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NOTE: Thank you to Ryan Denison for writing today’s Daily Article. He is the Denison Forum Senior Fellow for Theology and has written more than four hundred articles for Denison Forum.

The United Nations General Assembly began this week in New York City and it didn’t take long to start making waves. But while a number of issues—ranging from climate change to Covid—have dominated the discussion, the storyline I’ll be watching most closely revolves around the Taliban seeking to replace Afghanistan’s current representative with one from the new regime.

Currently, the former Afghan government is the only authority from the country credentialed by the UN, meaning that the Taliban is currently locked out even though they are clearly in control of the country. As such, the people representing Afghanistan to the world have been largely forced to flee their own nation.

The UN has said that they are unlikely to make a decision during the current session, though it’s possible something could happen later this year. However, recognizing a representative from the Taliban would, in the eyes of many, be akin to recognizing and legitimizing their government—and that has left many nations more than a little wary.

As such, the UN is using the status as a carrot of sorts to try and entice the terrorist organization turned ruling government to make some changes on how they operate. Chief among those changes is addressing what remains a concerning record of human rights violations, both before taking power and in the weeks since.

Amnesty International, for example, outlined earlier this week how the “Taliban are steadily dismantling the human rights gains of the last twenty years . . . including targeted killings of civilians and surrendered soldiers and the blocking of humanitarian supplies in the Panhshir Valley, which constitute crimes under international law.” Moreover, they warn that “restrictions have also been reimposed on women, freedom of expression, and civil society.”

In short, the Taliban has yet to show a genuine interest in governing according to the standards by which most nations are judged. And while other countries that have UN representation are also guilty of similar crimes—China among the most prominent—the new leaders of Afghanistan are being held to an understandably high standard (at least for now).

“Dialogue could be fruitful”

That the Taliban is encountering resistance in their quest to be recognized as the official government of Afghanistan should not come as a surprise. That they want to be legitimized on the global level, however, is an even more important development.

Such a desire demonstrates that their goals are not necessarily the same as we often think about when it comes to radical Islam and terrorist activity. While certain groups, such as al-Qaeda, are often focused on attacking western countries in defense of Islam—or at least that’s what they claim—the Taliban have long had a different objective in mind. For them, Afghanistan is not just a launching pad for jihad. It’s home, and it has been for centuries.

While many of their ideals are aligned with other terrorist organizations, they legitimately desire to be seen by the world as the ones in charge of their homeland. It’s why they can state with all sincerity that they believe “It is the responsibility of the United Nations to recognize our government (and) for other countries, including European, Asian, and Islamic countries, to have diplomatic relations with us.”

That the world doesn’t seem to agree is of lesser importance than that they see themselves as worthy of that level of legitimacy.

And there is, perhaps, some logic behind the idea that they should be treated as more than usurpers. As the leadership from Qatar noted, “Boycotting them would only lead to polarization and reactions, whereas dialogue could be fruitful.”

If the Taliban show signs that global recognition is more important than re-establishing their old ways of governance, then perhaps there is hope that the situation for the Afghani people could begin to improve. However, it is uncertain what that would mean for their relationship with other radical Islamic groups—most of whom do not tend to look kindly upon compromising what they perceive to be the only way to correctly live out their faith. Stranger things have happened, though, and we can (and should) be praying that they are willing to make those changes.

But it’s hard to pray about what we’re not thinking about, and therein lies the problem for many of us.

What to do when you lose spiritual focus

I suspect that for most Americans, the situation in Afghanistan has already begun to work its way to the periphery of our collective awareness. We know it’s not good, but unless something abnormally bad happens—a high bar to clear for that region at the moment—then we’re probably not going to give it much thought.

And the same is true for other areas of our lives as well. That’s just part of what it means to be fallen, finite humans.

Fortunately, we serve a perfect, infinite God and, if we’ll take the time to stay in touch with him, he will direct our focus where it needs to go. And when it comes to praying in a way that aligns our hearts and minds with his, giving him that authority is essential.

So take some time right now to ask God to help you see the world around you through his eyes today. Ask him to make the things he wants you to be praying about stand out in a way that’s hard to ignore. Ask him to bring to mind people and places that need to go to the top of your prayer list. Then stand back and silently give him room to work.

When giving God the authority to direct your thoughts becomes a way of life, you’ll start to notice a real difference in how you pray and how you perceive the world around you:

• Seemingly innocuous Facebook posts will start to look like requests for prayer.
• Conversations will take on an added layer of depth.
• People you haven’t thought about for years will pop into your mind without any explanation other than that God wanted you to think about them.
• And your interactions with coworkers, neighbors, family members, and anyone else the Lord brings across your path will seem like opportunities rather than obligations.

In short, when God is the one in charge of how you experience and interpret life throughout the course of your day, then every day takes on a new level of purpose and meaning.

