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Full Transcript:

Note: This is an automated transcript and misspells or grammar errors may be present.

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous.

Mom and Isaac from Resolute Man Together pursuing the mission to impact 10 million families and their legacies for the Kingdom of God.

We’ve been married for 23 years and are seeing the fruit from raising our nine children biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the Bible.

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Org. Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world. Hey, welcome to the podcast.

Hey guys.

An unusual episode. We do this once a year.

I know last year when we did the predictions for 2023, right. That was a really fun. We actually got a lot of people commenting that they really enjoyed that.

Yeah, and it’s not just about predictions. It’s like, okay, what’s happening? What are the trends of what’s happening and what’s how are we as Christians to respond to this and live in a quip or children or marriages? That’s right. How are we to live in these times of accelerated change, these unprecedented times where there’s challenges?

Well, and this is a parenting podcast. And so there is this for us, for Isaac and I, as parents of nine kids, we want to be realists. You know, I think that there’s it’s important that we are realistic and honest about the things that are happening in the world so that we can make wise decisions moving forward as we’re seeking guidance from the Lord based upon the reality that we’re living in.

I mean, if you’re teaching your kids how to play a game, for example, you want to know how the game works, right? And what the rules are and and what’s happening. Right. So if you’re teaching a game, then you know how to equip them for that game. But if the game is rapidly changing.

Or the rules are constantly changing.

As a parent, as their guidance person, you’re not understanding of the changes. You may not be preparing them to thrive.

To play well in.

The game and play well. That’s right. And while biblical truth never changes and with Bible says and what God has us to do and operate. The world is changing and we need to know how to equip our children for that world to.

Be able to navigate and thrive, right, while also continuing to live in a way that is glorifying to the Lord. Okay, so this is a unique year because it’s an election year. The last time we saw an election year was in 2020, and we definitely saw all kinds of things happening. That was the year of the pandemic, and there was a push for vaccinations that created division among the churches, among the body of Christ. People were choosing not to continue going to churches based upon political stance, all the things. Right. And it was a huge year. So here we are again in 2024. It’s an election year. Well, it’s a.

Big deal because, you know, if the liberals from from from the Democrat elite’s point of view is if they don’t win, then there could be a swing back against all of their momentum to change the world, all of their momentum to completely, yeah, transform America. And you see with the open borders, all the things you probably know about, but there’s this effort to completely transform the world and America, and you have to transform America to transform the world. So they have to.

Change the demographics they’ve been working on, that they’ve been changing the voter demographics through immigration and other things, um, here in America. So it’s obviously going to affect the election, the election.

And, you know, there’s no way to it looks like it’s a challenging proposition for the conservatives to fix how the election works, like voter machines, the mail in ballots, all these things are being addressed. But in from what I can see, it looks like that’s not likely to get resolved in time for this election. And so there’s a lot of things that are in play to cause the Democrats to win, even if the even if most people, you know, don’t want, say, Biden to win or something like that, whoever, you might not even be Biden, it might be Newsome. Or there’s even talk of Michelle Obama and some weird things like that that they put in place to run against what appears to be Trump. He’s by far and wide the front runner at this point. So and so because.

Of that, because he’s a forerunner. What do you think is what are we going to be seeing this next year as far as distractions? And.

Well, I just think whatever it takes, I mean, that’s what we need to be prepared for. I can’t think pinpoint it, but it’s going to be if you put yourself in their shoes, it’s going to be a whatever it takes kind of effort. And we know they’ll go beyond the boundaries of the law and all these kinds of things lacking integrity to, uh, you know, get rid of Trump and to make sure they win. Because this agenda is far beyond America. This is a whoever the deep state are or whatever. It’s this global agenda. So, you know, it’s really interesting year. We’re not to operate in fear, but it’s good to kind of know about these things and go, okay, they’re going to do whatever they can to take Trump out and win this thing, even though they have somebody in office that they literally have to hold up. So and I don’t mean that from a I’m not trying to be mean to somebody. I’m just that’s true. So yeah. Um, so the election year brings a lot of interesting things. And then and on top of that, um, oh, by the way, you know, you just look at the, the, the some of the elites out there and what’s happening with Epstein stuff and what’s happening and things that are coming to light. You know, if if Trump gets in office, there are people that are going to go to jail. There’s elite people that are so much is going to get exposed. And so that’s why I really believe there’s going to be a whatever it takes kind of mindset to.

