in The Bible are hidden under centuries of dogma, doctrine, glitz, and glamor that hide what scripture actually says. We take a deep dive into language and culture of The Bible to find what God wants us to know and how we should live. www.powerloveandmiracles.com

  1. 1d ago

    Here is Holy – Formed for This

    Episode focus God meets us within the life we are already living. Here is holy does not mean every place is pleasant, safe, or permanent. It means no place is automatically empty of God. Moses did not begin that morning by traveling to a sacred destination. He led a flock into the wilderness and went about the ordinary work in front of him. Then he noticed a bush that burned without being consumed. God was present before Moses turned aside. God had already seen Israel’s suffering, heard their cries, and known their sorrow. When Moses gave the moment his attention, an ordinary place became recognizable as holy ground—and recognition became participation in God’s work. In This Episode * Why Moses’s years in Midian were more than an interruption * How ordinary work placed Moses near a holy encounter * The difference between being physically present and recognizing God’s Presence * Why the ground became holy * What removing his sandals communicated about reverence, vulnerability, and attention * Why God’s holiness does not distance him from human suffering * How Moses moved from observer to participant * Why spiritual attentiveness requires both openness and discernment * How regret, worry, comparison, hurry, and distraction pull us away from the present * What it means to ask, “What is mine to do here?” Bible by Design Present → Presence → Attention → Recognition → Participation * Moses was present in the wilderness. * God’s Presence was already there. * Moses gave the burning bush his attention. * He recognized that he stood on holy ground. * Then God invited him to participate in the liberation of Israel. Awareness was not the destination. The holy encounter became a calling. Formation Practice Choose one ordinary place where you spend part of each day: your kitchen, desk, car, workplace, favorite chair, or the place where you care for someone. Pause before beginning your normal activity and move through these five movements. Present: Name where you are without judging it. Presence: Remember that God’s nearness does not depend on your ability to feel it. Attention: Ask, “What deserves a second look?” Recognition: Ask, “What becomes visible when I see this moment in the light of God’s character?” Participation: Ask, “What is mine to do here?” Keep the answer concrete. Listen. Make the call. Offer the apology. Honor the boundary. Complete the work with care. Give your attention to the person God has placed before you. Key Lines “God was present before Moses turned aside.” “Before Moses noticed the bush, God had noticed the suffering.” “Holiness is not distance from human pain. God’s holy Presence sees, hears, knows, and moves toward the oppressed.” “The practice is not to chase burning bushes. It is to stop walking past the life where God has placed us.” “The God who sends us into the world first meets us on the ground beneath our feet.” Next Episode TBU113 The Life We Practice What we repeatedly do does more than fill our time. Our practices help form the person who will meet the next moment. Production Notes All Bible quotations are from the World English Bible. Theme music is “Awesome Call” by Kevin MacLeod, used under a Creative Commons license. Content copyright 2026 by J. Brent Eaton. A Power Love and Miracles production. Get full access to Power Love & Miracles at www.powerloveandmiracles.com/subscribe

