G.W. Bill Elliott, Jr once noted;
The absolute of uncertainty keeps uncertainty from being an absolute, which certainly is absoluting.
Week:
7
Discernment and Guarding Influence
Protecting mind, attention, sources, and speech. Participants learn to steward attention and to evaluate influences—media, relationships, and internal narratives—that shape belief and behavior. The week offers tools for discernment, boundaries for healthy consumption, and practices for truthful, life-giving speech. The aim is a guarded openness: receptive to God while wise about what shapes us.
Objectives
Test impressions against Scripture and wise counsel.
Practice discernment in media, relationships, and habits.
Identify sources that shape thinking and behavior.
Reflections
What boundary will I set this week?
How do I test what I hear or feel?
What source most shapes my thinking?
NowTo the HowTo
Accountability/Tracking
Use a shared spreadsheet to track sources audited and one action taken for each.
Community Action
Share one media or habit you’ve changed and why; invite feedback and alternatives.
Creative Project
Build a “Source Control” checklist card with three questions to ask before consuming content.
Leader Prompt
Teach a simple discernment rule set (Scripture, peace, wise counsel) and run a short case study.
Personal Practice
Do a 48 hour “source audit” and remove or mute one recurring negative input.
Devotionals
Broadminded and Resistant
Those two traits rarely exist in the same sentence, but our devotional for today encourages us to be broadminded, but retain an ability/willingness to be resistant. Sure, seems those would almost never exist in you life, let alone actually making an effort to develop and strengthen them. Broadminded simply means your heart and spirit are open and ready for His guidance, for His leading FOR you. In fact, Ephesians 3:16-19 admonishes us; " That he would grant you, according to the riches of...
Subjective Perspective
How I view things is quite different than most people. Not at all because I am special, mostly because I am taller than most people. I can see over cubical walls without getting on my tip-toes; I can change ceiling lights without a ladder; I can even sit in the back of an auditorium and still over most of the audience. My perspective, my vantage point, the world I experience is subjective. It is unfair to be critical of anyone who needs/uses a ladder to change a ceiling lightbulb......
Wandering You
Walking or traveling along a straight line or path is the shortest and most efficient means to travel from Point A to Point B. That's all well and good as long as you are not inside a house or building (trying to get from the kitchen to the bathroom, say), or not in Manhattan (trying to get uptown from the Statue of Liberty). Buildings and objects, natural obstacles, and simple old detours can often make your 'straight and efficient' trip quite a bit longer, quite a bit more frustrating, and...
Source Control
As a programmer, I use the term Source Control to explain how 'source code' (the program and files) are stored and controlled for safe and secure keeping. Oddly, our closeness to the Lord has many of the same characteristics. Our devotional today reminds me that His protection and fellowship is best when I remain close and 'under His umbrella of grace'... not a body guard, at all... a complete refuge. Reading Psalms 32:7 , it states; " Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from...
Attention to Derail
No, today's devotional is not about train safety, or rail-yard protocol. Too very often, my spirit, my trust in the Lord, my peace and hope in Him... are derailed by giving too much attention to temporal things; be it financial woes, family concerns, or even the never tiring political & social struggles. I just end up in a puddle of worry, or tending toward hopelessness, and worse, that ugly feeling of solitude and abandonment (where's God?). But back to derailing, because my train-of-thought...