Define Your Why
From Substack:
In the weeks and months to come, there will be all types of information thrown our way, mostly via social media. For those who are interested, it will take strategic sifting, patience, and research to weed through. My goal is to help you research strategically, and remind you to stay focused on God instead of letting this ‘information war’ steal your peace. Some people like to research, others don’t. This is for the researchers.
Define Your Why
Have you ever gone to a new town and simply driven around aimlessly for hours, or perhaps, days on end? Chances are the answer is no.
Have you ever spent hours, or perhaps days (maybe longer) consuming content on the internet without a purpose? Chances are the answer is yes.
What are you looking for and why are you looking for it? Research should have a purpose.
Before you begin the path of researching, ask yourself the very simple question of ‘why’? Why am I looking into any particular topic? My ‘why’ is not your ‘why’. Every person is responsible for their ‘why’. Everyone finds value in different things. What’s important to you may not be as important to me and vice versa. Your ‘why’ can change as your research progresses, and often, research starts for one reason and continues for another. Regardless of the reason, you must know your ‘why’, or have a direction in mind.
Let’s use going shopping as an example:
When you bring a list to a store, you know what items you want and you can execute that list effectively. You are less subject to impulse buys. If you go in without a plan, you may end up with things you do not need, or spend money you did not want to spend. In order to be most efficient in research, you must have a general idea of what you’re searching for.
To be clear, this article is mostly geared toward self-research, not to social media posts that are presented to you on your feed or that you come across by happenstance. This is about topics you are actively researching.
Define Your Trip
The first place to begin before doing deep research or renovating your worldview is to define your trip.
Here are a few examples of different kinds of trips:
Adventure: A trip without a destination.
Quest: A trip to accomplish a specific task.
Journey: When the trip is more important than the destination.
What kind of trip are you on?
People who gather information fall into all three of these categories. I encourage you, especially Christians, to view your research as a quest (a trip to accomplish a specific task). Many people are on an adventure without a destination, or a journey without a goal in mind. For them, the gathering process is more important than arriving at meaningful conclusions.
When an author writes a story, the catalyst for the character’s actions is called ‘the inciting incident’. This is the event that sets the main character on the adventure/quest/journey that will occupy them throughout the narrative. Typically, this incident will upset the balance of the main character's world.
Does that sound familiar?
Most of us here have experienced that ‘incident’ where something changed our understanding of the world as we knew it and prompted us to take action.
It is my belief that the Holy Spirit prompts these ‘incidents’ in most cases and brings about significant changes in our lives. God can use anything as the ‘incident’ that prompts you to re-examine your life, typically in a spiritual sense.
The Holy Spirit does not prompt anyone to hoard information for its own sake. Having more knowledge about the world than others is not an achievement, it’s essentially a loose definition of Gnosticism (having esoteric knowledge or gnosis). If your quest is just to gain knowledge for yourself in order to be more ‘enlightened’ than those around you, that is not a prompt by The Holy Spirit. We are to help bring others closer to God, and become closer and closer to Him ourselves.
Everyone is used in different ways, and some of us are called to use information as a tool to witness to others. I would assume most of you who have found your way to this Substack have been called to a similar quest.
Regardless of your inciting incident, it set you on a path to take inventory of what you believe. This might shake you to your core, or comfort you when you discover things that have always felt ‘off’ to your spirit were indeed ‘off’. We’ve all been lied to. That can be hard for some to accept. You will discover that those lies were created to keep you separated in some way from God. Research is not a salvation issue, but proper research and discovery of facts can strengthen your relationship with God.
There Is No Formula
There is no formula, guide, or manual for research. The reason there is no step-by-step, or algebraic equation-type of approach to the process of research is because individuals themselves are the variables. Information does not change, but the way each of us processes and gathers that information does.