Towards not letting him get in office. Then they know there’s going to be accountability for them. And so whoever. Yeah, yeah. And whoever I mean as far as like the Christian who’s sitting there in their home right now, maybe they’re listening. Their kids are in the background doing homeschool or they’re playing on the rug and moms are listening. They’re like, yeah, this is going to be kind of a weird year. I, we want to bring this up to you, not to cause any kind of anxiety or anything like that. It’s it’s kind of like what Isaac was describing previously about when you’re teaching your kids a game and you’re teaching them how to play the game, you’re teaching them what the rules are, what the instructions are, you’re teaching them strategy. You’re you’re kind of sitting beside them and you’re teaching them well, isn’t that what we’re doing as parents when we’re discipling our kids and equipping them to be ready for life? For in life is not a game. So how much more important is it? Right. And and so for us, when we’re looking at what’s happening politically in the world, that’s just one aspect. Then there’s this element of what’s happening spiritually in the world, right? Which we’ll talk about in just a second. But the two actually impact one another in a sense, because when there is a political when politics is like a highlight in the. Here, you definitely see people rising up and speaking biblical truth, but you also see people. You see the opposite, right? You see the spiritual, um, the the antagonist rising up, if you will, and the enemy spewing lies and different things like that. And sometimes it can be hard to, to discern what is actual truth, which is what I remember 20, 20 like. There was even Christians who were getting led astray by myths and different things. Right? And and we as Christians need we want to just exhort you guys to stand firm in biblical truth and not be led astray by wayward philosophies of the day.

So, you know, it really is it. You make a such a good point. It really is a spiritual battle that. But it’s more overt than we’ve ever seen. That’s why some people, you’re almost going to feel like it’s a little bit crazy. I think a word for this year, it might be, wow, things are getting really crazy. And I think that.

What’s accepted in today is crazy.

Yeah, even compared to what we’ve seen already. Uh, and so it’s because the spiritual battle there is the enemy is fully revealing himself and orchestrating. I don’t think there’s any you know, when we say deep state in these kinds of things, there are leaders trying to move things, but the level at which everything is happening is spiritual. Only, um, demonic forces could orchestrate that and connect the dots, because we.

Haven’t even, like, talked about how that was also, the year in 2020 was the year where we started realizing there was like an agenda for compliance, an agenda for this and for that. And then there’s an attack on children and, and this like, gender confusion agenda that’s being taught in schools. And there’s, there’s literally so many things that we could mention.

It’d be hard for one little group to, to orchestrate all of these things happening around the world. There is orchestration by humans, but it’s it’s working simultaneously together with others they’re not orchestrating with because there’s a spiritual force. The good news is, God is all powerful. You know that. And we can rest assured in his goodness and his power. But while we’re on earth, these things are happening. There’s pains, um, birth pains. Right? The Bible talks about birth pains during end times, uh, that we’re living through right now. So I actually think it’s fascinating times. I actually think it’s the greatest time to be alive, because this is when God has called us and your children to be alive. So we’re not to operate in fear, but we do need to kind of think about these things. And so we might see some weirdness, uh, during this election year. But also let’s talk about the economy this year. Um, you know, the economy is weirdly strong. And now I know, you know, the price of food, Isaac, is so high inflation and these kinds of things, when I say it’s so strong, I say it’s so strong because I think it actually is way worse than it’s demonstrating it to be. Um, meaning that, um, the real estate, for example, is holding so strong. Um, there’s a lot of things, but I think it this year there’s going to be an unraveling in many ways to think that there’s always opportunity in economies. But, um, it’s really interesting, but it’ll be propped up a bit because of election year again, because they’ll want to make Biden, um, look good. So probably we can anticipate some rate drops this year and help real estate do well. Anything they can do to prop up the economy and make it look good. But when they prop it up, it doesn’t mean it is good.

