Before We Build
Thoughts on Babel, artificial intelligence, and asking God for direction
I was going to put these writings on black-and-white paper.
Now there is a website. There are beautiful images, stories arranged for people to read, and helps I hope will encourage someone in their walk with God. I describe something I can see in my imagination, and a machine helps me bring it into view.
I am grateful. I believe God is helping me use what is available to tell the story He has placed on my heart.
But something about this experience keeps bringing me back to Babel.
The people there shared a language. They knew how to make bricks and organize their labor. They proposed a city and a tower, and they stated an ambition that deserves our attention:
“Let us make us a name.”
Then God said something I cannot easily pass over:
“Now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.”
I read those words and look at the screen in front of me.
I do not mean that Genesis predicted this particular machine, or that everything a person imagines has suddenly become possible. These tools have limits. They make mistakes. I still have to examine what they produce.
Yet the distance between describing an idea and seeing something made from it has become remarkably small in my own experience. That astonishes me. It also makes me stop and think.
What are we going to do with that ability?
Where do I get my direction?
When I speak of a vision, I mean a sense of direction: something worth pursuing, a picture of what I might build or become. But Scripture gives me something deeper to consider:
“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” — Proverbs 29:18 (KJV)
The vision in this passage concerns revelation—what God makes known. The second half of the verse brings obedience into view. Receiving direction from God carries a responsibility to attend to what He says.
That makes me examine what I am seeking when I ask for a vision. Do I want an exciting picture of my future? Or do I want to understand what God would have me do, even if His answer changes the future I had pictured?
I can bring Him my desires, open His Word, and ask for wisdom. I can ask Him to correct my understanding and help me recognize what matters.
I can also sit down at a machine and ask it to show me something.
Within moments, I may have words, pictures, suggestions, and a plan. Something that existed only in my imagination begins to look convincing. It can be beautiful enough that I want to continue immediately.
Have I asked whether I should?
A compelling picture can help me express an idea. It cannot, by its beauty alone, establish that the idea came from God. I still need to examine what I am pursuing in the light of His Word.
How much time do I spend asking for help accomplishing my intentions? How much time do I spend asking God to examine those intentions?
Do I seek His direction every day? Once a week? Only after something has gone wrong?
With so many ways to picture what I could do, am I still seeking what God has to say?
Those questions belong to me before I offer them to anyone else.
Is the tool the problem?
I have no desire to return to the days when someone called the television the devil with one eye. Anything can be misused. A printing press can carry the Gospel or a lie. A person can use a microphone to encourage the weary or manipulate a crowd.
I am using artificial intelligence while writing about this very subject. Its usefulness is part of what makes the question pressing.
It has helped me do things I would have struggled to accomplish alone. I want to use that opportunity well. I feel an urgency to tell what I have come to know of God’s love while I have the time and means to tell it.
But a useful tool cannot settle the purpose of my life.
It can help me express what I want. It cannot make my wanting right. It can arrange a persuasive explanation without establishing that I have understood God correctly.
I remain responsible for what I put my name—or His name—beside.
What catches my attention about Babel?
The builders explained what they wanted: a city, a tower, a name for themselves, and protection against being scattered.
I hear confidence in that proposal. They could work together. They had a method. They had a goal.
Where was God in their intention?
That question reaches beyond ancient bricks. I can become absorbed in a project because the next step is possible, and the next result is impressive. Each accomplishment gives me another idea. Before long, I am asking how large it can become.
Have I stopped to ask whom it serves?
Am I hoping someone will encounter the Living God through what I create? Am I willing for the work to remain small? If one person is helped, can I receive that with gratitude?
Or has the opportunity to share something quietly become a desire to establish myself?
I do not always recognize that change immediately. That is one reason I need prayer.
Can I still be corrected?
A machine can help me produce another version almost as quickly as I can request it. God’s correction may require something more difficult from me.
I may need to surrender an idea I love. I may need to acknowledge that I have overstated something. I may need to wait when I would rather publish.
Am I willing?
If I ask God for direction, I must leave room for an answer that changes my plans. Otherwise, what am I asking Him to do? Approve what I have already decided?
His Word deserves more authority in my life than an answer on a screen. The speed of that answer does not make it wisdom, and its confidence does not make it true.
I can use the assistance gratefully and still examine it. I can ask questions, check the Scriptures, listen to correction, and admit what I do not know.
Those responsibilities have not disappeared because the work has become easier.
What do I want to build?
I want to tell God’s story as faithfully as I understand it. I want someone to discover that the Creator of everything desires a relationship with them. I want the writings to encourage people to open His Word and speak to Him for themselves.
I believe this tool is helping me do that.
So I intend to keep using it. I also intend to keep asking the One whose purposes matter beyond anything I can make.
“Lord, examine what I am reaching for. Help me recognize when my own importance has entered into something I began for You. Correct what needs correcting. Teach me how to use what is in my hands.”
Babel makes me consider what people can accomplish when language, skill, organization, and ambition come together. The tools before us make that question feel very close.
I cannot tell you everything that will come of this age. I can take responsibility for how I respond to it today.
Before I ask the machine to help me build what I imagine, I want to ask God what He would have me do.
And when something beautiful appears on the screen, I want to remember why I began.
Scripture references
Genesis 11:1–9 — Babel’s shared language, building project, stated ambition, and God’s response. The connection to artificial intelligence in this reflection is a contemporary comparison, not a claim that the passage specifically predicts AI.
Proverbs 29:18 — The need for divine revelation and the blessing of attending to God’s instruction. “Vision” here concerns what God makes known, rather than merely a personal ambition or an imagined future.
Proverbs 3:5–7 — Trusting God, acknowledging Him, and resisting confidence in our own wisdom.
Psalm 127:1 — The necessity of the Lord’s involvement in what we build.
James 1:5 — Asking God for wisdom.
James 4:13–17 — Making plans with humility before God and recognizing the uncertainty of our lives.
Psalm 139:23–24 — Asking God to search our hearts and lead us.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 — Examining what we receive and holding fast to what is good.
1 Corinthians 10:31 — Doing what we do for the glory of God.