For as long as I can remember, sunflowers have fascinated me. That their dark faces turn to follow the blazing sun is a marvel and miracle of Godâs masterful design. Their gloriously golden petals are pretty amazing too!
Sunflowers bring to mind Psalm 34:5, which says, “they looked to Him and were radiant…“
Turning toward the sun is essential if a sunflower will be what it was created to be and produce what it was designed to produce. The sun does the work of transformation from seed, to stalk, to resplendent sunflower.
Like sunflowers, we become what we behold.
What are you looking at?
âWeâre not simply creatures of our environment. We are creatures shaped by what grabs our attention,â writes Tony Reinke, author of Competing Spectacles. [1] And thereâs probably more grabbing our attention than we realize.Â
âWe are constantly being formed by everything around us⊠Everything from shopping centres to televisions to motorways are influencing the way we view the world,â says T. M Suffield. [2]
Naturally, that includes our screensâphone, TV, computer. âYour scrolling is not neutral. You are becoming something. Your search history tells a story about your soul,â Jeff Mingee warns. [3]
Thatâs sobering, isnât it?
So, what are you looking at? What has your attention? What are you focused on?
If you will become what you look at, what are you becoming?
Passively Becoming
After a season of allowing my kids to watch a Dora the Explorer video almost daily, I found myself frequently saying, âLetâs go on an adVENture!â just like Dora, without even realizing it. Even though I didnât watch the show with the kids, my mind passively absorbed it as I heard it in the background, and I became like Dora.
Weâre always thinking whether or not weâre aware of it. Something has our attention at all times, even if itâs not intentional. The mistake most of us make is assuming that entertainment or âmindless scrollingâ is âa space free of thinkingâŠâ suggests Abigail Dodds. [4]
With the evolution of technology, our beholding is more passive than ever before. We donât even have to search for something to look at. Our social media feeds scroll endlessly, feeding us stuff we didnât ask for. Video streaming services auto-start a new episode with no initiative from us. We do nothing, and weâre fed infinite spectacles to behold.
When we become complacent about our passive thinkingâthe thinking that happens when weâre not intentionally thinkingâour becoming happens passively. We drift away from the glory of God and become something or someone we never aspired to beâalmost accidentally, like me and Dora.
Becoming Bored
If we want to become more like Jesus, trying harder wonât get us anywhere. Even the strongest of human wills cannot succeed at the impossible feat of becoming perfect. Transforming from broken, sinful people into God-glorifying saints doesnât happen by formulaic efforts. It happens from the inside outâitâs the work of the Holy Spirit in hearts that delight in Him.
Are we delighting in Christ?
I fear thereâs an epidemic of boredom in the Church. Society has conditioned us to crave constant input, to pursue the ever-present dopamine hit accessible via media, to continually seek the next thrill. We have insatiable appetites, and our fruitless efforts to satisfy them have led to a world of complacent Christians who snooze at the feast of Godâs Word.
Jesus Christ bores us.
âTo be bored with Christ is for our minds and hearts to be disconnected from the greatest thrill of the cosmos, severed from Godâs very purpose for this creation â as a theater to display the worth and beauty of his Son. Thereâs no greater catastrophic loss imaginable to a soul than to grow weary of Christ, the Spectacle of all spectacles â the spectacle for which everything else exists,â states Tony Reinke. [5]
Restoring Delight
How do we prevent ourselves from succumbing to apathy? How can we deflect indifference and restore delight in the Lord?
We say of things like black coffee, âItâs an acquired tasteâ. That means we start off disliking it, but we learn to enjoy it. Our appetites can be trained and retrained. When we want to eat a healthier diet, we replace unhealthy foods with healthier options, and eventually, our appetite has changed so we crave the healthy stuff. Our bodies learn to delight in healthy food because itâs the healthy food that truly satisfies.
In the same way, delight in Christ can be learned. We must retrain our spiritual appetites to desire what truly satisfies. And nothing truly satisfies our souls but Jesus Christ.
âDelight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4, ESV).â
Become Discerning
Just as we read the labels on our food packaging to discern whatâs healthy to eat, we must discern what we feed our souls. If we want to become God-glorifying disciples who delight in Jesus Christ, we must be intentional about what we behold.
