We’ve been studying the book of Judges and we see the cycle. God’s people did evil in his sight.

“You have not listened to me. You have put other things in my place and they have become your priority. You no longer seek me, you’re seeking something else first.”

So the Lord hands them over to the control of their enemies until they cry out to him again. When they cry out, he raises up an ordinary person to lead them to freedom.

When God’s people cry out to him, he rescues them from the enemy who has held them in bondage and sets them free. Then there is a season of peace again … until his people once again become complacent and drift back.

What God has been telling me over and over again is, “My people are in bondage and they don’t even know it.” What is our bondage? Our screens. Our screens have taken the place of God, and we wonder why we can’t hear God anymore. Our screens have become our tool of wisdom, our source of connection, and our guiding voice. All while we miss the fact that the enemy has us in bondage.

Here’s what my soul knows – My phone is evil in the sight of God. It’s taking me away from him and the life he created me for. Is there some good there too? Absolutely? But the enemy is capitalizing on the good I cling to and bombarding me with far more evil. God is sending a message, and the message is, TURN AWAY FROM THIS.

The average American spends 7 hours and 4 minutes per day looking at their screens. What we don’t see are the chains the enemy binds us in with our screens, and the darkness that dances around us while we do. We are literally being destroyed. Our families are being destroyed. We are consumed and we keep coming back for more. More links on the chain. More darkness dancing around us.

So, who will cry out to God? Who will see this bondage for what it is and decide we don’t want to live this way anymore? I know God has been impressing this on me. In my prayer time, God has told me about his desire to rescue his children from the chains of our phones. It’s just hard for me to imagine my words being powerful enough to make a difference, when the truth is, I too struggle with that bondage at times. And I already see my sweet 3 year old grandson with glazed over eyes, chained to a screen.

But as we study the Old Testament and we see the stories repeated over and over again, we cannot ignore it’s still happening. The bondage of the enemy looks different, but the chains are still real. The effects are still real. Lives are being sacrificed and God is not pleased. And none of this will change until we cry out to God for help.

So, who is God raising up to lead his people back to him? Ordinary people, just as he always has. Ordinary people like me who is absolutely sickened by my own chosen bondage. I’m letting it happen. And ordinary people like a 14 year old girl named Madison.

The video of Madison’s testimony is going viral. Some may dismiss it, but I have no doubt God’s Holy Spirit is telling me to not only listen, but to blast this. I’m not going to change anything, I’m going to read it just as it’s being shared. I believe within her testimony is the most vivid depiction of the real bondage we’re in today.

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“My Name is Madison Taylor Brooks.
I’m 14 years old, and on October 17th I died for 12 minutes when our car flipped three times on Highway 29.

I was in the backseat scrolling through TikTok, barely paying attention to mom driving me to volleyball practice. My little brother Tyler was playing his Nintendo Switch next to me.
The rain was coming down so hard that mom kept asking me to look up directions because she couldn’t see the exit. I remember being annoyed because I was right in the middle of watching this dance trend video. I didn’t look up.
Then it happened.

The semi-truck came out of nowhere. Mom screamed.
Tyler dropped his game. My phone flew out of my hands as our SUV spun across three lanes. I remember the sound of metal crushing and glass breaking.
Then… nothing.

But then… I was floating above our car.
I could see the ambulance lights flashing. People were running around below me. The rain was still pouring, but I couldn’t feel it.
I watched as they pulled my body out of the wreckage. My favorite blue volleyball shorts were torn. My face was covered in blood.
Mom was crying, being held back by a firefighter. Tyler was already in an ambulance. I tried to yell, “Mom, I’m okay, I’m right here,” but she couldn’t hear me.
Then everything got really bright. The ambulances, the highway, Mom — it all faded away. I felt myself being pulled through what felt like a tunnel of light.
It wasn’t scary. It felt warm, like when you stand in the sunlight on the first day of summer.

That’s when I saw him.
Jesus was standing there, and he was nothing like the pictures in Sunday school. He was… I don’t even have words.
Light poured from him, but somehow I could still see his face. His eyes. They looked right through me like he knew every thought I’d ever had.
Every mean text I’d ever sent. Every TikTok video I’d ever posted. But he still loved me completely.

When he smiled at me, I felt like I was home. Really home. Not like our house back in Oak Ridge — something deeper.
“Madison.” He said my name, and it sounded like music. His voice wasn’t loud, but it filled everything.
I started crying. Not sad tears. I don’t know how to explain it.
I just felt everything at once. All the love I’d ever wanted, and all the peace I never knew I needed.