    Here is Holy – Formed for This

  2. Oct 20

    Crossing the Threshold – The Formed Future

    There comes a point when preparation has done its work. The research is complete. The edits have been made. The plan is good enough. The next step is no longer more preparation—it is action. In episode 111 of The Bible Unplugged, we come to that moment in The Formed Future. Crossing a threshold does not mean fear has disappeared or that the future has become clear. It means we have enough formation, enough evidence of God’s faithfulness, and enough confidence to move even while uncertainty remains. When Preparation Becomes Avoidance Preparation is wise. But sometimes one more round of preparation is really fear wearing respectable clothes. Perfectionism can protect us from exposure. If the book never leaves the computer, nobody can review it. If the idea never becomes public, nobody can reject it. If the conversation never happens, we never have to face the other person’s response. That is why thresholds often expose something deeper than fear of failure: fear about what failure might say about us. Imposter syndrome, the need for approval, and uncertainty about our identity can keep us preparing long after we actually know enough to move. Being willing and being ready are not quite the same. Willingness says, “God, I am open to what you have for me.” Readiness means we have crossed enough of the internal barrier—fear, perfectionism, doubt, and the need for approval—that we can finally cross the external threshold too. The Witness Behind Us Hebrews 11 is not a collection of stories promising that faith always produces the outcome we want. Some people in the chapter experienced remarkable victories. Others suffered. Some never saw the promise completed in their lifetime. Together, their lives testify that God can be trusted even when the road is difficult and the ending is not yet visible. That is why Hebrews 12 begins by telling us to run the race set before us. The “great cloud of witnesses” is more than an image of spectators watching from heaven. Their lives bear witness to what God has done. They give us evidence. When we stand at a threshold, we do not stand there with only uncertainty in front of us. We also carry evidence behind us: seasons we survived, skills God developed in us, moments of provision, and things we once thought we could never do that are now part of who we are. Bible by Design: Formation → Threshold → Step → Participation Formation — God has often been shaping capacities, character, experience, and trust long before we understand where they will be used. Threshold — Formation eventually meets decision. There comes a moment when we must decide whether we will remain in preparation or move. Step — A threshold is crossed by action. Record. Publish. Send. Begin. Say yes—or, when faithfulness requires it, say no. Participation — The threshold is not the destination. Crossing it brings us into the place where a new kind of learning can happen. We are formed further by participating in what God has prepared us to do. The important truth is this: you are not crossing the threshold as the person you were when the journey started. Formation has already changed the person who is taking the step. What Cannot Come With You Thresholds often require release. The safety of “the way I’ve always done it” can become an attachment. So can perfectionism, the need for universal approval, an outdated identity, or the belief that we should not move until we feel completely confident. Crossing does not mean we have no fear. It means fear is no longer getting the final vote. A formed person carries steadiness, discernment, love, courage, trust, and confidence based not merely on what they think they can do, but on what they know God has already done in them before. A Personal Threshold Publishing my first Sunset novel taught me this firsthand. I edited and reviewed it more than necessary because publishing meant losing control of how the book would be received. More recently, publishing work such as Broken Heart… Wounded Soul and Heaven’s First Breath has created a different kind of threshold. These books carry deeper pastoral convictions about grief, suffering, God, presence, healing, and what it means to remain human when life hurts. That kind of work is vulnerable. But what God has formed over years of ministry may be useful to someone else only when it is allowed to leave the safety of preparation and become participation. Formation Practice: Name the Threshold Take a few minutes this week and identify one thing you have been preparing for. Then ask: * What am I still preparing for that may actually be ready for action? * What fear or attachment is keeping me on this side of the threshold? * What evidence do I already have of God’s faithfulness and formation in my past? * What action would actually cross the line—not another preparation step, but the threshold action itself? TBU 110 gave us the movement: Light → Step → More Light → Path. Sometimes the next faithful step keeps us on familiar ground. Sometimes it carries us across a threshold. When it does, we do not cross with only what we can see ahead of us. We carry the evidence of what God has already done behind us. Scripture * Hebrews 11 * Hebrews 12:1–2 Key Takeaway The future may still be unclear, but you are not the same person you were when God first began preparing you for it. Formation has already happened. The threshold asks whether you will trust that formation enough to take the step and begin participating in what comes next. Coming Next Episode 111 brings us to a threshold in The Formed Future itself. We have spent these weeks exploring formation, attention, discernment, power, presence, trust, and the next faithful step. The next movement asks what happens when all of that formation becomes a way of living here, in the world as it actually is. Production Notes All Bible quotations in the episode are from the World English Bible. Theme music: “Awesome Call” by Kevin MacLeod, used under Creative Commons license. Content copyright 2026 J. Brent Eaton. A Power Love and Miracles production. The Bible Unplugged • Power Love and Miracles Scripture quotations in the episode are from the World English Bible. Get full access to Power Love & Miracles at www.powerloveandmiracles.com/subscribe

