I have been learning how to create with and understand AI. If I can paint a picture of what is happening with AI in today\u2019s world, this is how I would paint it: AI is like a fire. And it matters how we contain it. Just like fire, it can become a wildfire, a campfire, or a torch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I started dabbling with AI at the beginning of the year. It felt like I was a kid who got my first set of Legos or found out I could build my own computer. I was so excited. But along the way, I found myself drifting. I would stay up too late coding, building, and developing. Every idea that came into my head, I was trying to build. So much so that I was not really completing anything worthwhile or actually having a working product. Here I was learning how to harness AI, but I was losing my own sense of containment and self-governance. The delight of creating quickly became a device of anxiety. In some ways, I am still in it, but the Lord has been bringing me back to this place of containment and self-governance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Scripture the Lord recently gave me to meditate on is Isaiah 9:7:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nOf the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever.<\/p>\nIsaiah 9:6-7, KJV<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
We usually quote the first part of this passage. God\u2019s government. His peace. The Prince of Peace. But the second half has been speaking to me too. His kingdom is established and upheld with order, judgment, and justice. It makes me ask: am I allowing the government of the kingdom and of His peace to be the organizing principle first of my internal world, and then of my external world? When it comes to my work and what I am doing externally, it cannot supersede the work He is doing internally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus said the kingdom of God is within us. So now, whenever I read about the kingdom, I find myself asking how it is being established in my internal world. In me first. A colleague who is also working with AI shared this statement with me: \u201cWe are no longer in the Information Age. We are in the Imagination Age.\u201d This is for everyone, whether you use AI or not. Just like the internet, a generation will grow up not knowing what it is like to live without AI. But here is what I feel the Holy Spirit inviting us into. It is more of a re-invitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Creating in the Imagination Age<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In Genesis 1, God commissions Adam and Eve as image bearers of the divine, imago Dei<\/em>. We were made to create because we were made in the image of the Creator. If the increase of His government and peace is going to be expressed through us, I believe it will happen through a community of image bearers who learn together what containment, order, and self-governance look like through the Holy Spirit. Because if peace is our organizing principle, imagine what we could create. Not from fear. From peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Peace in the Middle of a Family Story<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
This has not only been a lesson about technology for me. The Lord has been teaching me the same thing in my family. Almost seven years ago, my dad had a stroke. It upended our whole life. We had to ask how we were going to care for Dad while also caring for our families and everything else in front of us. He is not getting better. The whole right side of his body is immobile, and he has a hard time communicating. All of us have had to learn what it looks like to help care for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For years, I had wanted to buy a house where our family could live together. I had imagined that eventually, as my parents got older, we would need to be together anyway. Over the past year and a half, my sister and I began talking about putting our resources together and buying a house. The idea was that my parents could live downstairs, we could live upstairs, and we could care for Dad together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is not a simple situation. It is a difficult situation that we are learning to contain. We are learning how to bring peace into it and what it looks like for the government of God to rule and uphold it. Sometimes the direction does not make sense. But we have been learning to listen, to trust Him, and to be guided by peace. I am thankful for my family, for my sister and my brother, and for their willingness to work together and see this come to pass. I honor them. I am thankful that, in the middle of a hard situation, the Lord has given us a way to care for one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We would love to see the miracle of healing. We would love for there to have never been a stroke. But we are also seeing a miracle of His faithfulness. He is providing. He is leading us. He is giving us a place where we can care for Dad together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even in the Mess<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Jesus is not waiting for every loose end to be tied up before He meets us. He is the Prince of Peace in the middle of the mess. He has wisdom to turn a wildfire into a campfire, a fireplace, or a torch. He teaches us how to contain what has been given to us and how to use it as light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So this is what I want to give away: partner with the Prince of Peace in establishing His rule, His order, and His wisdom in the little decisions. Let the work He is doing in you come before the work you are trying to do around you. Let His peace organize your mind, your heart, your home, your family, your work, and your creativity. Every mess is different. I am still in mine. I am still learning. But I believe Jesus is with us in the middle of it. And whether the fire becomes a wildfire, a campfire, or a torch, He is teaching us how to carry it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n