Yeah, I just even think of the other day I was noticing that gas prices had kind of gone down a they’ve gone down from where they were a few months after Biden took office. They skyrocketed into the fives here in Idaho. And now they’re like in the threes. Right. And so it’s still not as low as they were with the previous administration, but they’re lower the lowest that they’ve been with this administration. And I can’t help but think oh it’s an election year. They’re trying to win votes. Like I just I think of many different things. But there’s also this element of being aware that, you know, I’m sure that there is a fear that they’re going to lose office. Right. And so like what you’re saying is that they’re going to try anything to hold the economy and keep it looking strong. It could be a facade, but looking strong throughout the year. And what’s interesting about that is if the Democrats do lose office, then when the economy does crumble, who are they going to blame it on? They’re going to blame it on the next administration because it’s likely going you can only hold something up for so long, right? Yeah. And so it’s really sad. Yeah.

So the economy’s going to be interesting wars. You know let’s talk about that for a second. You know there’s when when this Israel thing started breaking out and you start seeing the countries involved, uh, and you look at who’s helping who. Russia, these alliances China, Syria, Syria, Iran, uh, Libya, I believe, uh, Turkey, you know, and then you read in Ezekiel 38 and other places in the Bible about the war of Gog and Magog. And you can’t help but notice that when you really look at what countries they’re talking about, there it is exactly. These countries that are forming an alliance against the people. Of God. Why do I say people of God? Because in the Bible, the Israelites are God’s chosen people, right? And and so here they are coming against. And I think that, you know, it’s very interesting if it is the biblical prophecy before our eyes materializing or just setting up the stage, we’re going to see more of this this year whenever the big thing happens. The war of Gog and Magog like, accelerates at some point. What’s really fascinating is God helps Israel win the war. I mean, fireballs come down from heaven. As I read in my Bible, I know it’s the same one as yours. So? So you know, that is wild. That is a wild thing to think about. So just to think that we may be living in times where the beginning of this is happening is kind of intriguing. So it’ll be interesting to see what happens this year. With that, of course, war is sad, uh, on all accounts, loss of life and the tragedy and so forth. But it is kind of fascinating to see what’s going on. I hope that boy, isn’t it remarkable what happened the last three years around the world in terms of wars and rumors of wars it talks about in Matthew. We’re going to live in times of wars and rumors of wars.

The thing is that this is not the first time that there have been wars or rumors. Rumors of wars, the birth pains, if you’ve ever I mean, obviously, if you’re a parent, you’ve gone through, well, maybe not if you’ve adopted, maybe you haven’t had birth pains, but they do come and go. The contractions come and grow, and then you get into a time of transition and then you move forward towards actually birthing the baby. There’s pushing all those things. It’s much more intense. And so birth pains, though, for one woman, could be a couple hours, birth pains for another could be days and days and days, you know, so equivalent as far as like what is happening in the world end times. Well, we know when Jesus left and he and he said, hey, lo, I’ll be with you always to the end of age, that was really the mark of when end times would begin. And none of us are going to know when the end end is coming. But we get to experience this season, like you said, that God put us in. And so for parents who are listening, I just want to my tender mama heart and knowing how it can be a challenge for people to feel overwhelmed, to feel anxious, um, and, you know, I’ve even had thoughts where it’s like, well, I have all these teenage boys and, you know, the threat of war in the future, um, just praying for God’s protection over them that they wouldn’t have to go to war and things like that.

It’s a very personal thing when you have older sons and you’re thinking about that. And I’ve already been prayerfully preparing my heart to give my boys back to the Lord, fully knowing that whatever God has for them to do, whether it be war or not, war, he’s got them and they’re his. And so I just I want to share Ephesians chapter six with you guys, um, briefly, because this is really what our response should be to the reality of all these things that we’re we’re sharing with you guys and just bringing up here that are going to be strange this year. Right. But what should our focus be on? Our focus should be on the Lord. It should be on equipping our children, not blindsiding and ignoring the reality. The reality is what actually humbles us to be on our knees crying out to God. So I just shared something that was really powerful with you that like I as a mom, don’t want to see my sons have to go to war. Does that reality of the future take me to a position of action though? 100%. So ignoring that that could be a possibility then would lead me to a place of inaction in my walk with God and in my prayer life. And so the realities that we’re bringing to you are not coming to you from a heart of like, we really hope that people are paying attention and leave it at that.

