For the past two years, I’ve blocked my iPhone’s access to Safari for the entire month of February.
What started as a Digital Rest initiative on my university’s campus, an attempt to encourage students to cut back on time-wasting apps and screen time, has become a yearly rhythm for me to take a break from search engines.
Digital Unrest
Like most people today, I’m a chronic googler. The instant a question comes to mind, I pull out my phone and search it. In the age of AI, this reflex is all the more natural. If you have a question, ask ChatGPT, and in a matter of seconds, you have the answer to all you wanted to know and more, complete with a bulleted outline, colorful images, and prompts for further learning—all in a delightfully conversational tone. Access to all the information you could ever need has never been easier.
That’s why, when I first blocked Safari, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Countless times, I unlocked my phone and scrolled over to Safari out of pure reflex—only to find it inaccessible. I was reminded, almost constantly, of my incredible ignorance.
As time went on, and I got more and more used to my predicament, I was surprised that what had initially been one of the most frustrating parts of the Digital Rest had become my favorite. I was reminded of all I didn’t know, and I began to find unexpected joy and relief in the fact that I simply couldn’t know. The pressure to already have the answer, or to find it immediately, was gone.
I began to find unexpected joy and relief in the fact that I simply couldn’t know.
We love AI and Google because they offer us the instant answers we crave. When access to these tools is taken away, we’re forced to realize something supremely uncomfortable: Our control is limited, our knowledge is finite, and, ultimately, we are not God. We cannot always know, and we cannot always understand.
In today’s age, we rarely have to sit in that state of not knowing.
Searching for Answers
What we don’t often consider, however, is that the so-called endless supply of answers offered by ChatGPT is actually limited. As humans, we know from experience that we simply aren’t given some answers.
Why do I live with chronic pain?
Why do relationships end, and why are lives lost unexpectedly soon?
Why do family members not know and love Jesus?
Why has God withheld from me that which he has so freely given to others? Why have I had to suffer in the ways that I have?
There’s no clear answer, no neat and concisely generated response. And humanity has asked these questions for a very, very long time.
These questions aren’t unlike those asked by Habakkuk thousands of years ago: “How long, LORD, must I call for help and you do not listen or cry out to you about violence and you do not save?” (Hab. 1:2, CSB). Later, the prophet asks,
Your eyes are too pure to look on evil, and you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. So why do you tolerate those who are treacherous? Why are you silent while one who is wicked swallows up one who is more righteous than himself? (v. 13, CSB)
To Habakkuk’s “why” questions, God gives no clear answers. Instead, near the center of the book, God responds, “The righteous one will live by his faith” (2:4, CSB). Habakkuk teaches us there’s a certain beauty, and even joy, in following God in faith, even when we don’t understand, even when our hearts’ deepest questions go unanswered. The book of Hebrews explains that some lack of seeing and knowing is a natural prerequisite for having any sort of faith at all (Heb. 11:1).
By the end of his book, Habakkuk responds to the Lord in this same faith. Though none of his outward circumstances has changed, despite his fervent prayers (3:17), Habakkuk declares, “Yet I will celebrate in the LORD; I will rejoice in the God of my salvation! The LORD my Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like those of a deer and enables me to walk on mountain heights!” (vv. 18–19, CSB).
In the end, a heart that has learned this art of true faith, of trusting and following even when nothing makes sense, is profoundly valuable. Perhaps the discomfort of our ignorance, the pain of our deep, confusing loss, is one of the best things God can allow us to experience.
There’s something deeply human about that.
We were intentionally created with a limitation, an inability to fully see, fully understand, fully know. That limitation preceded the fall, and God called it “good.”
Peace in the Unknown
As we offer those disappointments we cannot understand to Christ, trusting and following him even when we cannot see what’s ahead or why, he redeems what we give him for better and stronger things. Instead of complete understanding, he offers us faith, a hope that will not disappoint (Rom. 5:5), purity of heart, and conformity to the character of God’s Son.
Perhaps the discomfort of our ignorance, the pain of our deep, confusing loss, is one of the best things God can allow us to experience.
Amid all we don’t understand is a God who understands completely . . . and loves us more deeply than we can even grasp.
So, take a break from AI, from Google, from the instant answers, and rest in the profoundly human “not knowing.” Allow God to train your heart not to balk at your lack of understanding but to feel its importance and joyfully look to him in waiting and trust.
Perhaps you’ll find there’s deep and enduring peace not in knowing but in being loved by the God who does.
The Gospel Coalition