When Congress passed a bill last year requiring TikTok to either sell its American user base or shut down the app, no one really knew how ByteDance—TikTok’s parent company—would respond. At issue was a bipartisan fear that the Chinese government could (and would) force ByteDance to surrender data on Americans as they did during Hong Kong’s 2018 pro-democracy protests.

Fast forward roughly eighteen months—a year longer than the Congressional bill allowed—and it appears as though the saga is now coming to an end.

Oracle, Fox Corp, and several other investors have agreed to buy the company for an estimated $14 billion, and TikTok is expected to come under American control as soon as the details are finalized. However, given that all of this occurred several weeks ago, you might wonder why I’m bringing it up this morning.

The reason is that an alarming number of leaders in our government have gone from fearing TikTok to embracing the app since the sale was announced. Senators Adam Schiff and John Hickenlooper both started accounts in recent days, while President Trump and Vice President JD Vance both joined even earlier. Hickenlooper pointed specifically to the sale of the app as his reason for confidence that it was now safe to use.

The problem, though, is that nothing has actually changed. Although the deal has been agreed upon, both the algorithm and the data are still managed by ByteDance and are subject to potential manipulation by the Chinese government. Moreover, the official policy of the American government still bans the use of the app on any government device.

While the officials who have joined TikTok since the sale was announced have all done so on private devices, the basic concerns that led an overwhelming majority of them to ban the app last year have not been addressed.

And the biggest concern of all isn’t going anywhere, even after the app is in—presumably—more trusted hands.

Why TikTok is so addictive

The primary reason TikTok set off alarms in Congress and prompted multiple companies to clamor for the chance to pay billions of dollars for its rights is the algorithm that keeps people glued to the app for hours on end. Previous versions of the deal all failed because ByteDance and the Chinese government were hesitant to turn control of that algorithm over to American buyers. And while they are not selling the code outright, they are leasing it to Oracle and others.

TikTok’s internal documents state that the algorithm gets people hooked in as little as 35 minutes, with an average increase of 40 percent more time spent on the app after only the first week. After a month, even the least active users averaged just under an hour a day of scrolling, while their “power users” were watching more than four times that amount.

The pull is particularly strong for Gen Z and other young people, where 63 percent of teens ages 13 to 17 use TikTok. Moreover, 50 percent say they are on the app at least several times a day. However, some among their number are trying to change that fact, and there’s an important lesson in their efforts for each of us today.

Take responsibility for your life

The organization Time to Refuse is intent on helping Gen Z break free from social media addiction. And while Gen Z encompasses everyone born between 1996 and 2012, the organization’s focus is primarily on those in their 20s.

As Freya India described:

There are countless teachers, organizations, and advocates trying to help Generation Z and Generation Alpha escape from the addictive trap of smartphones and social media. They are fighting against fearful overprotection, pushing to get phones out of schools, and urging parents to delay social media access until at least age 16. They are on a mission to save childhood. But what about those of us who already lost ours?

She goes on to describe how many young people in their 20s today were “overprotected in the real world and abandoned online.” As the parent of two kids who reside just outside of that generation, finding a better balance than the one she describes is among my highest priorities.

But, at the end of the day, there’s only so much I can do to protect them. And, really, that’s what stood out the most from Time to Refuse’s approach. Rather than blame parents, teachers, and adults for allowing access to Facebook, TikTok, and a host of other apps, they’re calling young people to take responsibility for their lives and make the necessary changes.

To that end, they’re hosting an event in New York City this evening, with partners throughout the country joining as well, in which they’re encouraging people to delete one social media account as the first step toward greater independence. However, they’re clear that, for many, it’s just the first step:

You can’t leave the digital world and call it a day. Take more time to do the things you should already be doing. Live more slowly. Take up analog activities and real self-care activities: exercising, calling your relatives, hanging out with friends, etc.

In short, your life isn’t actually going to improve unless you not only stop doing the things that are making it worse but take the added step of replacing them with things that will make it better. And that’s a lesson that applies to far more than social media.