    Crossing the Threshold – The Formed Future

  3. Oct 13

    Called Into a Future We Cannot See – The Formed Future

    Faithful uncertainty does not require a complete map of the future. God often gives enough light for the next faithful step, and the path becomes visible as we move with trust rather than trying to force an outcome. In This Episode * Why uncertainty becomes exhausting when we believe we must know how everything will work out before we begin * The difference between anxious uncertainty, which tries to control tomorrow, and faithful uncertainty, which trusts the One who leads * Why Jesus sending the disciples with almost nothing in Mark 6 was a lesson in dependence rather than irresponsibility * What Psalm 119:105 reveals about guidance: a lamp gives enough light for the next step, not a view of the entire road * The Bible by Design movement: Light → Step → More Light → Path * How Power Love and Miracles developed through movement rather than a complete plan, including the return of Still, Here, the books, and the Sunset novels * The difference between effort and forcing: faithful work remains active without trying to drag the future toward us * How to practice asking, “What is the next faithful step?” instead of demanding certainty about the outcome Formation Practice Choose one part of your future that feels uncertain—work, money, a relationship, a decision, a calling, something you want to create, or something that may need to change. Sit quietly long enough to notice the pull without turning it into a long-range plan. Then ask God one question: What is the next faithful step? Pay attention to what becomes clearer: a conversation, something to learn, something to stop, one small action, or even a sense that it is not time to move yet. Do not reject the step because it seems too small. Key Lines “Faith requires effort. Anxiety tries to force the outcome.” “Faith is not confidence that I know where the road is going. Faith is confidence in the One I am following.” “The step does not have to look impressive. It only has to be faithful.” “I do not need the whole road to take one step.” “A lamp does not illuminate miles. It illuminates feet.” Bible by Design Light → Step → More Light → Path — We see enough to move, take the step, see more from the new place, and eventually recognize a path that could not be seen at the beginning. Next Episode: TBU 111 Crossing the Threshold. There comes a moment when preparation becomes participation. A formed person eventually has to move—not recklessly or anxiously, but because enough light has been given for the next step. Production Notes All Bible quotations in the episode are from the World English Bible. Theme music: “Awesome Call” by Kevin MacLeod, used under Creative Commons license. Content copyright 2026 J. Brent Eaton. A Power Love and Miracles production. Get full access to Power Love & Miracles at www.powerloveandmiracles.com/subscribe

    Called Into a Future We Cannot See – The Formed Future

  4. Oct 6

    Becoming More Fully Human – The Formed Future

    Series: The Formed Future Primary Scripture: John 1:14 Episode focus: In an increasingly automated world, becoming more fully human means recovering spiritual attentiveness, embodiment, and presence—using technology to serve human life rather than letting efficiency replace it. In This Episode * Why awareness is more than self-observation: spiritual attentiveness notices what is happening within us, around us, between people, and before God How the Word becoming flesh in John 1:14 places embodiment and presence near the center of Christian life * The movement Image → Incarnation → Presence: bearing God’s image, seeing God’s life embodied in Christ, and becoming present to others * Why greater technological capability does not automatically make us more human * How AI can remove repetitive work so human energy can return to imagination, relationship, discernment, creativity, and care * The difference between using AI as a production system and allowing AI to become the source of our imagination or spiritual direction * What hospice and pastoral presence teach about the power of staying with another person when there is nothing left to fix * A practical four-part presence practice: notice yourself, the other person, the environment, and what God may be doing in the moment Formation Practice Choose one ordinary interaction today and resist the urge to move through it automatically. Notice what is happening within you. Attend to the other person rather than preparing your next response. Notice the room, pace, and emotional atmosphere. Then ask quietly: What might God be doing here, and what kind of presence does love require from me? Let efficiency serve the encounter rather than replace it. Key Lines “I do the imagining. My AI production system does the tasks.” “The goal of AI is not to remove the human from the work. It is to remove enough of the work that AI can do quickly and efficiently so the human can become more fully present.” Next Episode TBU 110 — Called Into a Future We Cannot See. The next step asks how vocation and faithful participation work when the future is real but not yet fully visible. Production Notes All Bible quotations in the episode are from the World English Bible. Theme music: “Awesome Call” by Kevin MacLeod, used under Creative Commons license. Content copyright 2026 J. Brent Eaton. A Power Love and Miracles production. The Bible Unplugged • Power Love and Miracles Scripture quotations in the episode are from the World English Bible. Get full access to Power Love & Miracles at www.powerloveandmiracles.com/subscribe