“Am I dead?” I asked him.
“For a little while,” he said. “But I have something to show you first. Something important.”
He reached out his hand, and when I took it, suddenly we were somewhere else.

It looked like a giant room with thousands of screens floating in the air.
On each screen, I could see kids my age — some younger, some older — all staring down at phones or tablets or computers.

“What is this?” I asked.
Jesus looked sad. “This is what I see every day. These are the children I love, but they cannot hear me anymore.”

As we walked through the room, I could see closer. Each screen showed someone like me, hunched over. Scrolling mindlessly. Their eyes looked empty.
But the weird thing was, around each person were these… shadows. Dark figures that whispered things into their ears.

“What are those?” I whispered, moving closer to Jesus.
“The enemy’s workers,” he said. “They speak lies through the screens.”
He brought me to one screen where a girl about my age was crying while scrolling through Instagram. Around her neck was what looked like a heavy chain, and at the end of it was her phone.

The shadows were putting more links on the chain with every swipe of her finger.
“Her name is Emma,” Jesus said. “She believes she is worthless because she doesn’t look like the filtered images she sees. She spends six hours every day comparing herself to lies.”
I felt sick because… that was me too.

I remembered crying in my bedroom because Kylie posted pictures from her birthday party that I wasn’t invited to. I’d spent three hours that night scrolling through everyone’s perfect lives, feeling worse and worse.

Jesus touched the screen and I could hear Emma’s thoughts:
“Nobody would care if I wasn’t here anymore. Look how happy everyone else is.”
“But that’s not true,” I said, “and people would care.”
“You understand,” Jesus said quietly. “But she cannot hear the truth anymore. The voices from her screen are too loud.”

We moved to another screen.
A boy, maybe 12, was playing a violent game. With each kill in the game, the shadows around him grew bigger. He looked pale, with dark circles under his eyes.
“He hasn’t slept more than four hours a night for three years,” Jesus said. “The games were designed to keep him there, to make him need them. His parents don’t know he’s playing until 3am every night.”

“His anger is growing. His ability to feel compassion is shrinking.”
I thought about Tyler and how he’d thrown his controller at me last week when Mom made him turn off his game for dinner.

Jesus showed me more screens. Kids sending cruel messages to classmates while laughing. Girls taking inappropriate pictures to get attention.
Boys watching violent and sexual content that made the shadows around them dance with glee.
Everywhere, phones and tablets glowed like little prisons.
“Madison,” Jesus said turning to me, “Do you know how many hours you’ve spent looking at a screen in your life?”

I shook my head. He waved his hand, and I saw what looked like an hourglass. But instead of sand, it was filled with moments of my life. Moments I’d never get back.
I saw myself sitting on the couch while my grandma tried to tell me stories about her childhood. But I was watching YouTube.

I saw hundreds of sunsets I’d missed because I was taking selfies instead of actually looking at them. I saw myself ignoring my brother when he wanted to play because I couldn’t pause my TikTok scrolling.

“8,422 hours,” Jesus said quietly. “That’s how much of your life was given to a screen.”
I did the math in my head. That was over a year of my life gone.
“But everyone does it,” I whispered, feeling ashamed.

“Yes,” Jesus said. “And that’s why I’m showing you this. The enemy has found a way into every home, every bedroom, every mind, without anyone noticing. Parents give their children these devices without understanding they’re handing them poison in small, addictive doses.”
Then Jesus showed me something that broke my heart.

He showed me hundreds of moments where he had tried to speak to me — when I was alone in my room, or walking to school, or lying in bed at night. Times when his presence was there, when he wanted to comfort me or guide me.

But every single time, I’d reached for my phone instead. I’d chosen the noise over his voice.
“The greatest trick,” Jesus said, “was making everyone believe they’re connected when they’re actually more alone than ever.”

Tears were streaming down my face now. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know.”
Jesus put his arm around me. “This is why you’re seeing this, Madison, because others need to know.”

Then he showed me one more scene.
It was our living room, but different. My family was playing a board game. No phones in sight. Everyone was laughing.

Outside it was raining, just like the day of the accident. But inside, it was warm and bright. I could almost smell mom’s cookies baking.

“This could have been tonight,” Jesus said softly, “if the phones had been put away.”
My heart felt like it was breaking. I never realized how much I’d missed by staring at a screen.

“Madison,” Jesus said, “your time here isn’t finished. You have an important message to share.”
“But I don’t want to go back,” I said, and I meant it. Being with him felt so good, so right. “I want to stay with you.”

