The Dona Watson Show

Are You Listening to the HOLY SPIRIT or AI?

• Dona Watson • Season 3 • Episode 9

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In today's digital age, the lines between technology and spirituality are becoming increasingly blurred. As AI and machine learning continue to advance, many are left wondering: are we listening to the Holy Spirit or the whispers of artificial intelligence? Join us as we delve into the fascinating intersection of faith and technology, and explore the implications of relying on AI for guidance. Are we compromising our spiritual discernment by relying on algorithms and data analysis? Or can technology be a powerful tool for spiritual growth and enlightenment? Listen to find out.

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Speaker 00:

Hello, hello. Welcome to the Dona Watson Show. I'm your host, Dona Watson.

Speaker 00:

How do we differentiate between divine guidance and artificial intelligence in our daily lives? As a follower of Christ, it's extremely important to me to live my life in a way where I know I'm relying on the Holy Spirit for my daily decisions in my daily walk. And as AI has become such an incredible useful tool for so many in our society, it's everywhere, from our computers to our phones to... they're putting it in refrigerators. They're putting it in so many different things. And AI has been incorporated into so many aspects of our society. And I know that there's a growing reliance on AI in our daily lives. Sometimes we don't even realize it's a factor. I'm also seeing a lot of people having questions about how Christians should respond to this trend.

Speaker 00:

Like it or not, love it or hate it, I think AI is here to stay. And it's extremely important that we figure out now, as Christians, we figure out now, before we head down a slippery slope that's too difficult to climb back up, how do we follow the voice of the Holy Spirit in our lives and make sure that that is the voice of God, the voice of the Holy Spirit as the triune Godhead.

Speaker 00:

For an example, we can look at the creation of this video that you're watching right now. There are some amazing modern AI tools out there that I've recently found where I could create an amazing script for the video, complete with the hook, the conclusion, the prompt, the body, everything that I need. And it would be full of scripture references. And it can even write a prayer for me at the end. And it's a good script. It's like, there's nothing in it that I would disagree with.

Speaker 00:

As I'm looking at this and I'm playing with these tools to see how they can make my work go smoother and faster, I felt a check inside. And I heard God say, "Are you sure about this?" Whenever I hear that check, I know that that's the voice of the Holy Spirit. And when I listen to it, He is faithful to continue to check me when I need to be checked. And so I said, "Okay. Okay, God, what is it? What do you want to tell me?" And I spent some time in prayer about it.

Speaker 00:

And I felt God redirect me away from some of these uses of AI. God said, "Seek me first and say the words that I will give you. Speak on the topic that I will give you because there's going to be somebody out there who is looking for this answer and they need to hear this right now. And AI doesn't know what that is. Let me direct you."

Speaker 00:

And so I said, "Okay." There is no replacing the voice of the Holy Spirit in our lives. That is a direction that only God can give us. AI will only give us the information that comes out of the prompt that we feed it. God is faithful to give us what we need when we need it, even when we don't know we need it. That is one of the beauties of this. So let's talk about this.

Speaker 00:

As Christians, we are called to walk in the flow of the Holy Spirit. And it is so important that when we're walking with God, guys, it gets to be easy. And this is where AI becomes such a tempting tool. It makes life easy. Satan creates counterfeits. But Jesus is the one who said... "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I'm humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light." That's Matthew 11:28 to 30.

Speaker 00:

God has promised that when we walk with him, when we put our burdens on him and we rely on him, guys, it gets to be easy. AI promises us it'll be easy, it'll be fast, but it's not the voice of the Spirit. There is no replacing that divine guidance, that divine element that knows more than AI. I cannot stress that enough. When we rely on God, yeah, we still have challenges, but we get to navigate those challenges with ease and with a lightness of heart that is only possible when we walk in the flow of the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 00:

There's a lot of talk these days about walking in flow. And to me, walking in flow is walking hand in hand with the Holy Spirit as he flows through my life and carries me through easily to the things that I need to get through. That is flow. That is divine flow. That is walking in divine flow. If we're struggling, it just means that something's out of balance and we need to spend time with God and figure out what that is so that we can walk easy in the flow of the spirit.