    Becoming More Fully Human – The Formed Future

  5. Sep 29

    Power Must Be Shaped by Love – The Formed Future

    Power is not only something held by governments, executives, institutions, or people with enormous platforms. Whenever we can influence, create, teach, spend, publish, persuade, encourage, withhold, or choose, we have some degree of power. In this episode, Brent explores what happens before power becomes visible in the world. Energy receives direction. Direction contributes to coherence. Coherence strengthens agency. Agency becomes expression. And for Christians, love must help shape that movement before our choices produce their effects. Primary Scriptures * 1 Corinthians 8:1 — Knowledge can puff up; love builds up. * 1 Corinthians 13 — Gifts, knowledge, faith, generosity, and sacrifice become empty when love is absent. * Exodus 31 — Bezalel receives wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and skill that become faithful workmanship. * 1 Peter 4:10 — Gifts are received so they can be used in service to one another. The Framework Energy + Direction → Coherence → Agency → Expression Energy is already present in us: emotional, mental, spiritual, creative, and relational. The important question is what gives that energy direction. As beliefs, values, judgment, emotion, desire, and will become more coherent around Christ, we gain greater room to choose rather than simply react. That agency is then expressed through what we say, create, lead, spend, serve, withhold, or do. In This Episode * Why power is much closer to everyday life than we usually imagine. * How fear, anger, ambition, compassion, and love can all direct human energy. * Why being correct is not enough: Paul’s challenge to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 8. * The difference between asking, “Am I allowed to do this?” and “What will my choice do to the person beside me?” * A biblical pattern of Gift → Direction → Agency → Building Up. * Why faster technology makes inner coherence more important, not less. * How AI, automation, publishing, and other powerful tools can amplify both mature agency and unformed impulse. * Why pastoral care sometimes reveals restraint, silence, and presence as powerful expressions of love. Bible by Design: Gift → Direction → Agency → Building Up Scripture repeatedly shows God giving people ability, opportunity, influence, resources, authority, knowledge, or spiritual gifts. Those gifts create capability, but capability is not the destination. Love gives faithful direction; agency becomes service; and the intended result is the building up of others. That leads to a better Christian measure of power. The question is not simply whether our reach, output, influence, or productivity is increasing. The deeper question is: What am I building? The Turn: Just Because I Can… Technology keeps removing friction between impulse and expression. We can create, publish, research, automate, and respond faster than ever. That can be a gift, but it also means we have less accidental time to reconsider our impulses. The capability question asks, “How much can I do?” The love question asks, “What will actually help the person on the other side of this?” More content is not automatically more ministry. More capability is not automatically wiser action. Formation Practice: Follow the Movement Before acting in a moment when you have the ability to produce an effect, slow the process down and ask: * What energy is active in me right now? * What is giving that energy direction? * Am I coherent, or am I about to react? * What agency do I actually have here? * How should that agency be expressed? * Will this build up? Carry This With You Power without formation defaults to impulse. Power shaped by love becomes service. Next in The Formed Future TBU 109 — Becoming More Fully Human. As technology becomes more capable, the next question is not merely what machines can do, but what parts of being human we should cultivate more deeply rather than surrender. The Bible Unplugged • Power Love and Miracles Scripture quotations in the episode are from the World English Bible. Get full access to Power Love & Miracles at www.powerloveandmiracles.com/subscribe