He smiled that smile that made me feel completely loved. “I’m always with you, Madison. But your family needs you, and others need to hear what you’ve seen.”
“Will they listen?” I asked.

“Some will,” he said. “And that’s enough to start changing things.”
He touched my forehead and suddenly I felt myself being pulled back — away from his light, through the tunnel again, faster and faster.

Then pain. So much pain.
Beeping machines. Bright hospital lights. Someone yelling, “She’s back! We’ve got a pulse!”
I gasped for air, my chest burning like I’d swallowed fire. My whole body hurt. I couldn’t move my left leg. There was a tube down my throat.

The doctors called it a miracle. They said my heart had stopped for 12 minutes. They said I should have brain damage, but all my tests came back normal. They couldn’t explain it.
Mom cried for three days straight. Dad, who had been away on a business trip, refused to leave my hospital room after he arrived.

Tyler made me a card that said, “Best sister ever,” even though I’d been pretty mean to him lately.

When they finally took the breathing tube out, the first thing I said was, “Where’s my phone?”
Mom looked surprised. “Honey, it was destroyed in the crash.”

And I started crying. Not because I missed my phone, but because I was relieved it was gone.
It took weeks before I could tell them everything I’d seen. At first, I was afraid they wouldn’t believe me. But something had changed in me, and they could see it.

The first night I was home from the hospital, I asked everyone to put their phones in a basket. Then I told them about Jesus. About the screens. About the shadows. About the moments we’d lost.
I told them how the devices we think keep us connected are actually tearing us apart.
Dad cried. I’d never seen him cry before.

That was six months ago.
Our house is different now. We have a phone box that all devices go into during family time. We started playing board games on Friday nights. Mom deleted most of her social media apps. Dad stopped bringing his laptop home from work. Tyler still plays games, but with a timer — and mostly ones we can play together.

The hardest part was going back to school and telling my friends.
Some of them thought I was weird now. Some stopped hanging out with me because I wouldn’t spend lunch period scrolling through TikTok anymore.
But some listened.

My best friend Zoe deleted Snapchat after I told her what I saw. She said she’d been feeling more anxious and sad lately but couldn’t figure out why. Now she’s sleeping better.

I still struggle sometimes. Those apps are designed to pull you back in. Sometimes I borrow Mom’s phone and find myself mindlessly scrolling before I even realize what I’m doing.
The habit is strong. But now I can feel when it’s happening — like Jesus opened my eyes to see the chains.

If you’re listening to this, I want you to try something. Just for one day, put your phone away. Look at the people around you. Really look at them. Listen when they talk. Feel the sun on your face without taking a picture of it.

You might be surprised by what you hear in the quiet.
Jesus told me that the enemy can’t create anything. He can only distort what God made. He took our need for connection and twisted it into something that actually isolates us. He took our desire to be known and loved and convinced us that likes and followers could fill that hole.
They can’t. They never will.

I know some people won’t believe my story. That’s okay.
But if you’re a parent listening to this — please hear me.
Your kids need you to be brave. They need you to set boundaries they can’t set for themselves. They need you to create space where God’s voice can be louder than the screens.
And (no matter your age) — know that you’re worth more than your follower count. The filtered, perfect lives you see online aren’t real.

The shadows want you to believe you’re missing out. But the truth is, life — real life — is happening right now, all around you.
And Jesus is trying to get your attention. Maybe this video is one way he’s doing that.
I don’t have all the answers. I’m just a 14-year-old girl who died for 12 minutes and came back different.

But I know what I saw. I know what I felt. And I know we can’t keep living like this — heads down, thumbs scrolling, hearts empty.

Put down your phone. Look up. He’s waiting to show you what really matters.
Because the truth is, none of us know how much time we have left.
And I don’t want to waste another second of mine on shadows and screens.

My name is Madison Taylor Brooks.
I died on October 17th.
And Jesus sent me back to tell you this.”

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Jesus is opening our eyes to the chains. The enemy has found his way into every home, and every screen is a little glowing prison where we are held in bondage. The enemy of our soul and his workers speak lies through our screens, and we keep coming back for more. Chained. Captive. Enslaved.

Jesus said in Luke 4: 18-19, “God has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”

It’s time to be set free, my fellow captives. The enemy has done his damage and now it’s time to cry out to the Lord for him to break these chains. Jesus, set us free.

Psalm 107: 13-14, “Lord, help! they cried in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He led them from the darkness and deepest gloom; he snapped their chains.”

Break these chains, Lord. We’re truly in trouble here.

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