Speaker 00:

I'm a fantasy writer. If you've followed me for any number of time, you know that, and a reader. I love fantasy fiction. People have asked me why? Why fantasy? And the best answer I can give is because sometimes fantasy fiction seems more real than the real world. Our world has relied so much on science that it has told us if you can't see it and touch it, it's not real. But that's not what my Bible says. My Bible says what's unseen is what's real. Sometimes in fantasy fiction, that's taken more literal than it is here in our world today.

Speaker 00:

2 Corinthians 4:18 says, "So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever."

Speaker 00:

How does that have anything to do with this argument, with this topic? It's all about walking in the flow of the Spirit and allowing the Spirit to guide our lives rather than technology. This is so important, guys. I cannot stress this enough. Eternity is more lasting than this temporary world. Everything that you can see and touch is temporary. It's not going to last. It could burn up. It could wash away. It's not gonna last. What's gonna last is what you cannot see, your soul. The spirit world, the angelic realm, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, the risen Jesus Christ, those are eternal. Those are the things that will last forever. And when we fix our gaze on those eternal things, it guides our steps. so it's easier to walk in the flow of the Spirit and to allow the Spirit to guide our lives and our directions.

Speaker 00:

So how do we find that flow of the Holy Spirit? This has really been a focus of mine this year. I've been pressing in hard to find ways to walk in the flow of the Holy Spirit because God said it gets to be easy, right? and i said, "Okay, Lord, you said it gets to be easy. Why isn't this easy?"

Speaker 00:

He says, "Well, what's unbalanced in your life? What haven't you given me?" Hmm. Okay. So I give those things to the Lord and it gets a little bit easier. For me, over the course of this year in particular, I've been able to break this down into four words: awareness, surrender, prayer, and Bible.

Speaker 00:

First of all, we need to become aware of our need for God in our lives. And when we become aware of our need for God, we become aware of our shortcomings. And that causes us to reach out to God. And when we reach out to God, it causes us to surrender to God who we are, what we have, everything in our lives. The more we give him, the more we get back. And when we surrender everything to God, we fall in love with him. And we want to spend more time with him because he's a good father. And he fills us with this joy and peace that the world just can't give us. And that makes us want to spend time with him by talking to him, which is prayer. Prayer is just talking to God. And by reading his word. His word is like... the strategic guidebook that he has given us to help us govern our life on this world.

Speaker 00:

When we call out to God, when we pray to him, he always answers us. He is so faithful to answer us. And when we hear the voice of God more, then we respond and we can walk in the Spirit more easily when we hear him more. Make sense?

Speaker 00:

Galatians 5 talks a lot about walking in the Spirit. When we walk in the Spirit, we place our trust in Christ Jesus. We trust Him with everything, guys. I used to work with a lady years and years ago, and she heard me saying about something I was praying about. It was a tiny little thing. I don't even remember what it was. She turned to me with this big scowl on her face, and she said, "You don't think God cares about that, do you?" And i said, "Oh yes, i do! i believe he cares very deeply about every little thing in my life. He is my good father.." What good father does not care about the things that bother their children? Of course he cares and he wants to help me through that and she just had such a hard time comprehending that concept. To her, God was just this big huge thing that kept the sun and the moon going around and only looked at the big things in life. But that is the beauty of God. He does the big things and he does the little things. He cares about the little things in your life.

Speaker 00:

So how do you know if you're walking in the Spirit? Well, let's continue in Galatians 5 here. In verse 16 it says, "So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives, and then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves." If you're able to walk away from your sinful nature cravings, that is one way you know that you're following the Holy Spirit. You're following the Holy Spirit flow in your life. Let's read on. Galatians 5: 22 and 23 says, "But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things." Let's read on a couple more verses. It says, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.”

Speaker 00:

When we follow these guidelines in order to live our life, that's how we find the flow of the Holy Spirit in our lives. That's how we walk according to godly principles. Matthew 7:16 tells us that we can identify followers of Jesus Christ by their fruit. Apples come from apple trees. Pear trees produce pears. Followers of Christ produce godly traits in their lives. That's their fruit. Those nine fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Do you see that in your life today? That's one way you can know that you're walking in the spirit.

