I’m addicted to my phone, and I know I’m not the only one. We Millennials grew up as technology was growing up. In many ways, we matured together like childhood friends. Except, technology feels like a bit of a bully lately—the friend who steals your boyfriend and your good shoes and still calls you “bestie” in the yearbook. The iPhone that has helped keep in touch with friends and family from across the nation and the globe as I’ve navigated adulthood, snapped photos of my kids at all seasons of childhood, and developed a business that is thriving, has now turned on me. Though I still use my phone for all those things, I am now bombarded with attacks every time I pick it up. Anxiety-inducing news, self-image-collapsing social media, mind-numbing doomscrolling, and information overload assault me daily. I’m sure you’re reading this because you’re in the same boat as I am. You want to advocate for the marginalized. You want your countrymen to wake up. You want your children to have a bright future. You want all the things that our country and our technology have promised. So you stick it out, and now it’s been years, and you’re just an addicted product of the system. This post is for you. Here are 5 ways to turn away from the 24/7 newsreel of garbage we’re fed daily. I’ll use something we understand as Christians to illustrate each step—repentance. The Greek word metanoeite means “to change one’s mind or purpose.” So when we talk about making changes to your cell phone and anxiety-inducing habits, we’re going to talk about changing our minds and purpose. If you don’t, attempts will be futile. Take back your time. Back in the day, when I was a shorter human and didn’t yet have a smartphone, the news ran on television early in the morning, at noon, in the evening, and at night. Children didn’t access the news except possibly in passing while their parents watched. Now, children and adults alike have access to notifications 24/7. We wake up with news scrawled across our screens. It’s on our For You pages on social media. It’s talked about all the time by everyone. To combat this onslaught of information and misinformation, you simply have to take your time back. Start a habit of reading local news in the morning and national/global news at night. Avoid it at all other times by unfollowing and unliking news sites, and intentionally go to them when it’s time to look at the news. Safeguard your time away from the news the way you would not tell your child bad news before their birthday party. You matter too. Join a discussion group.  Believe it or not, there are still old-fashioned discussion groups that meet monthly to discuss current events. These are often filled with people who have some kind of expertise in the field or are invested in the state of affairs in the country, state, or local community. Joining (or starting) a group like this has many social and professional benefits, such as networking, but it can also help you focus on news that affects you and your community. It makes the news smaller and more manageable. Unfollow global news. This is one of the biggest things that affected my anxiety and cell phone use. I took a social media fast for 40 days, and while doing so, I needed to do something on my phone, so I opted for local news from my local network. I never clicked on global news; I focused only on local news. If you do this, you may find, as I did, that your local news often focuses on positive news, not just negative, as you’ll often see on major national networks and global feeds. Start with the best news. To reduce anxiety and focus less on the bad things going on, first, you have to face the fact that you are choosing to focus on the worst things currently happening to humanity. That’s no way to live. Instead, shift your focus in the mornings to the best news—the Gospel. If you find yourself pulled into the 24/7 nightmare reel first thing in the morning, do this instead: move past your phone and read your Bible instead. This can be simple at first to trick your brain, put your entire phone on downtime while you sleep, and only allow the Bible app. Keep your phone facedown (if it has to be next to your bed) and put your Bible on top of it. Choose a devotion book and do the same. The possibilities are endless, and you have the freedom to choose how to put the Good News before the bad every day. Set boundaries with others. Everyone has a town crier in their life who likes to share the news (often at top volume) with everyone they know. It may be because they like to be “in the know,” or because they’re anxious and want to talk things out. No matter the reason, you can set a boundary. Even mid-sentence, you can say, “This is really interesting, but I don’t like to focus on the bad news happening around us. Can we talk about something else?” Simple, kind, direct. Don’t think you can do that in the moment? Have a talk with that friend or family member at a different time, so it’s not during a real-time interaction. The Righteous Will Never Be Moved 1Praise the Lord! Blessed is the man who fears the Lord,     who greatly delights in his commandments! 2 His offspring will be mighty in the land;     the generation of the upright will be blessed. 3 Wealth and riches are in his house,     and his righteousness endures forever. 4 Light dawns in the darkness for the upright;     he is gracious, merciful, and righteous. 5 It is well with the man who deals generously and lends;     who conducts his affairs with justice. 6 For the righteous will never be moved;     he will be remembered forever. 7 He is not afraid Read more…

