When Technology Makes Surrender Feel Obsolete

I have a confession to make.

I'm becoming very good at solving problems.

Not because I've suddenly become smarter. Not because I have all the answers. And certainly not because I've figured out how to live a life without complications.

It's because I have access to tools that allow me to do things I couldn't have imagined doing just a few years ago.

I can take an idea that's been sitting in my head for months and turn it into working software in a matter of hours.

I can research a problem, develop a strategy, build a prototype, write a proposal, and create an entire business around something that began as a passing thought.

I can have a conversation with artificial intelligence at two in the morning and come away with a plan that would once have required a team of people and several weeks of work.

And I love it.

I really do.

I've spent much of my professional life imagining what technology might someday make possible. Now I get to participate in building some of those possibilities.

But I've started noticing something about myself.

When a problem appears, my first instinct is increasingly to figure out how to solve it.

And somewhere in that process, I sometimes forget something that used to be much more instinctive.

I forget to surrender.

Not because I've stopped believing in God.

Not because I've decided I don't need Him.

But because technology has made self-sufficiency feel so remarkably attainable.

And I'm beginning to wonder whether one of the greatest spiritual dangers of artificial intelligence isn't what the technology might become.

It's what we might begin to believe about ourselves.

The Seduction of Being Capable

There's something intoxicating about capability.

Especially when you've spent years encountering obstacles you couldn't overcome on your own.

You have an idea but don't have the resources.

You see an opportunity but don't have the team.

You recognize a problem but don't have the expertise.

For most of human history, our limitations were constantly reminding us that we needed other people.

We needed someone who knew what we didn't know. Someone who could build what we couldn't build. Someone who could see what we couldn't see.

Those limitations could be frustrating. They could also teach us humility, patience, collaboration, and dependence.

Now artificial intelligence is beginning to remove many of them.

Not all of them, of course.

But enough that the experience can be extraordinary.

A person with a computer, curiosity, and determination can accomplish things that once required entire organizations.

I think that's wonderful.

I also think it creates a spiritual tension we haven't fully considered.

Because the more capable we become, the easier it is to confuse capability with control.

And the more control we think we have, the less natural surrender begins to feel.

None of those questions is inherently wrong.

But together, they can begin to form a way of living in which dependence feels unnecessary.

Even dependence on God.

The Idol I Didn't Recognize

When Christians talk about idols, we often picture something obvious.

Something we're pursuing so aggressively that it begins to take the place of God.

But I think some of the most dangerous idols are harder to recognize because they look so much like virtues.

Those are good things.

And for me, this struggle didn't begin with artificial intelligence.

God has given me abilities, talents, and opportunities that I'm grateful for. I've often been able to see a problem and imagine a way through it. But self-sufficiency has been a battle in my life for a long time. More than once, I've sensed the Lord reminding me that relying entirely on my own strength isn't the path He's calling me to walk.

That is what makes this so uncomfortable. The gifts themselves aren't the problem. The danger comes when I begin trusting the gifts more than the One who gave them.

And AI has made that temptation harder to ignore, because it amplifies abilities I was already inclined to depend on.

My greatest AI idol may not be the machine. It may be the version of myself the machine allows me to become.

And the uncomfortable truth is that I like that version of myself.

But he can also become so busy trying to make things happen that he forgets to ask whether they're the things God is asking him to do.

That's a difficult admission for someone who has spent his life believing that God should be at the center of everything.

When Waiting Feels Like Failure

I grew up in a Christian environment where prayer, faith, and trusting God were woven into everyday life.

I've walked with the Lord for more than forty years.

I've experienced seasons when His presence felt close and His direction seemed clear.

I've also experienced seasons when I couldn't understand what He was doing.

Or why He seemed silent.

Those seasons are difficult.

Especially when you're someone who naturally wants to solve problems.

Because surrender often involves something our culture has taught us to resist.

Waiting.

Not passive resignation.

Not refusing to take responsibility.

But acknowledging that we don't control every outcome, and that some things cannot be forced into existence simply because we want them badly enough.

Artificial intelligence doesn't eliminate the need to wait.

But it can give us an almost endless number of ways to avoid feeling like we're waiting.

And sometimes I wonder whether all that activity is faithfulness.

Or whether some of it is simply my discomfort with being unable to control what happens next.

That's a hard question.

Because from the outside, the two can look almost identical.

A person acting in faith and a person acting out of fear may both work incredibly hard.

They may both take risks.

They may both build remarkable things.

The difference may be found in what they're trusting.

And what happens inside them when the outcome doesn't go according to plan.

God Never Asked Me to Be Omnipotent

One of the things that fascinates me about artificial intelligence is how easily we describe its capabilities using language that once belonged primarily to theology.

It seems to know everything.

It can be available everywhere.

It can answer almost any question.

It can help us accomplish things that previously seemed impossible.

Of course, none of those descriptions is literally true.

AI systems have limitations. They make mistakes. They can be confidently wrong. They don't possess the wisdom, moral authority, or knowledge of God.

But the experience of using them can still create an illusion of near-limitless possibility.

And that illusion can begin to shape how we see ourselves.

But Scripture never describes human beings as creatures who were meant to be unlimited.

We were created with needs.

With boundaries.

With the capacity for work and the need for rest.

With intelligence, creativity, and responsibility, but not sovereignty.

