Google, Facebook, Twitter and so many other frequently visited internet sites attempt and claim to tailor themselves to us. Through the use of tracking cookies and and other information we supply them, they use programs to try to target us with advertising that will be effective. Stories, posts and people are suggested that we should like or find interesting, and even the news that is shown to us from some sites is personalized.
It's not only internet sites that try to know what we want, what will appeal, what we need. Pandora has built their entire existence on the idea that with a little input from me they can build music stations that I will prefer over not personalized music stations on air, satellite, or internet. Netflix, Amazon and other companies that stream entertainment make suggestions based on previous viewing or listening choices.
It can be helpful. It can be a little big brother and frightening, and it can also be flawed and way off to the point of seeming amusingly stupid. One example that always makes me wonder at the thinking of the programmers is whatever causes the ads on Facebook to be for items that I just purchased on Amazon. OK, I need or want a particular book. I go to Amazon and buy it. I go to Facebook and there are ads from three different places trying to sell me the book I just bought. I understand the protection I am provided by not giving the advertisers access to information that would show I bought rather than browsed, but it is still amusing.
And Twitter...how well it knows me. Not. The tailored trends featuring hashtags that are, as the name implies, tailored to me. Today, for some reason some hashtag for the association of mid-level educators was there. Yeah, that doesn't even blip on the radar of relevant to my life, but that doesn't come close to the horror that was the suggestion of who to follow they made for me Saturday. At the top of my suggestion list was @Hookem, a University of Texas athletic account. I went to Texas Tech two semesters. I follow every Texas Tech Red Raider athletic site and a a couple of non athletic sites. Do they not know me at all?
Facebook is just as bad. Despite all my Houston Texans people and accounts I follow and the fact that I am not following anything Dallas Cowboys they thought I would want to post the Dallas score with all my posts last night. Really? I haven't been a Cowboys fan since Landry was fired and won't be until they get a new owner; I don't care how many Superbowls they win. Netflix can be even more ridiculous. I am sure you have your own examples, Dear Reader.
So what? What's the point? The point is that no matter how much information we give them, even when we rate things and answer questions, we are not going to fit easily in a box of parameters that will tell anyone else fully who we are, what we will do and or what we will like. Even people miss it. Family members, best friends and spouses can all act suddenly out of character, do something surprising, and even hurt us or let us down. No matter how much love there is and how well we know someone and are known by someone, there is the potential for disappointment and misunderstanding.
I thought I knew them and could trust them, but they did this to me. I thought they knew me, but look what they said/thought I would want/like/do. The people I should most be able to trust have all hurt me, so I won't trust anyone. I could go on. That last one made me realize that the people who should have all been able to trust me have all been hurt by me, but that's just how it is because as true as it is that no one can quite measure up to perfect trustworthiness, perfect understanding of who I am, what I need and want or perfect anticipation of my needs and actions, I can't be that for anyone else either.
But God doesn't need cookies, tracking programs or questionnaires. He knows us, inside and out, better than we even know ourselves. He knew us in the womb, and He understands our hearts, our motives and our hidden desires and fears. He knows us completely, without even the lies we tell ourselves messing with the information, and yet, He accepts us and loves us as we are. When we would run from who we are and the truth of the darkness in our hearts, He would have us run to Him. He invites us to know Him. He calls us to relationship and offers His love for our selfishness, His faithfulness for our fickle affection, and His rightness for our propensity to do wrong. He's not selling us something, in fact, He paid for what He's offering. The power to be who we are innately created to be is ours for the asking. He never gets it wrong. What He suggests for us, is indeed perfectly suited for us, and the life He gives is better than anything we could ever create on our own.
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