Virtue or another vice?

The first message that Christ preached upon starting his public ministry was “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). This call to repentance epitomizes the idea we’re talking about today.

You see, biblical repentance is more than just asking forgiveness when you mess up or promising to do better in the future. The Greek word metanoia carries with it a concept of change that requires not only leaving behind the things you’ve done wrong but also choosing to replace them with something different.

Now, that something doesn’t have to be better, and far too often we end up replacing one sin with another. But if our eyes remain fixed on Jesus and our repentance leads us to pursue his righteousness (Matthew 5:6), then it becomes far easier to choose virtue over another vice.

So, where do you need to make that choice today? Are there any areas of your life where you just keep stumbling?

We all have certain sins in our lives that we are particularly prone to commit. In such instances, learning to rely on the help of other believers and, most of all, the Holy Spirit to pursue the righteousness of Christ is the only path to genuine freedom and joy.

Will you seek out that help today?

Quote of the day:

“Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace, and your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.” —Jerry Bridges

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• Faith, science, and the call to hospitality with Dr. James Tour
• Who is Sean Feucht?

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President Trump wrote yesterday evening on Truth Social:

I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first Phase of our Peace Plan. This means that ALL of the Hostages will be released very soon, and Israel will withdraw their Troops to an agreed-upon line as the first step toward a Strong, Durable, and Everlasting Peace.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his government would meet today to approve the agreement and “bring all our dear hostages home.” Hamas similarly announced that it had reached “an agreement that ends the war in Gaza, provides for the withdrawal of the occupation, allows the entry of aid, and implements a prisoner exchange.”

If Israel’s ministers approve the deal, the IDF must withdraw from Gaza to the agreed line, which would likely happen within twenty-four hours. The seventy-two-hour clock would then begin where Hamas must release the living hostages, which would likely occur on Monday, though the return of the bodies of deceased hostages will take longer. Once the hostages are returned, Israel is expected to release 250 Palestinians in Israeli prisons and 1,700 Palestinians who have been detained in Gaza during the conflict.

The hostages’ families released a statement: “Their return is a condition for the rehabilitation and revival of Israeli society as a whole. We will not rest or be quiet until the return of the last hostage. We will bring them back. We will rise.”

The memoir of a Hamas hostage

If you are wondering what life has been like for Israelis held captive by Hamas for two years, I strongly urge you to read Eli Sharabi’s new book, Hostage. He was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 and spent 491 days in captivity. His memoir is deeply painful to read as he describes the brutal torture, horrifically inhumane conditions, and near starvation he and his fellow captives endured.

But through it all, Eli chose to be a survivor. He did not know if his wife and children were alive, so he determined to live for them. He chose not to let the terrorists take his will to live.

He writes that he and the hostages imprisoned in his tunnel with him were encouraged by a sentence one of them shared with the others: “He who has a why can bear any how” (his italics). Even when Eli was finally freed and learned that his brother, his wife, and his two daughters had been murdered by the terrorists, he chose to write his book to encourage support for the remaining hostages. His story became the fastest-selling book in Israeli history.

Eli’s courage is made all the more remarkable by the fact that it is unremarkable in his nation.

Last Tuesday, I wrote to my friends in Israel to express my sorrow and solidarity with them on the second anniversary of Hamas’s horrific terror attack against their people. One of them wrote back with this story:

An eighteen-year-old girl wanted to join the Israeli army, but her weight was too low. She failed. She tried again, this time by putting stones in her pocket. She made it. Unfortunately, she died on the 7^th of October.

“When one has one’s wherefore of life”

Friedrich Nietzsche is sometimes called the “father of postmodernism,” a movement that has led to the denial of absolute truth, which has come to dominate our culture. In Twilight of the Idols, the atheistic philosopher asked, “Is man only a mistake of God? Or God only a mistake of man?” Because he was convinced that “God is dead,” he was equally convinced that he had to find his own meaning and purpose in life.

