O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. ~Psalm 63:1

So I was out with some friends for lunch last Friday, and one of the guys shares how he is trying to “reset his algorithms” on the internet because he is getting so much political news invading his feeds that he doesn’t want.

A little bit of context, which is kind of humorous. My buddy admits that he likes following politics when it is especially ridiculous because he really enjoys train wrecks. The presidential debate he deemed to fall into this category and was therefore blissfully going down the rabbit holes. As we know, the more we click, the more we are fed accordingly. He was having a ball, but then the political climate changed, and the news went back to more seriousness in his opinion and was not fun anymore. That’s when he said that he’s been clicking on as many sports and nonpolitical humorous stories as he can in order to reset his algorithms, but he’s still getting more political news coming at him than he wants. Apparently he’s got a lot of resetting to do to change that algorithm!

Almost immediately the apropos metaphor hit me.

Whatever we search for most earnestly, that is just what our mind will more and more easily feed to us without even trying.

Put differently, what we think about the most shapes our neural pathways in such ways that those thoughts start to come at us more naturally and with less and less effort.

If we have bad thought habits, it is going to take quite a bit of “clicking” on other material to reset those algorithms to make whatever is good, true, and beautiful become the default.

By the way, I also like this metaphor of “clicking” on material. We all have many thoughts entering our minds throughout the day which we do not necessarily want. We are human, and invasive thoughts do happen. We get “pop-ups” as they were called in the earlier internet days. But we do not need to “click” on them. We can choose which thoughts we follow down the rabbit hole. This takes me back to one of my all-time favorite quotes which I never tire of sharing; it is from Dallas Willard:

The ultimate freedom we have as human beings is the power to select what we will allow or require our minds to dwell upon.

Let’s get super practical. One simple way I have found to help in the resetting of my algorithms is that ancient practice of memorizing Scripture. I recently re-memorized Psalm 63, and it is slowly but surely becoming a welcomed invader of my thoughts. Something “radical” I did about a dozen years ago was to read the entire Sermon on the Mount three times a day for thirty days. My goodness, I can’t tell you how good this was to do. It crowded out so much unhealthy thinking simply by taking up more and more neurological real estate. I found myself having significant portions of the sermon memorized without even trying. There’s also the efficacious practice of praying in specifically meaningful ways for those closest to you everyday…

These are just a few ideas out of thousands that we can use to reset our algorithms and rewire our minds in healthier ways. I hope this metaphor is helpful for you as it is for me!