Today’s Reading: Exodus 4-7
I have always been fascinated by how easily negativity gets our attention.
Drama.
Conflict.
Gossip.
Someone doing something terrible.
Someone saying the wrong thing.
Someone failing publicly.
Put any of those things on social media and people stop scrolling.
We read the comments.
We send it to someone.
We talk about it.
We share it.
Sometimes we even go looking for the update.
But kindness?
Someone quietly doing the right thing?
A stranger helping another stranger?
A person choosing grace when they could have chosen anger?
Those stories exist too.
They just don’t always seem to travel as far.
And I’ve always wondered why.
I know there is a very human explanation for some of it. Our brains are naturally wired to pay attention to things that might be threatening or dangerous. At one point, that was incredibly useful.
If something in the bushes might eat you, you probably needed to notice that before stopping to admire the flowers.
So, fair enough.
But we don’t live in those bushes anymore.
Now we have phones.
And social media.
And an endless stream of information competing for our attention every second of the day.
Which has me wondering:
If negativity already has an advantage in getting our attention, shouldn’t we be even more intentional about making goodness louder?
What Are We Feeding?
I’ve been noticing something in my own life.
Before this journey started, I had a pretty consistent habit.
Whenever I took a shower, I would put on a crime story podcast.
Nothing particularly deep about it.
I liked listening to them.
Then somewhere along the way, without really making some giant intentional decision about it, I started listening to devotionals instead.
And lately I’ve realized something.
The things I’m learning about God are simply closer to the surface of my mind now.
Scripture comes back to me during the day.
I notice my reactions differently.
I think about surrender.
I question what belongs to me.
I catch fear faster.
I think about what I’m learning before I react.
And I don’t think that means crime podcasts are bad.
I’m also definitely not suggesting that everyone needs to replace their entertainment with devotionals.
But it made me notice something about myself:
What I repeatedly put into my mind tends to stay closer to the surface.
And suddenly this question felt much bigger than my shower routine.
What are we feeding our minds all day long?
The Algorithm Isn’t the Whole World
Think about what happens online.
Someone does something awful?
Share it.
Someone has a public meltdown?
Millions of views.
Someone makes a mistake?
Screenshot it.
Someone says something offensive?
Send it to everyone.
Someone humiliates themselves?
Straight to the comments.
But somewhere else, at exactly the same time, someone is paying for a stranger’s groceries.
Someone is sitting with the person nobody else noticed.
Someone is forgiving something that really hurt.
Someone is helping a neighbor.
Someone is encouraging a struggling coworker.
Someone is raising a child who is slowly finding his confidence again.
Someone is choosing not to send the cruel response they already typed.
Someone is quietly doing the right thing when nobody is watching.
Those things are happening too.
They just aren’t always trending.
And that made me realize:
The algorithm isn’t a complete picture of humanity.
Social media can make what is most engaging look like what is most common.
But those aren’t necessarily the same thing.
Maybe negativity isn’t winning.
Maybe it just gets the microphone.
Goodness Doesn’t Always Announce Itself
Today was Saturday.
Our first real hockey weekend of the season.
There’s something about hockey starting again that always makes me feel like fall is coming.
And today just felt… good.
New team.
A refreshing environment.
Some of our favorite hockey parents from before.
And I got to watch my son’s confidence continue to come back.
Nothing dramatic happened.
There wasn’t some giant moment.
Nobody else would even know there was anything worth writing about.
But I noticed it.
He’s getting his confidence back.
And for a moment, I just let myself appreciate something good.
Maybe that’s part of this too.
Goodness doesn’t always demand our attention.
Sometimes we have to give it our attention.
What Exodus Is Showing Me
Then there was today’s reading.
Moses finally does what God has been asking him to do.
And things don’t immediately get better.
Actually, they get worse.
Pharaoh increases the burden on the Israelites.
The people become angry.
Moses questions what is happening.
He did what he believed God told him to do, and the immediate evidence around him looked pretty terrible.
If Moses judged the entire story by that moment, he could have easily thought:
This isn’t working.
And maybe even:
I got this wrong.
But we have something Moses didn’t have while he was living it.
We know there are more chapters.
We know Pharaoh’s resistance isn’t the entire story.
Moses didn’t know that yet.
All he could see was what was happening right in front of him.
And what was happening right in front of him was loud.
The Loudest Thing Isn’t Always the Most Important Thing
I think that’s the connection I’ve been trying to make.
Attention and importance are not the same thing.
The loudest thing happening in our lives can easily become the only thing we see.
The conflict.
The fear.
The person behaving badly.
The uncertainty.
The headline.
The comment section.
The thing that went wrong.
Those things may be real.
They may even need our attention.
But they aren’t necessarily everything that’s happening.
That distinction matters to me because I don’t want this to become another version of:
Just be positive!
Sometimes things aren’t positive.
Sometimes people are hurting.
Sometimes something is wrong.
Sometimes injustice needs attention.
