Humans are a tragically odd bunch. The transcripts of our desires reveal how our search histories have become vulnerable points of exploitation. An entire desire economy—powered by the near-omniscient algorithms hidden within our smartphones—has been constructed to fulfill every whim, quantify wants, and monetize longings. Those in power not only know our desires; they are actively reshaping them. Have you ever discussed a product only to see an advertisement for it moments later? Our phones are watching us. We are being monitored in what has become Silicon Valley’s cheap version of prayer: just say the word, and thy want shall be healed.
This is the new world of globalized desire where, as William Cavanaugh suggests, everything is available but nothing matters. And this is just the beginning. Given that internet users grew from 361 million in 2000 to over 5.5 billion by 2022, our digital footprints will likely ignite legal battles for the foreseeable future. What happens to our data after we die? Can search histories be made public posthumously? These pressing questions will be hashed out in the courts of law and opinion for years to come. One thing remains certain: the transcripts of our desires are currently housed in air-conditioned data centers, a reality Alexander Solzhenitsyn prophetically foresaw when he noted that on our crowded planet, there are no longer any internal affairs.
Our current moment presents a unique opportunity for reflection. Whether our secrets remain hidden or become exposed, we can learn about our true selves by attending to what we deeply long for. We cannot expect to be fully liberated into our God-given glory without examining these transcripts of desire. To paraphrase Jesus, we can clean the outside of a cup while remaining malformed inside. The desires of our hearts constitute a critical component of our internal lives, and holistic transformation remains out of reach without curiously and lovingly examining them.
For years, I’ve been invited to journey alongside women and men who have endured a gnawing struggle with an addiction to pornography. Often, when walking alongside someone through this crucible, I ask them to recount where they are, what time of the day it is, and what they are doing when they are most prone to return to their self-destructive pattern. In some instances, I ask them to name the particular types of pornography they find themselves drawn to. Oftentimes this becomes the first time an individual will lend reflection to such exposing questions. We don’t often want to think about our dark desires. We’d rather erase them and move on. All too common the person walking in a cycle of pornography addiction has quickly erased their search history to protect against exposure, shame, and reflection, taking little (if any) time to ponder the actual nature of their unwanted desires.
What if true transformation requires looking at those desires rather than turning away?
“Fantasies are road maps,” writes Jay Stringer. A Christian psychotherapist focusing on sexual resto- ration, Stringer directs his professional energy to those with sex addictions (often pornography). His book Unwanted details how addicts often erase their internet search histories after falling into unwanted sinful patterns. However, Stringer insists, healing invariably includes paying attention to what we look at and look for. In these desires, we can identify the very place where Christ wants to meet and heal our hearts. Desire can actually be a signpost to the places in our souls that most need love. What we assume to be a reservoir of lust may actually be a longing for intimacy. “Pornography searches expose lust,” Stringer writes, “but far more they reveal the dimensions of our lives that await love.”
We would rather shamefully look away from our desires than examine them with holy curiosity alongside the healing hand of the Holy Spirit. But this has been the human response since the beginning. We cover rather than confess. And this way of being is often only heightened and exacerbated in too many Christian com- munities, which ultimately leaves us pseudo-transformed. Darkness isn’t eradicated through denial. A different path is needed.
Jesus invites us to know our desires intimately. The truth will set us free. Pretending won’t. And ignoring our desires only empowers them.
God has much to teach us through the transcript of our desires. But we can’t begin there. If one’s internet searches illuminate our hidden desires, then the Bible serves (in the words of Catherine Dunlap Carter) as a kind of “incomparable record of human desire.”
Sacred Scripture diagnoses the human condition better than any. But that’s not where Scripture begins.
The Bible begins with God’s desire.
Excerpted from The Gift of Thorns by A.J. Swoboda. Copyright 2024. Published by Zondervan. Used by permission.