Some people take their time gathering and collating information, while others process information rather quickly. Others value kinesthetic interaction and hands-on approaches. Some topics rely more on pattern recognition, whereas others rely more on evidence. Some tend to focus on the small details, while others see things from a birds-eye-view. Essentially, we all learn and think differently, therefore, we all research and approach information gathering differently. There is not just one way to do it.
So, while there may not be a formula for researching, one piece of advice that is applicable to all, is to detach your emotions from your research. You are simply observing information, after all.
Don’t jump to conclusions based on incomplete information.
Remain analytical and critical in your thought before accepting something as fact. Research is impersonal, not personal. If you’ve discovered something you thought to be true is actually untrue, don’t be ashamed to let it go.
It is vitally important to build your own foundation.
You are selective in real life with who you allow around yourself, or your family, and incorporate into your life. Do the same when it comes to information that shapes your worldview.
The things we gather become our identity if we incorporate them into our worldviews.
Cognitive Dissonance
Sometimes research can lead us away from valuable information due to lies being injected into the facts available for research. It is often easier to mix lies into truth than to try to hide something completely. That’s why it's a good idea to be open to new ideas, but slow in accepting them.
Compare everything new you find with Scripture. If a piece of information you find challenges your worldview, investigate whether it’s the information that is incorrect or if you’ve encountered cognitive dissonance because you’re afraid to question a foundational piece of your worldview. The truth stands up to questions, so don’t be afraid to ask them.
Take everything to Jesus and compare all you find with Scripture. How will you know if someone is saying/teaching Biblical truth if you yourself haven't read it? Jesus is where you will find the truth. (1 John 4:1)
Everyone characterizes information differently. For example, a New Age believer might characterize The Inversion as a wonderful thing with a new future for the earth. As a Christian, I disagree. The facts remain, but it is our interpretation that differs.
I see The Inversion as evidence of how far the world has strayed from Jesus and how poisoned the well of Christianity has become in our modern age, as well as the vastly different projected futures. The Bible tells us Jesus will return and pass judgment on the wicked. The inversion (Great Awakening) says that humanity passes judgment on the ‘wicked’ and lives in a new-utopia without the need for a savior.
This example shows why it is important to not only research the information itself but to also draw your own conclusions. Having the right information does not benefit you if you fall for misdirecting beliefs or ideas being presented with that information. Ask yourself why people are explaining the facts the way they do. What lens are they using to present the conclusions?
Search Engines & Weaponized Websites
One of the major tools used in research is search engines. A browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Tor, etc) is a program that displays websites. A search engine (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, etc) is a particular website that provides you with search results. VPN’s (virtual private networks) are used for privacy and less tracking.
The purpose of this section is to present alternatives to search engines that overly ‘tailor’ results against ‘misinformation’ (such as Google and Duckduckgo) for you to have in your research toolbelt. Use these to help get more diverse information than just the popular, paid, or mainstream results.
A sample, not a recommendation, of alternative search engines to look into:
You.com https://you.com
Brave https://search.brave.com
Mojeek https://www.mojeek.com
Yandex https://yandex.com
Startpage https://www.startpage.com/en/
SearX: https://searx.github.io/searx/
Check out searchenginemap.com to see whose web crawlers each search site depends upon.
Some search engines are fussy which is another reason to do the same search in multiple engines.
One recent example: while researching Michael Börreman’s art (a book featured in the Balenciaga campaign), Google returned 0 search results while Yandex.com returned over 5 million.
The reason was simple: umlauts. When I removed the umlaut in his last name, Google returned similar results to Yandex.
Try doing the same search in multiple search engines and compare results. Cast a wide net, then narrow down what you find. When using search engines, you aren't just looking for more privacy and less tracking, you are also looking for better search results and indexing.
The internet, especially social media, has become a very real part of life for most of us, yet many treat it as if it did not truly affect us. The sad truth is that the internet is just as weaponized as the rest of our world. Dubious organizations, government sectors, and corporations know the thought-control power of the internet. In fact, they have monopolized it.
The control of narratives has been accomplished via a process called schismogenesis which means "creation of division".
