Finding Formation in a Noisy World
*Based on Matthew 6:22-23*
## The Quiet Power of Formation
We didn't start this year in no shape. Nobody walks into January formless. You started in some kind of shape—maybe not the shape you want, maybe not the shape you promised yourself last year, but shape nonetheless.
That's why January is full of gym memberships. We know something about ourselves needs conditioning. But here's what most of us misunderstand: **a resolution assumes willpower is enough, but a trainer assumes formation is required.**
A resolution says "I'll try harder." A trainer says "Let me watch how you move." A resolution focuses on outcomes, but a trainer focuses on patterns. And Jesus is not interested in New Year promises if nothing in your life has actually changed.
## What Jesus Knows About Formation
In Matthew 6:22-23, right in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus drops this teaching: *"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness."*
This isn't a random proverb. Jesus places it strategically between teachings on money, loyalty, and anxiety because He knows something crucial: **you can't live kingdom values while being trained by an anti-kingdom system.**
Most of us don't fail spiritually because of a lack of information. We have Bibles, commentaries, and Google. We fail because something else is discipling us from Monday to Saturday. You get instruction on Sunday, but you're immersed in the culture for six days. And immersion will always outweigh instruction—unless it's interrupted.
## The Danger of Unlimited Access
In Jesus' world, the eye wasn't a flashlight pointing outward but a doorway inward. What came through it didn't just inform you—it started to form you. You are being shaped all the time, not just by what you see, but by what you're taking in:
- Through traffic and your cell phone
- In your group chats
- Through the music you listen to
- Through the news you consume daily
- Through the silence and the outrage disguised as righteousness
**You don't choose whether you'll be formed. Formation is inevitable.** If you don't choose your shapers, they'll choose you.
## The Modern Formation Crisis
We've become the first people in history to witness global tragedy before breakfast, manufactured outrage before lunch, and curated perfection before bed. All in one single day. Children spend more time on screens than on their knees, and we wonder what's wrong.
The soul was never designed for unlimited access. **People aren't leaving faith—they're just drowning in everything else.** God has to compete against countless voices, and there's a critical difference we must understand:
**There's a difference between being full and being nourished.**
You can eat all day and still be malnourished. You can consume constantly and still be spiritually weak. Fullness is about quantity; nourishment is about quality. We live in a culture excellent at keeping us full while quietly starving us to death.
We are:
- Overstimulated but under-reflected
- Emotionally full but spiritually depleted
- Scrolling, watching, listening, reacting, absorbing
And then we wonder why our souls feel heavy and exhausted.
## Three Questions for This Week
This week, ask yourself three honest questions:
### 1. What voices get the most hours of my week?
Who are you listening to? Because whoever you're listening to, that's who you're becoming.
### 2. What emotions am I rehearsing daily?
Are you rehearsing anger, bitterness, and resentment? Or are you rehearsing peace, forgiveness, and joy? What you rehearse is who you become.
### 3. What values am I accepting without resistance?
You can't let everyone speak into your life. Not everything available is allowable. Not everything popular is profitable. Not everything entertaining edifies.
## The Path Forward: Intentional Curation
Jesus isn't calling us to hide from the world. He's calling us to discern it. **Discipleship is intentional curation:**
- I decide what comes in
- I decide what stays out
- I decide what gets access
- I decide who gets limited
- I decide what gets questioned
- I decide what I reject and refuse
Maturity is not exposure to everything. Maturity is knowing what deserves entry and what does not.
## Don't Just Reset Goals—Reset Your Environment
This year, don't just ask "What do I want to change?" Ask the deeper question: **"What has been shaping me?"**
If you reset your goals but not your environment, you'll relapse by February. But if you reset what's shaping you—what you listen to, what you linger on, what you normalize—you won't just have a better year. You'll have a better you. Not just for 2026, but from now on.
## Shaped But Not Defined
For those shaped by environments of poverty, trauma, or limitation: what you survive may shape you, but it must never be allowed to define you. People will limit you by your zip code, but God didn't make you for your zip code. He made you for His use and His glory.
You may be shaped by survival, but don't be defined by it. The safest place in the whole wide world is in the hand of God. Like clay on the potter's wheel, let Him shape you into what He will have you to be.
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*The question isn't whether you'll be formed—it's who will do the forming. Choose wisely.