That’s not the point. The whole point is when we see the realities of what are happening in the world, we’re able to better teach our children a biblical perspective on a fallen world and their generation. Specifically, how else can you equip a generation to be prepared to launch into their generation, into the fallen world? You can’t do that if you’re not operating in reality with a biblical lens. Here’s the other aspect. We need to be people of action. And action does not always have to look the same as a brother or sister that we see on social media, picketing and doing the front lines. For the mom who has the little kids, you need to be on your knees praying for your brothers and sisters in Christ who are on the front lines. You need to be on your knees praying for your kids, because your kids might be the ones who are on the front lines, or you might be there in 20 years. Prayer is action. It is the best weapon that we have in this fallen world. And God gives us the armor. It says, finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual.

Forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand firm. Stand therefore fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and the shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace, I want peace. You guys, in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith. It says in all circumstances take up the shield of faith, not just when you’re at war. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, not just when you’re in a trial, not just when inflation is high and all circumstances take up the shield of faith. And it just continues on the helmet of salvation, it says, take up the shield of faith, which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, and take on the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God. Here we are, verse 18, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that the words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel. And then just last words for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak.

I just love her love of the Word of God, and it just comes through every time she shares Scripture. It’s so good! Thanks, honey. It’s so awesome.

But I just like when I read this, I literally go look at that. God’s saying, put on all these things in all circumstances. But then he wraps it up saying, pray. Yeah, that’s our action. Mom’s like, for those of us who are we? We go through this list and we’re sharing with people what to expect. Like pray about these things. Praise God that you know more now. Yeah, so that you can pray.

Absolutely. So good. So freedom of speech. You know, I think it’s interesting to see what happened to Twitter. Um, and just the exposure of how government was involved in suppressing speech, especially during the last election and these kinds of things. So that’s already been exposed. So it’ll be interesting to see how they try and suppress freedom of speech or collude with different platforms in this coming election. Or maybe it’s harder now because Elon bought Twitter or X and now he is very pro freedom of speech and I appreciate that. So you know what’s interesting I think that was a big move. And so there’s some bright spots right there. Uh wow. There’s there’s now a platform that’s the most popular platform for political discussion and things like that is X. And you know, it’s relatively free. Right? There’s probably the freest place that’s big like that to to talk about things. And so that’s really neat. And you know I think that’s helpful. But I think we’re going to see obviously they’re going to try and suppress freedom of speech. It’ll be interesting to see what happens. I remember last time even our posts and things like that got more censored. And conservatives felt that across the board. So, you know, that could happen again potentially on the different platforms. Yeah.

Um, well, and I will say too, this is an invitation for you guys to join us in the Be Courageous app because I, I truly am just kind of I’ve been disappointed on being on other social media platforms, largely haven’t really felt the the need to put energy there simply because of the censorship. It’s so incredibly discouraging. And so when you know, when you’re trying to be a light, but then a couple hundred people see your post instead of the few thousand, it’s it’s discouraging.

30,000.

Yeah, yeah, 36,000. So I mean, it’s like an obvious shadow banning, if you will, or censorship. And so, you know, that’s one of the things we love about the Be Courageous app. There’s no algorithms, there’s no censorship.

And so somebody posts it, you see it. Everybody gets to see what people are posting and what’s happening. And it’s lift each other up in prayer believers. And yeah, it’s it’s becoming really, really effective. I’m glad you’re enjoying it, honey. It’s good to see you so involved.

It’s it’s better than what I have experienced in the past with other social media by the way.

I would just say, you know, with freedom of speech potentially being challenged this year, more on platforms and things like that, I think it’s important you’re on our email list, so make sure you get on it. There’s some free things you’ll get to like, otherwise.

You might not hear from.

Us. Go Heart deep that new download of how to communicate with your kids three questions deep. Make sure you get that at courageous Parenting.com or Be Courageous ministry.org.

So let’s talk about the next thing on the list, which.