    Power Must Be Shaped by Love – The Formed Future

  6. Sep 22

    More Knowledge is Not Enough – The Formed Future

    We live in a world where answers are easier to find than ever before. But having an answer is not the same thing as knowing what to do with it. In this episode of The Bible Unplugged, Brent explores the difference between information, wisdom, and discernment — and why spiritual maturity will matter even more in a future shaped by information abundance and artificial intelligence. Primary Scriptures · Hebrews 5:14 — Discernment is developed through practice. · Philippians 1:9–10 — Love, knowledge, and discernment help us recognize what is excellent. · Proverbs 2:6 — Wisdom, knowledge, and understanding come from God. · Exodus 31:3–5 — Bezalel receives wisdom, understanding, and knowledge that become workmanship. In This Episode · Why more information can sometimes create more fear instead of more confidence. · How the search for one more answer can become a way of avoiding action. · Why Hebrews describes discernment as something that must be trained through use. · What makes Christian discernment more than critical thinking. · How Scripture repeatedly moves from knowing, to discerning, to doing. · Why AI can amplify human capability without automatically producing maturity or judgment. · How a strong, coherent center helps us use powerful tools without handing over our discernment. Bible by Design: Knowing → Discerning → Doing Scripture rarely treats knowledge as the finish line. God gives truth, people learn to perceive and understand it, discern what faithfulness requires, and then act. Bezalel offers a vivid example. In Exodus 31, wisdom, understanding, and knowledge do not remain theoretical. They become craftsmanship — faithful participation in what God is doing. The Big Idea The goal is not to become the person in the room who knows the most. The goal is to become the person who can recognize what matters and respond faithfully. Formation Practice The next time you face a difficult question, learn what you genuinely need to learn — but do not stop with, “What do I need to know?” Ask: · What matters here? · What is God doing? · What is mine to do? · What would faithfulness look like? Then notice whether you are still researching because you truly need more information, or because you are afraid to act without certainty. Carry This With You You do not need to know everything before you move. You need enough wisdom to recognize the next faithful thing. Next in The Formed Future TBU 108 — Power Must Be Shaped by Love. New tools are giving ordinary people abilities that once belonged mainly to institutions and experts. The next question is not only what we can do, but what should govern the way we use that power. Get full access to Power Love & Miracles at www.powerloveandmiracles.com/subscribe