The product of schismogenesis is echo chambers and feedback loops. Social media sites (ex: Reddit, Facebook, etc) are full of accounts whose purpose is to capture a legitimate discussion and control the narrative. That’s why it’s important to make up your own mind based on your own research, not the conclusions of others.
The internet as a whole has become a prison patrolled by the inmates due to cancel culture. Most people walk on eggshells for fear of being ‘canceled’, especially those who are ‘influencers’, have sponsors, or run businesses.
All of the information I have found is open source and accessible to anyone who takes the time to find it. Nothing is truly hidden, it’s just covered up well, like a needle in a haystack.
Just because you engage in social media at home, or wherever you feel safe, does not mean you are safe. These are public spaces without the same social contract rules (which are degrading daily). In a world that is losing its love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, remember that Chrisitians are meant to be set apart (or devoted) to God and not engage in the world the same way as those who do not know Jesus. Why are you afraid/anxious/hopeless like the rest of the world? You have reason to be hopeful!
Foundation Matters
Recall the days of sorting through library shelves, masterfully balancing armfuls of books as you attempted to gather all the available information on a specific topic you were writing about for university. If you did not have a specific topic in mind, you’d never know where to start or end with your search. Cookbooks? History? Historical cookbooks? What do they mean? Certainly nothing of relevance. But, imagine you know you want to write a paper on the rapid changes of aBlobfish due to tissue damage when pulled from the depths of the sea. Now you have a specific goal in mind, and won’t be wasting your time by being side-tracked into learning how to propagate Monstera plants.
What does this ridiculous analogy have to do with the subject at hand? Well, you must stay focused. Researching (gathering information) has become a treacherous undertaking compared to years past. More people search for information that questions their known ways of life, and in turn, it questions their trust in the institutions. These institutions depend on people remaining ignorant, and so, more traps get set out to ensnare those who choose to take on that quest.
Everyone thinks they have the whole picture. I’m here to tell you, we don’t. God is the only one who can see things in their entirety. We can make our best educated guesses, but we still have to extrapolate from incomplete data. There will always be things we don't know. You must understand that when you set out on this quest. You can find more pieces of information to help you come to a conclusion, but if you’re looking for truth, you need to open the Bible.
If you jump down a ‘rabbit hole’ with no game-plan, no grappling hook, you’ll be led around whichever way the wind blows, encountering dangerous creatures you weren’t prepared to face (deceptions, spoon feeder agents, and clever tricks to confuse you and lead you astray into time-wasting tail-spins). That’s why the Bible is to be our solid foundation. Jesus is the truth, and there is no truth apart from Him. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide you in every way and then you have to do your part to be obedient. If He wants to show you or uncover something, pray about what to do with it. For some, that may be backing away from researching various topics all together.
You can't build a foundation on sand and expect your castle not to crumble. You cannot button your shirt starting on the wrong hole and expect it to be correct. Foundation matters.
These days are treacherous and the battle for your mind and soul is at a fever pitch. This is why it is imperative to build your foundation on the solid rock of Jesus Christ. Not what people say about Him, not what some New York Time’s Best Selling book or television series says about Him. Not even what your parents, or your culture say about Him. Do you know Jesus yourself? If you do not, I invite you to read The First Epistle of John in the New Testament. It will give you a good overview of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
It’s common to think that wars, monetary control, poisons, etc are the enemy's most powerful weapons, but one of his greatest weapons against humanity is lying. This deceit is used to separate people from God. He sows seeds of doubt in a loving God, uses the actions of men to turn people away from God, and tricks us into perpetuating his lies.
What is one of the ways Lucifer uses his tool of lying against Christ-followers? By twisting God’s word. He was the first to do this in Genesis 3:1 and from that day, his lies against God have not ceased. Christians must understand their primary threats are lies and deceit. John 8:32 says “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”. Truth is only found in Jesus.
Philippians 4:7 (ESV): “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
The peace Jesus gives us surpasses understanding. We don’t need to know everything about this world to have peace in Him.