It won’t happen unless we are intentional about asking God to make it happen, though.

Have you made that request today?

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A recent report out of England found that the country’s forty-two Anglican cathedrals contributed £235 million (roughly $321 million) to their local economies in 2019. Among that value included more than six thousand jobs and volunteer posts, accruing more than nine hundred thousand hours of service through food banks, support groups, and various outreach ministries to help their respective communities.

And such contributions are not unique to Great Britain.

In America, faith-based groups contribute more than $316 billion in savings to the US economy every year. In addition, congregations, religious institutions, and faith-based businesses contribute roughly $1.2 trillion of socio-economic value to the country, which is the equivalent of the world’s fifteenth largest national economy.

I bring these statistics up, however, not as an opportunity to congratulate ourselves for a job well done but rather to show just a small taste of the potential we have to bless our country and our community by serving others in the name of Jesus.

Why the global awakening is missing America

There is a Great Awakening going on in our world, and hundreds of thousands are being adopted into the family of God every day as a result. Muslims are coming to Christ in numbers never before seen in history. Similar stories are found in South Korea and China, where within the next ten years, their combined Christian populations are projected to pass America’s.

But we’re not seeing it here, and there is little to indicate that will change on its own.

Matthew 8 could give us a hint as to why that is.

The chapter starts with Jesus coming down the hillside after delivering the Sermon on the Mount to encounter a leper and then a centurion. Both were in desperate need of his help and, because of the faith they demonstrated, both received the healing for which they asked (8:1–13). He then proceeded to do the same for the mass of people that followed him to Peter’s house (8:14–17).

Later on in the chapter, he and the disciples leave that area and encounter two demon-possessed men. Jesus heals them both, granting the demons’ request to instead inhabit a herd of pigs who are then driven off a cliff and die. The herdsmen fled and came back with a town’s worth of people who “begged him to leave their region” (8:28–34).

In both instances, people experienced the miraculous power of God. But while the first group responded with gratitude and faith, the townspeople at the end of the chapter asked Jesus to leave and wanted nothing to do with him. The difference is that those he healed were aware of how much they needed him. Those who sent him away were not.

That same pattern is at the heart of why some parts of the world are encountering Christ in powerful and transformative ways while, for most of the West, that’s simply not the case. Our culture just doesn’t understand why we need what Jesus has to offer.

So what can we do to help them take that step?

A different path to revival

In previous centuries, the Great Awakenings that helped shape so much of western culture—especially in America—began because a large segment of the population became increasingly aware of their need for God.

At times, as with the ministry of Jonathan Edwards, that happened through preaching and emphasizing the depravity of humanity. Far more often, though, it happened because people who thought God just didn’t care about them or that Christianity was just for the wealthy—one of the primary fallacies the First Great Awakening tried to correct—encountered the good news of Jesus from people who cared about them enough to share it.

Given the state of our culture today—where morality is largely subjective and the church is often seen as a barrier to progress—we are not going to convince many people that they need Jesus by just praying that God would change their hearts while criticizing all the ways in which their lives run counter to his teachings.

To be sure, prayer still has a very large role to play in helping our culture come to Christ, but if it essentially amounts to “God, please let them know how awful they are,” then we’re not going to see things improve very much.

I’d like to propose a different approach.

Revival starts with you

Instead of looking at the world around us and lamenting at how lost they seem to be, what if we shifted our focus instead to asking God how we can best bless the lives of those around us?

What if our prayers were less about what’s wrong with the world and more about what we can do to make it better?

In Genesis 12, God blesses Abraham so that, through Abraham, he might bless the world (Genesis 12:2). As Christians, we are heirs of that purpose.

What would it look like if we devoted a substantial amount of our time in prayer to asking the Lord how he wants to use us to bless the people we meet?

What kind of an impact could we make on our community if, instead of trying to figure out ways to get them into our churches, we chose instead to figure out ways to meet their needs where they are?

As mentioned at the start, the numbers don’t lie. A lot of Christians are already doing that, and it’s awesome. But if we want to see the Great Awakening that’s creating new believers across the globe come to our borders, then it’s going to take a level of intentionality and Spirit-driven focus that is often lacking in our communities of faith.

We may not change the narrative about our faith on a national level, but every person we meet is a chance to change it on a personal one. If we want to see revival, then it has to start there.

God has a plan to use each and every one of us to be a blessing in his name to the lost around us.

We just have to ask and then obey.

Will you?

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NOTE: Thank you to Ryan Denison for writing today’s Daily Article. He is the Denison Forum Senior Fellow for Theology and has written more than four hundred articles for Denison Forum.

It should not come as a surprise that social media companies like Facebook have an outsized influence on the way their users see the world. But the degree to which that’s the case—and the extent of the issues it’s now causing—are starting to become more widely known.