Is artificial intelligence. This is a big deal. So this is a big deal. And at the beginning I said appreciate the good. Well there is some good meaning that there are some efficiencies that are created with artificial intelligence. The truth is, before it became widespread, popular in a big discussion the beginning of this year. And we did talk about it in this podcast a year ago, right at the beginning of the more awareness of it. Artificial intelligence has been around a little while and before this year, but this year really went mainstream, starting with ChatGPT and then others in Google and everybody that’s. On. Uh, even Elon Musk launched his. And there’s so much out there. The acceleration of it. So I was listening to this interview with Elon was interesting because his kids were climbing around him. I appreciate that he doesn’t care that there’s kid noises around him when he’s on an interview with the millions of people here. I think that’s anyways, that was one thing I noticed. Um, but the but the second thing I noticed, he was talking about AI in the future of it, and he said, I’ve never seen anything grow as fast as AI has grown, meaning the amount of money going into it and the adoption and these things, it’s unheard of compared to any other technology ever before it. And he was talking about, I forget what they’re called, but these rooms, these buildings, really, uh, server buildings that are just for AI and processing data and for AI machines and so forth. And he said that these mega, these mega infrastructure pieces, um, all, all it takes and he was talking about the ones already being built, were built around all over the world.

And he said, it just takes two of those two of those mega ones to enable AI to process all human data that ever existed. Okay. So I just want you to make sure you heard that. So basically pretty quickly and this is already happening, I can process every bit of knowledge, anything ever done in human history. And and so the challenge that was they brought up an interesting challenge, which is how do we give AI more data so that it can make progress. And I thought that was interesting. So then they started talking about synthetic data. And it’s really kind of fascinating to to think about this. But there’s something called um, I think it’s AGI. Uh, anyways, I can’t think of it. Uh, I think it’s AGI. It’s, it’s basically where, uh, AI turns into, like, human intelligence and it’s it’s where they can I can perceive things. I can make decisions more like humans can and these kinds of things. So, and make inferences and read between the lines and all these beautiful things that humans only can do, um, are potentially becoming possible with AI. Not quite yet, but that is where it’s going. And I don’t like that. I don’t know if you like that or not. Probably not, but I don’t think that’s good. I don’t think it’s good for humanity. While there’s some efficiencies with AI, we’ll never use AI to write content or anything like that. That’s our promise to you. But I think that what it was is interesting is the plagiarism. What is interesting is what’s going to happen. There’s already been lawsuits, um.

College students that have tried to or.

Though the AI, these AI companies have used knowledge from people that have written literary works, and then that’s caused plagiarism out in the road, somebody out there using things, and the AI writes out something that was someone else’s in these kinds of things, and there’s proof that, you know, they fed it at the beginning, these people’s works. So it’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out. Um, you know, what does plagiarism mean?

Well, I looked up the definition. It says the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own. Um, another definition was just plagiarism is the act of taking a person’s original work and presenting it as if it was your own idea. Um, it’s not it’s interesting because in the States, there’s definitely been lawsuits about plagiarism. It’s been a thing. Right? Um, I think for the Christian, though, this is really a moral issue. And I think that for homeschool parents, I want to just ping you guys for a moment. This is an important thing that we teach our kids. Um, I remember growing up in public school, it was definitely something that professors were a stickler on. They were very careful. Even if you were doing a report and you were sourcing, you were putting citing sources. You had to cite them correctly and give credit where credit was due. Which makes me think of the Hebrews verse giving honor where honors due, giving respect where respect is due, giving credit where credit is due. This is an integral issue among Christians. And it’s interesting because like, I’ll even like be perusing through some of the books that I’ve read many, many years ago. Right. And I’ll see like a, a chapter title of something where I’m literally like, oh my goodness, another person made their entire, like, platform based upon that chapter’s title and somebody else’s book, and they have a whole writing on it, and you’re like, wow, they teach almost verbatim from somebody else’s book. And this is really an important thing because this is a matter of integrity. And if we’re not living it accurately as Christians, then how are our kids going to act?

I think the lines definitely have been blurred and people’s beliefs about it have been blurred. You’re just looked up. What the definition. I just.

Literally looked up the.

Definition. You know, even integral people, uh, don’t always agree with those definitions. I know that I’ve heard those conversations and. And it’s like, because it’s talking about ideas to somebody’s ideas and then bringing forth that idea as your own.

Well, what’s interesting about it is it, you know, I think now people get there’s so much information, right? We’re we’re past the age of information now. It’s like information overload or something. Right. But to the point where, like, people will be learning things and they can’t remember where they learned it from, right? So then they just like change a few of the words and they go, they call it good, right? Oh no, it’s my idea. I changed the words. I didn’t say it exactly. I changed the prepositions. And it’s like, no, that is lacking integrity. So as Christians, you know, using I, there’s an element there where we really need to evaluate, is this an integral thing depending on what you’re using it for?