    More Knowledge is Not Enough – The Formed Future

  7. Sep 15

    Guarding the Inner Gate – The Formed Future

    We are surrounded by voices competing for our attention. News wants it. Politics wants it. Advertising wants it. Social media wants it. Algorithms want it. Fear wants it. Technology can occupy as much of it as we are willing to give. The problem is bigger than simply having too much information. What repeatedly receives our attention eventually begins participating in our formation. In the last episode of The Bible Unplugged, we asked: What is forming me? This week we take the next step: What am I allowing access to my inner life? The Problem Is Not Just Bad Information We often hear the phrase “guard your heart” used as a warning about avoiding harmful influences. There is truth in that. But Proverbs gives us a much deeper picture. Proverbs 4:23 says: “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it is the wellspring of life.” In biblical thought, the heart involves much more than emotion. It is the center of thought, intention, desire, judgment, and will. The writer of Proverbs is telling us to pay attention to what is happening within us because our outward lives eventually grow from what is happening inside. That matters enormously in an age of constant input. We can spend much of the day allowing people and systems we have never met to decide what we are going to think about next. A headline gets our attention. A video follows it. Then another. Then a comment. Then an argument. Then a notification. None of those moments may seem especially important. But taken together, they create an environment inside us. Overwhelmed by the Pace of Information The problem is not only the amount of information available. It is the pace. We rarely finish processing one thing before the next thing arrives. That can leave us continually activated. We see a crisis and begin worrying about it. Before we have processed that concern, another issue appears. Then another. Eventually, we may feel anxious without even knowing exactly what we are anxious about. The nervous system is still responding to a stream of unfinished concerns. The inner life becomes crowded. And that is where another teaching of Jesus becomes important. When the Heart Becomes Crowded In Mark 4, Jesus tells the parable of the soils. Some seed falls among thorns. The seed grows, but so do the thorns. Jesus explains that the worries of the age, the deceitfulness of riches, and desires for other things enter in and choke the word. Notice what happens. The seed is still there. The problem is competition for space. That gives us a different way of thinking about spiritual distraction. The things crowding our inner lives are not always evil. Work matters. Money matters. Family matters. Knowing what is happening in the world matters. Technology can be useful. Entertainment can be enjoyable. But good or ordinary things can still become spiritually disruptive when they consume more internal space than they deserve. Sometimes the problem is not that something terrible entered our heart. Sometimes too much entered. Bible by Design: Heart, Mouth, Eyes, Feet The surrounding verses in Proverbs 4 give us an interesting picture of how formation moves through a person. The writer speaks about the: heart then the mouth then the eyes then the feet. That progression matters. What lives in the heart eventually affects what comes out of the mouth. What is happening within us affects what our eyes look toward. And what captures our attention begins influencing the direction our feet take. Inner formation eventually becomes outward life. We could put it simply: Heart → Mouth → Eyes → Feet What settles within us eventually becomes speech, perception, direction, and action. That is one reason guarding the inner life matters so much. We are not merely protecting our feelings. We are paying attention to the source from which our lives are being lived. Guarding Is Not Hiding There is an important distinction here. Guarding your inner life does not mean hiding from the world. It does not mean refusing to hear ideas that challenge you. It does not mean building a Christian bubble where nothing uncomfortable can reach you. In fact, hiding can produce fragility. A guarded heart does something different. A guarded heart actively determines what gets to govern it. A hidden heart tries to avoid everything threatening. Those are not the same thing. The spiritually mature person should be able to encounter a difficult idea without immediately becoming destabilized by it. We can hear troubling news without allowing the news to determine the emotional character of our entire day. We can encounter disagreement