The first Riddle of the book of Job is a simple one: who wrote it and what made them write it. It is unlike any of the other books, so why is it there? We don’t know the answer of course, and that creates other questions. Can we trust the author, did he really go through all that pain and suffering and survive? In a few minutes, I could think of a dozen questions like that. The riddle continues to this day, with more than a few suggested answers. If you go back to the beginning of this series on grief, you will notice that I gave little to no wording to that answer. It is not an important riddle to solve for me. The next and more important riddle is, Why did this happen to Job? I have to admit that the book does not answer that riddle either. That calls into question about the whole purpose of the book in the first place. If you are not going to answer my questions, then why are you telling me all this stuff about friends, and grieving and the universe from ants to galaxies? He is all knowing or as we used to say, omniscient. That’s what most theologians believe it seems. For some reason, God is not willing to tell us everything He knows or why things happen the way we do. Knowing the mind of God is a lifetime search and it always will come up short. One of my favorite Christian writers is Chuck Swindoll. I remember a devotional he had on the subject of Job’s troubles and his short but meaningful conclusion is that sometimes you are not spared the pain, and sometimes you are not spared the pain of not knowing why you suffer the pain in the first place. Sorry for all the negatives in there. Anyhow, Swindoll suggested that the best thing you could do is to grab hold of whatever life saving rope that God lowers down to you and tie a knot in it and hang on. I think that is about the best answer you are going to get if you are asking the type of questions I offered above. But there is an answer in there that needs to be thought about. God cares about me and you. Otherwise He wouldn’t send out the rescuers, or in the New Testament the Shepherd searching for the one. This then has to be a priority for the book of Job. You will not get all your questions answered to your satisfaction, sometimes not at all. And if this frustrates you, you join a large group. But if you can look at it from the other side that must have been going through Jesus’s mind while He was on the Cross, then you will tie a knot in the rope and hold on, knowing by faith that the best is yet to come. If not in this life, then certainly the one to come. There are any number of life lessons to be found in Job. Sometimes we think rich people have it all made and don’t have lots of problems or they are somehow insulated from that side of life. Job is here to say, think again. He might have been the richest man in the middle east, or close to it, but he had the worst problems of all. Another lesson which we all seem to know is to lean into God when tough times threaten to swamp us. It might be worth seeing each day as a gift and living your life in deep gratitude. Job’s wife seems to have missed that lesson. Who can blame her I guess, but still. I think that is why God spends the last chapters of Job, sometimes called the epilogue, almost boasting to Job about what God has done and how much God knows. He has no need to boast, but He does need to impress on Job that he is talking with the God of the universe.  At some point, we all can go one way or the other, closer or further from God. God is just audacious enough to say to us, “Come to me all you who are burdened and troubled and lost and bewildered. I may not solve your riddles, but I will comfort your soul.” “I love you,” God says and that will make all the difference. Not all riddles receive an answer, certainly not here, and maybe not even in heaven. What will happen in heaven is how many times we will but look at the hands and feet of Jesus and love Him all the more. As Ellen White offered, “Heaven will be cheap enough, if we obtain it through suffering. We must deny self all along the way, die to self daily, let Jesus alone appear, and keep his glory continually in view.” Our Father Cares, p 88.

Sabbath School Lesson for May 23-29, 2026 Introduction of Lesson 9, Sin, the Gospel, and the Law Memory Text: “I will never forget Your precepts, for by them You have given me life. I am Yours, save me; for I have sought Your precepts.” Psalm 119:93, 94 NKJV Three concepts concerning our relationship with God are included in these two verses, Psalm 119:93, 94. They are… Sin: We do need saved from something known as “sin” in the Bible. Even though the secular world is more familiar with terms like mistakes, crimes, or misbehaviors, followers of God are given a more expanded understanding of this very human tendency to “mess up”, as it were. This knowledge makes it easier to avoid sin, and thus our lives become easier to manage. Gospel: The benefits of the gospel become more evident as we get closer to God. The good news of God’s sacrifice for us fills us with a growing sense of love and devotion to Him, but also with the strength to root out sin and all its harmful effects on us and those around us. Law: The purpose of the law is to reveal sin; while the purpose of the gospel is to make it possible to avoid sin through that revelation. We need desperately God’s grace as found in the gospel story, but we also need the law to show us things that are displeasing to God. This week, we will explore: Sunday: Distractions and Temptations Monday: Strongholds in My Relationship With God Tuesday: The Law Wednesday: The Law and the Gospel Thursday: Knowing and Doing Sunday: Distractions and Temptations The danger of temptation is particularly pointed out in chapters 14 and 16 of Judges. the dramatic story of Samson’s struggle with distracting temptations. God had given Samson enormous strength to fight the Philistines, but he was overly absorbed and confident in his abilities. He became so self-reliant that he stopped listening to God and instead