Sometimes the hard thing needs to be confronted.
Faith doesn’t require pretending Pharaoh isn’t Pharaoh.
But maybe it does teach us:
Pharaoh doesn’t get to become the entire story.
We can acknowledge what is wrong without allowing it to become the only thing we can see.
Maybe That’s What I’ve Been Practicing
When I started writing this journal, I kept coming back to one word:
Notice.
Notice my thoughts.
Notice fear.
Notice peace.
Notice Scripture.
Notice what belongs to me.
Notice what doesn’t.
Notice what God may be changing in me.
Then I started thinking about what other people might notice in the way we live.
And now I’m realizing there may be another layer:
Notice what I’m choosing to notice.
Because I can’t control everything that enters my awareness.
But I can become more intentional about what I continue feeding.
What do I click?
What do I keep watching?
What do I repeat?
What do I share?
What do I talk about?
What do I give another ten minutes of my attention?
And maybe most importantly:
What am I helping make louder?
Imagine If We Shared Goodness Like We Share Drama
This is the part that has bothered me for years.
Why aren’t we as quick to tell someone about the incredible thing another person did?
Why doesn’t kindness create the same urgency?
Why are we more likely to tell five people about the person who made us angry than the person who made our day better?
And I don’t think the answer is that people are inherently terrible.
Maybe negativity simply grabs our attention more easily.
But knowing that means we can choose differently.
If goodness naturally speaks more quietly, maybe those of us who want more of it in the world have to become more intentional about giving it a microphone.
Tell someone when you notice what they did.
Thank the person.
Share the good story.
Leave the encouraging comment.
Compliment someone behind their back.
Tell your kids about the people doing good things in the world too.
Refuse to participate in humiliating someone for entertainment.
Be just as willing to spread someone’s kindness as you are someone else’s mistake.
And maybe:
Become the good thing someone else gets to notice.
What We Consume Matters
There is a reason this feels connected to faith for me.
Scripture repeatedly brings our attention back to what we allow our minds to dwell on.
Philippians 4:8 tells us to think about what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise.
That doesn’t sound like ignoring reality.
It sounds like being intentional with attention.
Maybe that’s why changing something as small as what I listen to in the shower has felt bigger than I expected.
I didn’t remove uncertainty from my life.
Clearly.
I didn’t suddenly stop encountering difficult people or difficult situations.
I didn’t create a world where everything is positive.
I changed some of what I was feeding my mind.
And over time, I started noticing different things.
God came closer to the front of my thoughts.
Scripture came closer.
Gratitude came closer.
The pause came closer.
Lord, take control came closer.
Maybe what we repeatedly consume doesn’t just entertain us.
Maybe, little by little, it participates in shaping what becomes easiest for us to reach for.
Maybe Goodness Isn’t Missing
I think this is the thought I want to carry with me.
When I look at the world—especially through a screen – it can sometimes feel like everything is angry.
Everyone is fighting.
Everyone hates each other.
Everything is going wrong.
But that’s not the entire world.
It’s a selection of the world.
Today, somewhere, someone loved someone well.
Someone chose honesty.
Someone apologized.
Someone forgave.
Someone helped.
Someone prayed.
Someone showed patience.
Someone chose kindness when nobody would have blamed them for doing otherwise.
A kid found a little more confidence.
A parent noticed.
A family laughed.
Friends found each other again at a hockey rink.
Ordinary goodness happened everywhere.
Most of it will never make the news.
Most of it will never go viral.
Most of it won’t even be posted.
But quiet doesn’t mean absent.
Maybe goodness isn’t as rare as the world sometimes makes it feel.
Maybe we have to become people who notice it.
Questions I’m Leaving With
What am I feeding my mind every day?
What stays closest to the surface because I repeatedly give it my attention?
Am I allowing the loudest thing to become the whole story?
Do I spread stories of kindness as easily as I spread stories about what went wrong?
What kind of world am I reinforcing with my attention?
And maybe the question I want to sit with most:
What am I helping make louder?
Today’s Takeaway
I can’t control what goes viral.
I can’t control what everyone else clicks.
I can’t change human nature.
And I certainly can’t make everything happening in the world positive.
But I can choose what I feed.
I can choose what I repeat.
I can choose what I share.
I can choose what I praise.
I can notice what is wrong without allowing it to erase everything that is right.
I can tell someone when I see kindness.
I can make goodness a little louder.
And I can remember that whatever is screaming for my attention today may not be the whole story.
Moses couldn’t see the ending from where he stood either.
Neither can I.
So maybe I don’t need to let the loudest thing decide what matters most.
Maybe negativity isn’t winning.
Maybe it just gets the microphone.
And if that’s true, maybe the answer isn’t pretending the bad doesn’t exist.
Maybe it’s becoming more intentional about giving the good a voice too.
Because goodness may already be happening quietly all around us.
Maybe we just have to become people who notice it.
Until next time… keep noticing.