Recent reports from the Guardian, the Wall Street Journal, and others warn that from amplifying body issues, eating disorders, and depression among teenage girls to driving people into extremist groups on their website, Facebook and its subsidiaries are increasingly hurting their users.

Before we launch into efforts to break them up or lay blame for all the world’s wrongs at their feet, though, we need to understand that we are the reason they have that power. We’re wired to seek out the self-destruction they offer—and that’s our fault more than theirs.

Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t steps Facebook and others could take to help mitigate some of those issues. And they do hold some responsibility for the fact that cries to do just that have largely fallen on deaf ears. After all, countless books, articles, and studies have pointed out the way that their approach to creating communities of people around the world place a higher priority on generating traffic than on responsibly moderating their services.

But a big part of the crisis—and one of the reasons why we need to be careful about asking them to fix our problem—is found in this question: Who should we really trust in this day and age to serve as that censor, determining when and where a conversation or group crosses the line?

Some restrictions should be obvious, and largely are. Instances of pornography (especially when involving children) and sex trafficking, for example, are rightly censored. That said, even then Facebook has often struggled to crack down on those using its services to perpetrate such evil.

But what about political misinformation and issues surrounding public health topics like Covid and vaccination? How about what is defined as hate speech?

And the waters get even murkier from there.

The reality is that what exactly constitutes misinformation or speech that deserves to be removed can often be difficult to know before it has already spread to the point that containment becomes a largely fruitless endeavor. And making the call too quickly, before all the information is known, can mean shutting down important conversations and censoring the truth rather than lies.

There are practical steps Facebook can, and should, take to help the problem—such as reducing the importance of comments in determining which posts are pushed by their algorithms. However, at the end of the day, they really can’t make a large enough difference to solve the problem.

So what can?

3 ways to use social media wisely

As mentioned above, the reason social media outlets like Facebook are prone to fostering the kind of destructive content for which they are often maligned is that we are wired to gravitate toward the kinds of silos that confirm rather than challenge our views. So when Facebook’s algorithms suggest content based on our previous usage, it just sends us deeper down the same lines of thinking. Their entire system is built around that strategy, and expecting them to change now is simply not going to happen (and probably wouldn’t help much if they tried).

Ultimately, we’re left with two options: cut off all social media or become more intentional about how we use it (e.g., take a social media fast). To be honest, there is some merit to both.

But let’s go forward under the assumption that you do not plan to delete your profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any of the others. What steps can you take to help mitigate some of the dangers and make greater use of the benefits they offer?

1. Admit that you are not immune to being deceived.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering there are several warnings throughout Scripture regarding how our Enemy thrives on lies and deceit (John 8:44) and that there will always be those who try to tempt us away from the truth with false teachings we might prefer to hear (2 Timothy 4:3).

Far too often, though, we can fool ourselves into thinking that because we profess to serve the God who is truth and believe in objective truth, we will always be able to tell the difference between truth and lies. However, apart from a constant reliance upon the Holy Spirit’s guidance and on a community of believers in which everything is tested against the teachings of Scripture (Acts 17:11), our pride can actually make us among the most prone to believing what isn’t true.

That, in turn, is why the second step is so important.

2. Surround yourself with people who care more about knowing the truth than about being right.

If you wonder if that’s you, then ask yourself this simple question: When was the last time you can remember being wrong about something?

If nothing comes to mind, then it’s worth at least entertaining the notion that the reason is not that you are always correct, but rather that there aren’t enough people or other influences in your life to help you see when you’re wrong.

Do you have friends or family that challenge your way of thinking? Are you open to being challenged? If the answer to either question is no, then spend some time today praying that God would help you improve in that regard and expand your circle to include people that can help you grow rather than just feel good about where you are.

It may not—and likely will not—be a pleasant change at first. But as you come to see the fruit it bears in your walk with God and his ability to use your life to expand his kingdom, you’ll come to appreciate it.

And that brings us to the final step.

3. Hold everything but your relationship with God loosely enough that if he shows you something needs to change, you’re willing to do it.

Set higher standards for the groups you follow and participate in on social media. Be willing to set boundaries around the relationships in your life. That doesn’t necessarily mean cutting off friendships or ignoring family members, but if you know that there are some people who bring out the worst in you, just be careful. Ask the Lord what a healthy version of that relationship would look like and then make whatever changes are necessary to get there.

How will you use social media going forward?

At the end of the day, we could lament everything wrong with Facebook and other forms of social media, but if we’re waiting on them to fix the toxic culture that they foster, then things are just going to keep getting worse.

So take responsibility for your own life and your own influences. Surrender them to God and give him free rein to make whatever changes he deems necessary.

Facebook can be a wonderful place where the Lord uses you to expand his kingdom in ways that, to this point in history, were simply unimaginable. But that’s not going to happen unless you take the necessary steps to ensure it can be a tool for God rather than the Enemy.

Which is more true in your life today?

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