Active vs Passive Research
Research is active, not passive. Active research is done by the researcher. Passive research is given to the ‘researcher’. For example, there's a new ‘conspiracy’ show or documentary on a popular streaming service or television. Watching it is passive. You are consuming a carefully constructed piece that has an agenda or opinion telling you what you think about a topic. Why do they do this? To establish a false foundation. When you start with the wrong box top, you won't find the right puzzle pieces.
Active research means you are trying to find something by looking up terms, formulating your own questions, looking up names, how things relate, being curious, etc. You’re the one connecting the dots, not someone else doing it for you.
You can use things like popular shows to gain pieces of information to come to a conclusion, but it’s not research, it's entertainment.
Example of an active vs passive search:
Passive: Why is Zelle bad?
Active: Who owns Zelle (and why does that matter)?
Another hazard you will encounter on your quest is the Red Herring. This is something, especially a clue, that is or is intended to be misleading or distracting.
Most content made for entertainment is a Red Herring (think ‘conspiracy’-focused television shows or ‘documentaries’). Too much money is pumped into these mediums to allow for the general public to become aware of the ugly truths of the world. The ‘powers-that-be’ (TPTB) have more control when the public is unaware, or deliberately fed misinformation.
How Do You Define Yourself?
Are you a ‘Conspiracy Theorist’? Do you go down ‘rabbit holes’? If so, you may want to re-think the terminology you identify with. These words have been weaponized by TPTB to discredit anyone who questions things that are blatantly inconsistent in the fabric of our lives. Life’s plot holes, if you will. Why do you need a label to point out these facts? Those who ignore life’s plot holes are the ones who are not truly aware of reality, not the researchers or investigators.
When you share what you find with others, you want them to know you’re only looking out for them, not looking down on them. Even though you want to share everything you find with those around you who don’t see it, it’s also important not to cry wolf. Make sure you’re ready to debate.
Sharing information that is hard to explain, and communicating it well, is a skill (one I am certainly still learning). But, like research itself, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Don’t give up if things don’t go your way, or if you fumble and can’t get your thoughts across. Sometimes it’s not even about what we say, but what Jesus wants someone to hear. Pray for Him to give you the words the other person needs to hear and don’t worry about the rest. Let God water the seeds you plant.
When sharing information we gather, we are faced with accepting the consequences of speaking up. Having the courage to say the truth, when it’s done out of love, is better than not saying anything.
Doing research does not make the researchers somehow spiritually, morally, or intellectually superior to others. God calls each of us to do different things in our lives which means some of us research and some do not. If you want to tell people what you’ve found, remember your ‘why’ should be out of love for what’s just and good, and ultimately should point them toward the truth of Jesus Christ.
If you are a person who does not value this kind of research, it is your responsibility to listen to the person trying to share what they’ve found with you. Put yourself in their shoes; how can they sum up important information that builds on itself to someone who is only willing to give them a 30-second-sound-bite opening? Please be willing to listen to what they have to say. Consider their evidence, even if it sounds strange at first. Chances are, they’re only telling you because they care about you.
On the other hand, this also means you cannot do research for others because you can’t understand the information for them. They need to investigate and ask their own questions.
You want people to consider your evidence, and not treat it as just an opinion they can discard without even hearing you out. Instead of focusing on a label, focus on being the person you needed to meet at the start of your quest.
One Step At A Time
As you move through life and realize some of the things you were told are not true, or they purposefully go against the Father, you leave behind pieces of yourself; who you used to be, and what you used to know. The Holy Spirit begins to change you. Oftentimes, this change hurts. Why? Because it means leaving the world you know and having it become the world you knew.
Gathering information does not cause change. You can read and think about new information and not change your current beliefs. Merely knowing why things operate as they do does not change the systems in place, nor change our own behaviors or thoughts. Once you have determined something to be true that you found on your ‘why’ quest, you can then incorporate it and act upon it.