And even if I came up with original content that wasn’t you, you’re like, wait a minute, you can’t put your fed at the prompts. I came up with the thought process to give the technology the prompts, and the prompts wrote it and I put my name on it. I go, I don’t know. I mean, I’m just giving you an example of how the lines have been blurred and how strange this is. And we’re going to go in. The other thing with AI that’s interesting is we’re going to go into a future, and this has to do with equipping your children right now. Would you say what you see online, like on social media and stuff, is people’s real lives for the most part or or just maybe the highlights? Usually it’s just the highlights, right? Yeah. And so now with with AI it’s going to become more fake. You’re going to what we see out there online. It’s not just the digital space. Yes is going because literally it’s going to get so good. I mean it is already so good where one of the biggest problems right now, I don’t know if you knew this is fake boyfriends and fake girlfriends, uh, that are AI and they’re communicating and adapting. The AI is adapting communication based on the preferences of this person and all these things, which is.

The data that’s been accumulated from watching someone social.

This is a major issue. And the repercussions of just that or any of these other things. The issues with it are huge. Now we is AI going to slow down or stop? No, no. So so we need to understand this is a reality of where things are going.

And as a parent, we need to have this conversation with our teenage kids, with our older kids, so that they don’t fall prey or victim to something like this. Right? Yeah. Where it’s like a fake person on the internet trying to get information from them. Well scam.

Them. Yeah. And there’s the deep fake problem which will grow, which is, you know, they can create videos of anybody’s image that looks perfectly real, saying things in their voice that looks perfectly real. And so I don’t fear that. And we’re out there, right? Yeah. But I don’t fear it because, you know, I believe we’re building, you know, your reputation could get tarnished by somebody. But let your life tarnish. They’re tarnishing.

Yeah, I love it. Yes.

Okay. So if you are living rightly and if people know you and you have a reputation that is different than somebody talking bad about you or I talking bad about you in the future or these kinds of things, then people are going to go, what? So let your real life tarnish the bad speaker about you without you even having to do anything. That’s how we’re to live our lives. That’s how we’re to do things online. That’s how ministry should be done. That’s how business should be done, is let your life speak for itself.

That’s right. And don’t listen to gossips, because that would be the other side of it. Yeah.

Also, it’s such a divisive thing. But this episode isn’t about gossip.

No, but.

You know, eventually I might be the worst gossips.

I know that’s what got me thinking about it. So, you know, I think that, you know, how does this relate to us as parents? Obviously, as your kids are getting older and they’re potentially, you know, dating for the purpose of marriage, there’s really no other way for me to put it. I hate that terminology of dating, but I’m also not in the courtship ring of things either. But you guys get where I’m saying, like, it’s important that we teach our kids what’s happening with AI because it could actually affect them, especially if they are on social media. So how do you raise your kids equipped to be able to navigate this world? Well guess what? The social world is not going anywhere. Ai is not going anywhere. And so preparing yourself a little bit ahead of time is not a bad thing right now. What are you going to do when you get off this podcast? You’re probably going to go, I need to pray. I really need to pray about these things. Awesome. If this podcast gets you to pray more, then we’ve done our job.

Yeah, and we don’t want AI to do too much for our kids. So the way they stop thinking and they stop making connections in the brain that, you know, that happen when people actually write their own works and speak their own things and do their own things in that way. Yeah, we don’t want to lose our brains and feed AI with synthetic data that becomes smarter than humans, and we’re becoming dumber. That doesn’t sound great, but I do believe I can create efficiencies and helpful, but it also can replace jobs and the integrity of work, and to where socialism has to come in and people have to be given money by the government. These are all thoughts they’ve already thought of and are already talking about and planning for. So this isn’t off the wall.

They’re indoctrinating the next generation in as well, just so you know.

So so we okay, so the next point is we have to be.

Woo hoo! I’m so happy to be alive.

