A few years ago my wife had serious back pain. Our search for solutions led us to a book by Esther Gokhale, whose own pain led her to research the modern back pain epidemic.

Gokhale discovered that people in primitive cultures have virtually no back pain, even though they did ​“backbreaking” labor, while a large percentage of people in modern cultures suffer terribly. The difference between the cultures? Posture — the way people sat, stood, walked, and slept. 

There’s a parallel here for the inner life. Intentionally or unintentionally, healthy or unhealthy, everyone develops a body posture. And everyone develops a heart posture, a.k.a. spiritual formation.

Scripture has a word for good heart posture: upright. Solomon said his father David ​”walked… in uprightness of heart” (1 Kings 3:6). The term, also translated ​“right” or ​“righteous,” carries the idea of something working like it should.

Technology, especially the smartphone, plays a big role these days in the formation of our hearts and minds. We’re becoming increasingly aware of how technology can distract us and degrade our heart posture. The question is, can it be used to make us more upright, to form us into the image of Jesus?

Entrepreneur and Renovaré Board Chair Jon Bailey believes it can. He helped create a Scripture meditation app called Dwell. Along with Steinway artist and composer Chad Lawson, Jon joins Nathan Foster on the podcast this week to talk tech, Scripture listening, and felted piano strings. 

What would the sixteenth century Anglican priest William Law think about a smartphone Scripture listening app? (I’m smiling imagining him trying to wrap his head around it all.) Hard to say, but his timeless words from A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life are as applicable in our day as they were in his own.