sought to gratify his own sinful desires. Satan is very good at drawing all of us away from God’s will by watching our individual weaknesses. He studies and knows what those weaknesses are and tailors our temptations to match them, just like he did in the case of Samson. However, the good news is that Jesus knows and understands our weak spiritual natures too. He felt the pull and tug of them while He lived here on earth. The remedy He pursued is the same one we must embrace. By going away alone at times to pray to His Father He was able to survive the waves of temptation that threatened to lure Him from His heavenly mission of saving mankind–God’s will for Him. Verses for reflection and discussion: Judges 14 and Judges 16:1, 4, 16 What does the outcome of Samson’s story teach us about temptation? Matthew 14:23, Mark 1:35, and Luke 6:12 What can we learn about fighting temptation from Jesus’ prayer life? How do you incorporate devotional habits in your own life? When and where do you find it easier to communicate with God? Monday: Strongholds in My Relationship With God Paul surely had people like Samson in mind when he penned the words to the Corinthians, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus enumerated many of the spiritual traps that become strongholds of temptation, impacting our relationship with God. These strongholds include: being arrogant and proud, full of lust, being critical and judgmental, not treating our enemies well, and being angry with others. The offenses these temptations cause us to commit are so abhorrent to our holy God that Jesus made every effort to instill in us a desire to eliminate them. Speaking with heightened exaggeration, not to be taken literally, Jesus even suggested cutting off an arm or leg, or plucking out an eye, if these body parts were used to make us sin. He suggested that we are much better off being lame, maimed, or blind than continue to have any alluring distraction in our life that causes us to stumble. See Mark 9:42-48. Verses for reflection and discussion: Matthew 6:2, 5:28, 29, 7:1, 2, 5:44, and 5:22 How are these warnings related to the Ten Commandments? In what ways do these warnings help us keep the Ten Commandments more faithfully? Mark 9:42-48 Why was such strong language used in this passage? How does this show us the seriousness of sin in our life? What does sin do to our relationship with God? Tuesday: The Law God showed the importance of the Ten Commandments by writing it in stone with His own finger. Being the only part of the Bible written directly by God this way shows its important and permanent nature. Not only does the law reveal our sins and show us what pleases God, it also reveals God’s character of love. It’s all about vertical love (love for God), and horizontal love (love for others). Therefore, without the law we would not know what sin is, but we also would not know how to love. Jesus used every tool at His disposal to expand our understanding of the law. He emphasized the love part, proclaiming there is nothing greater than love to be found in the Ten Commandments (Mark 12:31). Many of the religious leaders had become so strict in its observance that the law had become a burden. The goal of Jesus was to revive our love for the law, by preaching that love should be in all we say and do–even in the way we think. Only then can we say we are obedient to God’s law of love. Verses for reflection and discussion: Romans 3:20 and 1 John 3:4 How is the law related to sin? Psalm 51:5 and Jeremiah 17:9 Why is it so easy for us to sin? Mark 12:30, 31 and Matthew 22:38-40 What did Jesus teach us about the law? 1 John 5:3 How do <a class="cat-post-excerpt-more" href="https://www.outlookmag.org/the-teachers-notes-sin-the-gospel-and-the-law-lesson-9/" title="Continue reading The Teacher’s Notes–Sin, the Gospel, and the Law, Lesson 9 Adult Bible Study Guide, 2026 2Q, “Growing in a Relationship With God”“>Read more…

Have you pondered lately the role Jesus had as Lawgiver? The New Testament speaks often of the law of Christ, and James 4:12 verifies that there is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who saves us. The Sermon on the Mount contained many of the Ten Commandments, as Christ tried to live and preach the love that is contained in the Law. The Lord’s Prayer was even a tool to help us understand the requirements of God’s Law. Its structure is very similar to the Ten Commandments, containing both our focus on God and ending with obligations to each other. The Ten Commandments were written on two tablets, one with four commandments about loving God, and the second tablet with six commandments about loving others. They encompass seven themes also found in the Lord’s Prayer. Focus on God–the first tablet Recognizing the supremacy of God (“Our Father in heaven”) Honoring God’s name (“Hallowed be Your name”) Doing God’s will (“Thy will be done”) Trusting God to provide our basic needs, including the need for physical and spiritual rest on the Sabbath (“Give us our daily bread”) Focus on man–the second tablet Forgiving us and enabling us to forgive others (“Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us”) Keeping us from being tempted (“Lead us not into temptation”) Delivering us from evil (“Deliver us from the evil one”) These seven, beautiful prayer requests mirror the beauty and love found in God’s holy Law. We mustn’t forget that Jesus not only perfectly kept the Law, all ten of the Commandments, but He was the One who gave them to us in the first place. The Lord’s Prayer should remind us of God’s Law every time we read or recite it. We know that God’s saints in the last days will have made this vital connection between Jesus and His Commandments. See Revelation 14:12. May we each be found with His patient saints, waiting for His soon Coming.