No, but we do. We need to be optimistic and have joy in our hearts and understand this. So we have to get good at not just stuffing our head under the pillow, but understanding reality so we can equip our children, make good decisions preemptively. Because the faster things change, the earlier you need to make decisions to respond to that change so your family thrive. So we need to be proactive thinkers. We have to be visionaries. If you’re a parent, you have to have vision. It’s very important to think ahead and things like that. But we often also need to be optimistic. I do think these are fascinating times. This is an exciting time to be alive because we get to navigate this as Christians. We get to dive in. There’s going to be an increase in reading the Bible because we’re going to need it more than ever. I think that’s a positive. There’s going to be an increase in people being in real local community because they understand they need it more than ever. Things have been so easy in America compared to the history of the world and the rest of the world, that in in America, we’re going to be forced into a reality that has some good outcomes of it, which is real godliness, real community, real discipleship of our children versus just delegating it and, and to, to more surface level things.

It’s super, super important. So we need to deal in reality but be optimistic at the same time. How do you do that? Use cling to God. You grow your relationship with God. You grow your marriage relationship. So where it’s battle tested and it’s ready to withstand anything that comes your way, you operate in wisdom. You get wisdom. You equip your children. Take the parenting mentor program. It’s essential you get, uh, you get local. You start. If there’s a blackout, that means there’s no electricity. You can’t go anywhere. Uh, most likely, then, uh, certain kind of blackout. Right? Then, um, you know what matters to you all of a sudden? The people you can walk to. Right? And so think about that. Are you in a place where you would want to walk to people, where you are building community, or you could.

Write, like I just even think about, would they recognize you? Or would they think that you’re just some average Joe on the road and be like, why are they coming here and be scared, right? Like, I think that there’s a need. It’s a necessity to be familiar with your neighbors.

And the reason I mentioned this is because, you know, the World Economic Forum prophesied about the Covid thing happening before it happened.

You mean they leaked it? Just kidding.

And, uh, the other thing that hasn’t happened yet that they said that is going to likely happen is a virus on the Internet of Things, which would include, you know, a blackout of the internet, likely, and an electrical grid blackout and these kinds of things. Um, the reason this is not to stoke fear, these are literally things that they’ve said have happened. We might need to listen to things they think are going to happen because they maybe there’s elements of them that are creating these things, but it’s it’s important to think about, you know, okay, what if that does happen? Well, the more you’ve thought about it and done a little prep work and thought about this a little bit, the more confident you are. And so I think that as accelerated change happens, it’s important that we’re not living in a way where everything that changes becomes a surprise to us. We do need to think ahead because then we understand how to make good decisions. In Matthew 633 it says, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all things. All these things will be added to you. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. And so we are to trust God. We’re to operate in his strength and his wisdom. He is an Almighty God that loves us and loves your children and loves your spouse, loves the family, loves marriage, he created marriage. And so all of this is good and we can rest in that. But at the same time, he gave us responsibilities and those responsibilities we need to take action on. And part of it is to be aware so we can make good decisions.

Well, yeah, I mean, even just reading in Ephesians six it said, be aware. That was literally the verbiage. Be aware. Another part of Scripture says be alert, right. Um, you can’t expose the evil like we were reading about if you don’t know about the evil. So we have to have our eyes wide open so that we can be discerning so that we can be wise and recognize that there are schemes by the enemy, and to pray and to trust the Lord. And I know it’s easy to say, but harder to do at times. But, you know, as this next year rolls around, we’re really excited also about 2024, because it’s going to be a year of growth. Whenever there is any kind of challenge, whenever there’s any kind of like needing to discern things, if you run towards God and you run towards His Word, you’re going to grow in knowledge of His Word. You’re going to grow in spiritual maturity. You’re going to grow. Interest of him. Imagine if this year’s if you were to pick a word and your word was just growth, meaning growing in all ways possible in your relationship with God, then it’d be a really rad year.

It’s gonna be it’s a good year, great year. It’s going to be a good year. Let’s grow stronger in the Lord and let’s equip our children, uh, by discipling them most importantly, and loving them and building stronger relationships with them as well.

That’s right. See you next time. Hey, thanks for listening. And being a part of the 10 Million Legacies movement, go to Be Courageous Ministry. Org for more biblically based resources, ways to switch where you spend your money that support the mission and information about the incredible Be Courageous app community for believers.

Also, we wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online Parenting Mentor program.

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This is an incredible, self-paced program. We cover everything from tending to their hearts, handling obedience to overcoming mistakes most Christians are making. But more than that, it’s a supportive community. You’ll have access to our private group and the Be Courageous app, live webcast and direct access to us.

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