Nietzsche therefore famously asserted, “What does not kill me, strengthens me.” And he made the statement Eli Sharabi’s fellow captives paraphrastically embraced: “When one has one’s wherefore of life, one gets along with almost every how” (Nietzsche’s italics).

Eli’s resolve to survive his horrific captivity illustrates this maxim, as does the eighteen-year-old Israeli soldier who died serving her country. Our confused and chaotic “post-truth” culture can learn much from their examples of purpose-driven courage.

As can all of us who call Jesus our Lord.

For Christians, our “wherefore of life” has been chosen for us. Jesus’ call was consistent across the Gospels: “Follow me” (cf. Matthew 4:19; 8:22; 9:9; 10:38; 16:24; Mark 10:21; John 1:43; 10:27; 12:26). Not “follow my teachings” or “follow my church,” but “follow me.” The word translated follow means to “live alongside and obey unconditionally.”

Jesus’ call is to live with him and for him, to know him intimately and then to make him known publicly. The more emphatically our post-Christian culture rejects this call, the more courageously you and I must embrace it.

Marking the birthday of Jim Elliot

Let’s close with an example.

Yesterday was the birthday of the famed missionary Jim Elliot. He and his wife Elisabeth followed God’s call to the Ecuadorian jungle, where he and four other missionaries were speared to death. After his martyrdom, his wife and their young daughter moved into the Auca/Waodani village to live among those who killed him and share the gospel with them.

This remarkable story was shared around the world, inspiring millions to serve God through missions.

Jim’s most famous words were written in his journal on October 28, 1949: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” He understood the essence of the gospel: “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). He therefore embraced the same “wherefore of life” as the Apostle Paul: “For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works in me” (v. 29).

His wife agreed. According to Elisabeth Elliot,

“The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.”

How courageously will you embrace and share this “secret” today?

Quote for the day:

“It is easier to find a score of men wise enough to discover the truth than to find one intrepid enough, in the face of opposition, to stand up for it.” —A. A. Hodge

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• Embracing the wonder after Forrest Frank’s miraculous healing
• Government shutdown, peace in Gaza, UFO video, Tim Allen, Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny & Ryder Cup Results

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Following yesterday’s tragic October 7 anniversary, let’s focus today on something more uplifting. Or at least very different.

I typically try to write on subjects about which I have at least some personal knowledge or expertise. Today, I’ll not do that—at least to begin. Instead, I want to reflect with you on the prolific output of Taylor Swift, who released her twelfth original studio album last week.

I am apparently unlike most of humanity in that I have heard only one of her songs one time (at my granddaughter’s urging), have never been to one of her concerts, and have never heard a podcast or seen a movie featuring her. The closest I have come to observing her in popular media has been those times when the TV cameras panned to her in the stands watching her now-fiancée Travis Kelce play tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs.

So, I’ll turn to an expert on the subject. Ari Perez is an associate professor at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, where she teaches a class called “Taylor Swift: Cultural Mirrorball.” She explains that Swift is so prolific because she genuinely likes what she does: “I think she enjoys keeping a strong, productive output so that putting music out on a continuous basis makes her happy and fulfilled.”

That was simple, wasn’t it? But there’s more to the story.

“Let them + let me”

Next, we’ll turn to another very popular media figure: Mel Robbins, the bestselling author and podcaster. Her latest book, The Let Them Theory, was the #1 selling book of 2025 and is on pace to have the best non-fiction book launch of all time. In reading it, I was impressed with the simplicity of its central formula:

Let them + let me.

“Let them” applies to people whose behavior bothers you. These two words are a way of admitting that we cannot control them and that they are going to do what they choose to do. “Let me” applies to us as we decide how we will respond proactively to what life brings us.

According to Robbins, allowing people to live their lives while taking control of our own is the key to flourishing. She complimented Taylor Swift for modeling this philosophy: “Let Them be wrong about you. Let Me get back to doing what I was put on this earth to do.”