without surrendering our peace. We can learn about economic uncertainty without allowing fear to become the organizing principle of our lives. We can use technology without giving technology authority over how we think. That is not withdrawal. That is discernment. The Outrage Machine One of the easiest ways to lose control of the inner gate is outrage. Anger itself is not always wrong. Jesus became angry. The prophets became angry. There are things in the world that should disturb us. But there is a difference between becoming angry about injustice and living in an environment of continual outrage. Outrage can make us feel powerful because the emotion is intense. But intensity is not the same thing as agency. If someone else can determine my inner state simply by saying or posting the right thing, I may feel powerful while actually being controlled from outside myself. And modern information systems are very good at discovering what will keep us emotionally engaged. Often, what keeps us angry keeps us watching. What keeps us frightened keeps us clicking. What keeps us offended keeps us returning. The result is a strange cycle: We consume the thing that upsets us. It upsets us. Then we consume more of it. Eventually, outrage stops being a response and becomes an atmosphere. Discernment becomes harder in that atmosphere. We react more quickly. Listen less carefully. Assume motives. And sometimes become so overwhelmed that all the emotional activation leads to inaction. A mature inner life leaves room for anger without giving anger control. Learning to Be Selective I have had to learn this myself. I still follow the news. I want to know what is happening. But I have learned that I need to be selective about what I consume. The issue is not whether I know what is going on. The question is whether the information is helping me understand reality or merely keeping me emotionally activated. The same is true with social media. Sometimes I want to watch movie clips, pop culture material, or something funny. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. But an endless stream can consume attention almost without our noticing. Even artificial intelligence fits here. I use AI regularly and find it enormously useful. But any useful tool can begin changing the way we think if we stop paying attention to how we are using it. The issue is rarely: Is this thing evil? A better question may be: What is this doing inside me? Discernment at the Gate We cannot control every voice that reaches us. That is probably impossible. But we can become much more intentional about which voices are allowed to remain. This does not require fear. It requires awareness. We can notice when a source continually produces anxiety. We can recognize when a social media account leaves us angry every time we encounter it. We can notice when our consumption of information begins interfering with prayer, rest, relationships, or our ability to think clearly. Then we can make choices. That is spiritual agency. The goal is not to close the gate. The goal is to become a better gatekeeper. Formation Practice: Why Am I Letting This In? This week, experiment with discernment at the gate. Before automatically opening an article, clicking another video, or continuing down an information stream, pause for a moment. Ask: Why am I letting this in? Am I trying to understand something? Am I curious? Am I afraid? Am I bored? Am I looking for reassurance? Am I hoping to become angry? Then, after you have consumed it, ask: What did this produce in me? Fear? Anger? Compassion? Greater understanding? Confusion? Wisdom? Peace? And finally: Does this deserve continued access to my inner life? We cannot stop the world from competing for our attention. But we do not have to surrender our inner lives to whoever competes most aggressively. You cannot control every voice that reaches you. You can decide which voices are allowed to live inside you. Scripture Proverbs 4:20–27Mark 4:18–19 Coming Next In TBU 107 — More Knowledge Is Not Enough, we take another step. Suppose we become more intentional about what we allow into our inner lives. We still face another problem: What do we do with what we know? We live in an age of almost unlimited access to information, but information alone does not create wisdom. The future will require more than people who know a great deal. It will require people who can discern what matters, recognize what God is doing, and know how to respond faithfully. The Formed Future is about becoming people who can live within a rapidly changing world without allowing that world to decide who we become. Get full access to Power Love & Miracles at www.powerloveandmiracles.com/subscribe