For example: choosing not to purchase from certain stores, choosing not to watch or listen to certain things, changing who you spend time with, etc.
God refines us, and it’s up to us to do our part to obey. Some people won't understand why you're different, and that’s ok. We are accountable to God, not man. (Galatians 1:6-10)
There is one guarantee on your quest: you will make mistakes. You will waste time. It will be frustrating. But research is not instant, the many pieces add up over time. Research is not synonymous with coming to conclusions, it is synonymous with gathering data.
I made countless mistakes along the way, but Jesus used them as teachable moments. Failure is always an opportunity to learn. No one starts out as an amazing researcher. You learn as you go. Practice is essential to every development, no matter the skill (instruments, sports, cooking, crochet, etc). Don’t strive to be perfect. We cannot ever understand the whole picture because we are not God. We have to be humble and lean on God for our understanding, not on our ability to gather information.
As humans we like to feel like we’re in control. We want to be the writers of our own stories, but we’re more like the main character in our lives. What makes a story interesting is the conflicts the main character faces, the challenges they overcome, their character arc, and how they emerge at the end. But, they have to go through some pretty hard things to get there.
Of course, life would be easier if we knew exactly where we were going at all times, but God is the only one with those answers. We have to be willing to obey Him in every season. In the waiting seasons, in the painful ones and thank Him in the joyful ones.
Be okay with not knowing. Sometimes, God leads you one step at a time and you must trust that He will lead as long as you continue to trust Him and Him alone. You do not have to know everything to follow the narrow path. (Matthew 7:13-14)
Some passages to read:
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (1 Jeremiah 29:11)
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)
Verses 1-11 of John chapter 15: John 15:1-11
Rely on God
God determines our days, and we should strive to manage our gifted time wisely.
Seek the Kingdom of God first. Everything else is secondary. You have immense talents and gifts that God gave to you and only you. Let Him shine through you with your unique abilities and qualities. Don’t let this fallen world full of impenetrable closed-system corruption cause you to forget that.
The Word of God corrects and encourages us. In a world tossed around by opinions and seeking immediate answers to complex questions, don’t let it steal your peace. Keep seeking answers in His Word. We can trust God no matter how big or small His instruction is. Build your foundation on Him. He is the only leader worth following.
The war on truth is the war on Jesus. Many of us have felt called to ask the Holy Spirit to destroy the lies in our lives and break the strongholds of TPTB over our minds. The unsavory aspects of our world arise because Lucifer wants to be God. He wants to usurp God’s place in the hearts and minds of humanity. Those who gather information on the reasons why or how this is being accomplished should do so with the goal of leading others away from Lucifer and towards Jesus, who is more powerful than any of the enemy's devices.
Yes, there are systems in place we can never topple, and wrongs that will never be righted until Jesus returns. His kingdom is not made of material things. He counts victories in souls, and that’s why sharing the Gospel and the truth of Jesus is the most powerful tool we have to fight against the soul-crushing powers and lies of the world.
The enemy wants us to believe it’s too difficult to overcome this world and break free, but that’s a lie. (1 John 4:4-6)
Be truly governed by God, don’t let this world steal that hope and peace. This is about endurance and reaching those who are lost in the meantime. If you’re feeling weary, lean on the fact that God is the God of comfort. Give your worries to Him. (2 Corinthians 1:3-5)
Whether your path is long, or short, if God is guiding you, don’t stress about what you might never know. God will give you everything you need. Keep listening to Him. This isn’t about relying on your own ability to ‘find the truth’, no information matters as much as having the Holy Spirit in your heart. After all, Jesus is the truth.
This isn’t your quest alone. That terrible phrase, “Jesus is my co-pilot”, implies you are the one in control. Jesus is the pilot the same way He is your trail guide. He is the leader and you are to follow wherever He leads you, not vice versa. Remember that during each step of your quest, fellow travelers.
So, what is your ‘why’?
Thank you for reading,
Alexandra
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