So, how do we know what we were “put on this earth to do”? Ray Bradbury famously offered advice that aligns with the philosophies of Swift and Robbins: “Love what you do and do what you love.”

Here’s the catch: Doing what you love only leads to flourishing if what you love is worth doing.

When the police went on strike

In The Origin of Politics: How Evolution and Ideology Shape the Fate of Nations, Nicholas Wade reports:

On the morning of October 7, 1969, the entire police force of Montreal went on strike. Within a few hours, gathering crowds started to loot stores. Gangs of masked men arrived to rob banks. Citizens huddled indoors as looters swept through downtown Montreal, smashing the windows of restaurants, stores, and hotels. By the end of the day some $500,000 worth of merchandise had been looted. Not until the arrival of army troops shortly after midnight were the violence and disorder brought to an end.

Paul would not have been surprised. He listed the “works of the flesh,” the things fallen humans naturally do: “sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these” (Galatians 5:19–21). We can love doing them, but we see the brokenness they produce every day in the news.

Conversely, the apostle listed the “fruit of the Spirit,” the things Spirit-led humans naturally do: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (vv. 22–23). When we love doing them, our changed lives change the world.

The highest purpose in life

Yesterday morning, I spent time on my favorite bench beside my favorite lake just before the sun came up. The “Harvest Supermoon” was still iridescent in the predawn sky, though I could only see it in fragments through the trees that canopied overhead. However, its reflection on the lake before me was so clear as to mirror the moon itself.

This thought occurred: the source of the light (the sun) is most visible to me in the reflection of the reflection of the moon.

Jesus said of himself, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (John 9:5). Now that he is in heaven, you and I are “the light of the world” (Matthew 5:13), called to reflect his light in our darkened culture. Others cannot see his light in our hearts, however, but in the character we manifest through the circumstances of our lives. Our acts are a reflection of the reflection of our Source.

How does this work in practical terms? Jesus tells his followers, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit” (John 15:5). When we know Jesus personally and intimately, we will make him known publicly and powerfully.

Here’s why this matters: People need to know God more than they need anything else. They are made in his image and likeness, and their hearts are “restless until they rest in him” (St. Augustine). As a result, knowing the God of the universe and making him known is the highest purpose, privilege, and passion in life.

“We may never meet after today”

This purpose is urgent beyond any other in our fallen world.

On this day in 1871, the great evangelist Dwight Moody preached in Chicago to the largest congregation he had ever addressed in that city. In The Life of Dwight L. Moody, written by his son William R. Moody, we read that Moody paraphrased that evening the question of Pontius Pilate: “What shall you do then with Jesus which is called Christ?” (Matthew 27:22). He challenged the congregation to think about this question during the week and return to church the following Sunday, when “we will decide what to do with Jesus of Nazareth.”

But as he said later, “I have never seen that congregation since.”

The Great Chicago Fire began that night, killing hundreds of people, destroying thousands of buildings, and causing more than $4 billion in damages (in today’s dollars). Moody reflected later on the tragedy:

I want to tell you about one lesson I learned that night, which I have never forgotten, and that is, when I preach, to urge Christ upon the people then and there, and try to bring them to a decision on the spot. . . .

I have asked God many times to forgive me for telling people that night to take a week to think it over, and if he spares my life, I will never do it again. This audience will break up in a few moments.

We may never meet after today.

Is the same not true for everyone you meet this day?

Quote for the day:

“No one can sum up all God is able to accomplish through one solitary life, wholly yielded, adjusted, and obedient to him.” —Dwight L. Moody

Our latest website resources:

• Faith, science, and the call to hospitality with Dr. James Tour
• Who is Sean Feucht? Why the worship leader and conservative activist is facing financial misuse allegations
• Embracing the wonder after Forrest Frank’s miraculous healing
• Government shutdown, peace in Gaza, UFO video, Tim Allen, Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny & Ryder Cup Results
• Defeating temptation before it becomes sin

Denison Forum