Abigail Dodds suggests we begin âby refusing to put ourselves in the polluted streams of entertainment, and acclimating and habituating our minds to righteousness through Godâs word and the echoes of his stories we find in other stories. We know when to destroy the strongholds of wrong thinking when weâve tasted what right thinking tastes like, when weâve fed on it, when itâs nourished our thoughts and imaginations.â
If we desire to become more like Jesus, we must know Him and learn to think like Him. We must learn to discern the messages of what we behold. What messages are you receiving from your social media feeds? Whatâs the message of the book youâre reading or the show youâre watching?
Bankers learn to discern counterfeit money by familiarizing themselves with the real thing. The more they know about authentic currency, the easier they can discern a fake. If we spend more of our time consuming the worldâs messages than Godâs message through His Word, how can we discern what is true and what is false?
The Bible is a lens through which we can discern what we behold.
â…whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendableâif there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthyâdwell [think] on these things (Philippians 4:8, CSB).â
Behold Jesus & Become Like Him
All this requires discipline. Itâs not effortless. We practice discernment. We make choices about how we spend our time, what we consume, and what we think about. But the transformationâthe becomingâhappens almost automatically. Itâs a symptom of our beholding.
âAnd we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18, ESV).â
One change can bring about the God-glorifying transformation we desireâsimply choosing to delight in âeternal thingsâ, to delight in the things that reflect the glory of God, instead of mindlessly beholding and feasting on the things of this world.
âDo not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind (Romans 12:2, ESV)…â
For me, lately thatâs looked like embracing silence, staying off social media completely, listening to worship music without doing anything else at the same time, and scheduling time into each day for reading books that reflect Godâs glory. Choosing to delight in Christ will look different for everyone.Â
John Piper urges us, âDo you want to become holy? Do you want to become new so that you see like Jesus, think like Jesus, feel like Jesus, love like Jesus, care like Jesus, judge like Jesus? If you do, there is an agenda: watch Jesusâa lot.â [6]
As we retrain our appetites, learn to delight in the Lord, and turn our faces toward His glorious Son, like glowing sunflowers, we will reflect His glory without even trying. He does the work. We need only to gaze at Him in wonder.
[1] Reinke, T. (2019). Distracted Spectacle Seekers. In Competing Spectacles (pp. 19), Crossway Books.
[2] Suffield, T. M. (2021, August 30). The Liturgy of Social Media. Retrieved February 15, 2022, from https://nuakh.uk/2021/08/30/the-liturgy-of-social-media/.
[3] Mingee, Jeff (2021, September 13). The Scrolling Soul. Retrieved February 15, 2022, from https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/scrolling-soul/.
[4] Dodds, Abigail (2019, October 6). We Become What We Watch. Retrieved February 15, 2022, from https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/we-become-what-we-watch.
[5] Reinke, Tony (2020, November 15). Who Will Have Your Attention? Retrieved February 15, 2022, from https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/who-will-have-your-attention.
[6] Piper, John (2021, September 1). We Become Like The Videos We Behold. Retrieved February 15, 2022, from https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/we-become-like-the-videos-we-behold.
2 Responses
????????âŠdelight (chephets) bend toward or incline toward. Like the sunflowers that incline themselves and raise their faces
to the sun, we as followers of Christ have the privilege of delighting in, bending toward and inclining toward our Heavenly Father. We canât do it on our own. God is working in us and giving us that desire and the power to do what pleases Him. (Philippians 2:13)
What do I âbinge watch?â What am I inclining toward? If I want to be more like Jesus shouldnât I be binge watching Him?
I want my âsensory delightâ to come from fully identifying with the Lord.
Help me Lord Jesus. As I dwell in Your presence, wait for Your plans, trust You and rest and delight in YouâŠI declare that I will become âwhat I behold.â????????
????????âŠdelight (chephets) bend toward or incline toward. Like the sunflowers that incline themselves and raise their faces
to the sun, we as followers of Christ have the privilege of delighting in, bending toward and inclining toward our Heavenly Father. We canât do it on our own. God is working in us and giving us that desire and the power to do what pleases Him. (Philippians 2:13)
What do I âbinge watch?â What am I inclining toward? If I want to be more like Jesus shouldnât I be binge watching Him?
I want my âsensory delightâ to come from fully identifying with the Lord.
Help me Lord Jesus. As I dwell in Your presence, wait for Your plans, trust You and rest and delight in YouâŠI declare that I will become âwhat I behold.â????????