9. How to Find Peace in a Digital World | John Ortberg

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Jun 26, 2025

In a world overwhelmed by digital noise, finding peace seems daunting. The discussion emphasizes how social media often fuels judgment and anxiety, challenging listeners to foster an inner calm. Parenting is likened to gardening, highlighting the need for nurturing environments that promote growth. Furthermore, divine grace plays a crucial role in spiritual development, encouraging a shift from self-centered worries to embracing community and love. Ultimately, true peace blossoms from relationships, not just efforts.

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INSIGHT

Peace Beyond Digital Noise

Digital hyperconnectivity often traps us in negative emotional loops such as judgment and outrage.
True peace is a fruit of the Spirit and comes from letting go, not willpower or control.

INSIGHT

Gardener vs. Carpenter Parenting

Parenting mindsets shifted from gardening to carpentry, focusing on control over nurturing.
Cultivating spiritual fruit like peace is more like gardening: providing space for growth, not forcing outcomes.

ANECDOTE

Tree Roots and Spiritual Growth

John planted and cared for a tree, but it died after a neighbor kid accidentally dug up its roots.
This story illustrates that fruit cannot grow without a continual connection to nourishing soil, similar to spiritual growth.

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The gardener and the carpenter

Alison Gopnik

In this book, Alison Gopnik illuminates the paradoxes of parenthood from a scientific perspective and challenges the myth of 'good parenting'. She argues that the contemporary approach to parenting, which has become obsessive, controlling, and goal-oriented, is not only based on bad science but also detrimental to both children and parents. Gopnik draws on human evolution and her own research to show that children are designed to be messy, unpredictable, playful, and imaginative, and that caring for them should not involve shaping them into a particular type of adult.

Analog Christian

Cultivating Contentment, Resilience, and Wisdom in the Digital Age

Dan Kimball

Jay Kim

In *Analog Christian*, Jay Y. Kim explores how the digital age affects Christian discipleship. He argues that the digital age inclines us towards discontentment, fragility, and foolishness, and provides a theological basis for living in creative resistance to these forces. The book is organized around the fruits of the Spirit, showing how each fruit helps heal from the toxic mindsets and behaviors cultivated by the digital world. Kim offers practical advice and real-world examples on how Christians can cultivate contentment, resilience, and wisdom to thrive in the current digital landscape.

The Anxious Generation

Jonathan Haidt

In 'The Anxious Generation', Jonathan Haidt examines the sudden decline in the mental health of adolescents starting in the early 2010s. He attributes this decline to the shift from a 'play-based childhood' to a 'phone-based childhood', highlighting mechanisms such as sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, and perfectionism that interfere with children’s social and neurological development. Haidt proposes four simple rules to address this issue: no smartphones before high school, no social media before age 16, phone-free schools, and more opportunities for independence, free play, and responsibility. The book offers a clear call to action for parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments to restore a more humane childhood and end the epidemic of mental illness among youth.