    Guarding the Inner Gate – The Formed Future

  8. Sep 8

    The Future is Already Forming You – The Formed Future

    When I was in junior high school, I was assigned Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock. The warning was unsettling even then: technology and social change could begin moving faster than people were able to adapt. More than fifty years later, that future does not feel theoretical. Work changes. Technology changes. Communication changes. The way we receive information changes. Even the meaning of expertise is changing. Often, the next disruption arrives before we have fully adjusted to the last one. That creates a deeply human fear: What if I can’t keep up? What if the skills I spent years developing no longer matter? What if I fall behind? What if I become irrelevant? In this first teaching episode of The Formed Future, I want to go beneath the predictions about what may happen next. Because the future is not merely coming toward us. It is already forming us. The Question Is Not Only What Comes Next Rapid change creates pressure to move faster. Learn more. Read more. Master another tool. Follow another expert. Pick up another skill. Try to understand the next platform before everyone else does. Learning is good. Curiosity is good. Fear-driven learning is different. When we become convinced that we must constantly keep up in order to remain valuable, there is no finish line. There will always be another development tomorrow. And eventually that pressure begins shaping the inner person. Fear about money shapes us. Feeling behind shapes us. Worry about artificial intelligence and changing jobs shapes us. The effort to remain relevant shapes us. So before we ask, What is going to happen next?, perhaps we need to ask: What is all of this already forming in me? No Longer Tossed Around Paul gives us a powerful picture of maturity in Ephesians 4:13–15. He describes immature people as being tossed back and forth and carried around by every wind. The alternative is not knowing enough to predict every wind. The alternative is growing up. Growing into Christ. Paul’s answer to instability is maturity. That distinction matters in an age when information is nearly unlimited. We can know a great deal and still have poor judgment. We can have access to more information than any generation before us and still be easily manipulated. We can become highly capable without becoming spiritually mature. Romans 12:2 describes another side of this same process: “Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…” Conformity shapes us from the outside. Transformation works from within. The world around us will exert pressure. We cannot stop that. But we do not have to allow the world to do all the forming. From Fragmentation to Coherence One of the words I keep returning to in The Formed Future is coherence. A coherent life is one in which the pieces increasingly fit together around Christ. What I believe about God begins to fit with the way I make decisions. My understanding of who I am begins to fit with the way I respond to fear. My work, relationships, values, hopes, and choices increasingly grow from the same center. Future shock tends toward fragmentation. Everything feels urgent. Our attention is pulled in several directions at once. Formation in Christ moves us toward coherence. I believe four qualities will become increasingly important as we move into the future: Coherence I know what holds my life together. I do not need to reinvent my identity every time the world changes around me. Discernment I learn the difference between what demands my attention and what actually deserves it. This becomes especially important with artificial intelligence. AI can dramatically increase our capabilities. It can help us think, research, compare, create, and solve problems. But capability is not judgment. More answers do not automatically make us wiser. We still have to think, question, evaluate, compare what we encounter with Scripture, experience, wisdom, community, and the leading of the Holy Spirit. Confidence Our value cannot depend upon the current market value of our skills. Jobs may change. Roles may disappear. Ways of contributing may change. That can be painful, particularly for someone who has spent decades becoming very good at a particular kind of work. But changing usefulness is not the same as changing worth. Our value comes from somewhere deeper. Steadiness Steadiness does not mean never becoming worried, surprised, or confused. It means those emotions do not automatically get to make our decisions. We can feel pressure and still choose our response. We can face change without allowing change to determine who we become. I Felt This Pressure Too I have had to confront this in my own work. When I began seriously building Power Love and Miracles, writing books, producing podcasts, and developing my work as a subject matter expert, I was in a hurry. More accurately, I was panicked. I was looking ahead financially and believed this work might need to begin producing meaningful income quickly. Suddenly, work I loved carried another burden: It had to work. And it had to work fast enough. That changes the questions you ask. Instead of asking, What am I called to create?, you start wondering what will get attention fastest. Instead of allowing skills and an audience to develop, you feel behind before you have really begun. I had to realize that I was asking this work to carry more weight than it was supposed to carry. I still want it to grow. I want these books, podcasts, devotions, and teachings to reach people. But I do not have to create from panic. That is a very different posture. Spiritual formation does not always remove the pressure surrounding us. Sometimes it changes the person standing within the pressure. Formation Practice: Notice Before You React This week, don’t try to solve the future. Notice what it is doing inside you. When you feel pressure to keep up, ask: Where am I feeling pressure to keep up? What am I afraid will happen if I don’t? What is that fear forming in me? Then ask: Is this making me more coherent, discerning, confident, and steady—or less? We cannot discern a pressure we refuse to name. The future will bring changes none of us can completely predict. Some will be difficult. Some will be wonderful. Many will probably be both. But we are not helpless. We do not have to become faster than the future. We need to become deeply enough formed in Christ to meet it. The question is not only: Can I keep up? The better question is: Who am I becoming while I try? Scripture Ephesians 4:11–16Romans 12:2 Coming Next In TBU 106 — Guarding the Inner Gate, we move from noticing what is forming us to asking another question: What are we allowing access to our inner life in the first place? Once we recognize the forces competing to shape us, we can begin exercising discernment about which voices are allowed to remain. The Formed Future is about becoming the kind of people who can meet rapid change with maturity rather than fear—formed deeply enough in Christ to stand, discern, love, and participate faithfully in whatever comes next. Get full access to Power Love & Miracles at www.powerloveandmiracles.com/subscribe

    The Future is Already Forming You – The Formed Future
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The deepest and most profound insights in The Bible are hidden under centuries of dogma, doctrine, glitz, and glamor that hide what scripture actually says. We take a deep dive into language and culture of The Bible to find what God wants us to know and how we should live. www.powerloveandmiracles.com

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