In the garden, the original temptation included the promise that human beings could become like God.

I think about that promise differently now.

Because our technology is increasingly offering us something that can feel similar.

Not divinity itself.

But the intoxicating experience of having fewer and fewer limitations.

And perhaps the danger isn't that we'll actually become like God.

It's that we'll become increasingly frustrated by the fact that we aren't.

The Difference Between Wisdom and Answers

One of my favorite things about artificial intelligence is its ability to help me think.

I use it to challenge assumptions, organize ideas, explore possibilities, and work through complicated decisions.

It can be an extraordinary thought partner.

But I've noticed that having access to more answers doesn't necessarily make a person wiser.

Sometimes it simply makes us faster.

And speed can become its own kind of temptation.

Because wisdom often requires something technology can't simply accelerate.

James 1:5 tells us that if we lack wisdom, we should ask God, who gives generously.

I've read that passage countless times.

But I wonder how often I genuinely approach decisions that way anymore.

Do I ask God for wisdom before I begin solving the problem?

Or do I ask artificial intelligence for options, choose the one that seems most promising, and then ask God to bless what I've already decided?

That's not an indictment of technology.

It's a question about the order of my trust.

AI can help me examine a decision.

It can surface information I might have overlooked.

It can help me think through consequences.

But it cannot surrender my will to God.

It cannot cultivate humility on my behalf.

And it cannot make obedience unnecessary.

Information can support discernment. It cannot replace it.

The Uncomfortable Gift of Limitations

There's a passage in 2 Corinthians that has taken on new meaning for me.

Paul describes pleading with God to remove a weakness from his life.

God's response wasn't to remove it.

It was a reminder that His grace was sufficient and His power was made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

I've always found that passage both comforting and frustrating.

Comforting because it reminds me that God's presence isn't dependent on my strength.

Frustrating because I would often prefer that He simply remove the problem.

And I suspect I'm not alone.

But what if some limitations can also become invitations?

That doesn't mean every hardship is sent by God or that we should leave preventable suffering unaddressed.

If technology can help someone communicate, learn, heal, or overcome a genuine barrier, I believe we should celebrate that.

But pursuing a solution and learning to depend on God are not mutually exclusive.

We can work diligently without believing that everything depends on us.

We can use powerful tools while remaining deeply aware of our own limitations.

Perhaps that's the balance I'm trying to learn.

Surrender Is Not the Opposite of Action

I want to make something clear.

I don't believe surrender means doing nothing.

I've never understood faith as an excuse for passivity.

There are moments when we're called to move.

The Bible is filled with people who acted courageously in response to God's direction.

But there's a difference between acting faithfully and acting as though the outcome rests entirely on our shoulders.

One begins with trust.

The other begins with control.

And I've discovered that I can move between those two postures without even realizing it.

And the strange thing is that artificial intelligence can make that pattern even easier.

Because now there's almost always something productive I can do.

Even when I should probably stop.

Even when I need to rest.

Even when the most faithful thing I could do is admit that I've reached the end of what I can control.

Surrender isn't refusing to use the tools God has placed within our reach. It's refusing to believe those tools make God unnecessary.

What Happens When the Tools Can't Fix It?

Eventually, every one of us encounters something we cannot solve.

I've lived through enough of those moments to know they're real.

And I've also learned that my ability to solve a problem has never been the measure of whether God is present in it.

That's something I need to keep remembering.

Especially when the answers don't come.

Especially when prayer feels difficult.

Especially when I've done everything I know how to do and nothing seems to change.

Faith doesn't mean I will always understand what God is doing.

It doesn't mean every problem will resolve the way I hope.

And surrender doesn't guarantee a particular outcome.

It means recognizing that God is still God when I don't have an answer.

Even when the most powerful tools humanity has ever created can't give me one.

Learning to Put the Tools Down

I'm not going to end this article by telling you I've figured out how to keep technology in its proper place.

I haven't.

I use artificial intelligence every day.

I build with it.

I think with it.

I genuinely believe it can help us solve some of the world's most difficult problems.

And tomorrow morning, when I encounter another obstacle, there's a very good chance my instinct will be to open my computer and start working on it.

I'm not pretending otherwise.

But I'm becoming more aware of the question I need to ask before I do.

Those questions don't always have easy answers.

And I suspect I'll spend a long time learning to ask them honestly.

Maybe the first step isn't using less technology.

Maybe it's becoming more conscious of what we're asking technology to provide.

The Freedom of Not Being God

There's something deeply liberating about admitting that I am not in control of everything.

I wish I remembered that more often.

Because underneath all my desire to build, solve, create, and move forward is a truth that has been there long before artificial intelligence entered my life.

And I can acknowledge that some things remain beyond my understanding without treating that uncertainty as a personal failure.

Maybe that's one of the most important lessons this age of artificial intelligence has to teach us.

Not that our limitations are disappearing.

But that even as some of them do, our need for wisdom, humility, grace, and surrender remains.

And perhaps the most countercultural thing a believer can do in an age of almost unlimited technological possibility is something remarkably simple.

We were created to work.

To build.

To imagine.

To love.

And also to surrender.

Because becoming more capable doesn't make us less dependent on God.

It simply gives us another opportunity to remember who we are.

And who He is.

To me, that's part of what it means to remain Faithfully Human.