Speaker 00:

Why is this important? Can't we just live our lives and go about our lives and do our things? Why? Why do we care? We care because this is how God designed us. God created us with this God-sized hole in our lives. Satan perverts whatever God has created. And Satan knows, the enemy knows, you have a God-sized hole in your life. And he'll try to fill it with anything but God. The world will tell us: "self first." God says, "Spirit first. You put me first."

Speaker 00:

You fill that God-sized hole with God. And he'll take care of all these other things. This is how we find fulfillment. This is how we find purpose and how we can find the strength to complete our assignments on this earth. In this era of artificial intelligence, it is so important that we learn to exercise our spiritual muscle of discernment. God knows your past and your future, and he knows what's best for you. And he will reveal to you through the Holy Spirit as an inner knowing when you ask him. AI can't do that.

Speaker 00:

When you spend time in prayer, God will answer you. Jeremiah 33:3 says, "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know." With AI, you have to know how to write a good prompt. Without a good prompt, you're not gonna get good results. With God, he knows us way better than AI and we can just appeal. We can say, "God, I don't know what I don't know. Please help me figure this out. Guide me with your Holy Spirit and tell me what I need to know." And he is faithful to do that. He can fill those gaps and tell us what we need to know.

Speaker 00:

With AI, you have to know how to write a good prompt, right? But sometimes you still can get too much information and then you've got to sort through it to find the core of what you need and not get distracted onto some other tangent. But see, God already knows what you need. He knows what you need way better than AI does. And when we rely on him, it becomes easier and sometimes even quicker because God can cut through all that detritus. He can cut through all the extra stuff and give us just what we need right in that moment, right at that time.

Speaker 00:

So who is more powerful? God or artificial intelligence? The divine or the digital? I think you know the answer to that. There is nothing more powerful than God, and he knows you far better than any other person or being on this earth.

Speaker 00:

In conclusion, I want to mention a story that I recently heard. I've been following the musical artist Forrest Frank, and he hit the news lately with a story. About three weeks ago from the time I'm filming this video, he was getting ready to go out on a musical tour and he fell in his driveway and broke his back. X-rays proved he definitely had his back fractured in more than one place. He was in excruciating pain. But God had instructed him to invest in certain technology that he had at his house and he was thinking, "This was the hand of God." He felt led to continue his work, even as he was laying in bed, housebound, unable to go on tour, he could still create music. And during the first two weeks that he was laid up and in pain, he produced and wrote with collaborators or by himself, two hit songs, two songs that hit the top of the charts. One was "God's Got My Back." I love that. And the other was "Lemonade."

Speaker 00:

Life gives us the bitter and the sweet, and Jesus makes lemonade out of it. He turns all things for our good. And Forrest is thinking, "Oh my goodness, God, what is happening? This is so amazing. You're continuing to work." And he was praising God over this message that was being reached by so many people. Lo and behold, there were also a lot of people praying for Forrest. And about two weeks after his accident, God miraculously healed him. He had no more pain. He went down and had x-rays. There was no sign of fracture anywhere in his back. It was a miraculous healing. Praise God. You can go to his Instagram feed and find the whole story there. He's put it on his feed. To God's glory.

Speaker 00:

One of his songs says, "Your Way's Better." Your way is better. We can search until our head hurts but only in the end do we find out that God's way is better. God tells us, "This is the way, walk in it." Isaiah 30:21 says, "Your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, 'This is the way, walk in it,' whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left." God is faithful. When we ask him for answers, he will give them to us.

Speaker 00:

So I challenge you, when you're looking for answers, don't run to ChatGPT. Don't run to Claude. Don't run to AI. Consider asking God first. God's more than a firefighter. He's not there only when you have a problem that needs to be solved. He wants to walk with you every day. He wants you to walk in the flow of the Holy Spirit. He wants to make it easy. Life will still have challenges. Things will still break. But when we walk in the flow of the Holy Spirit, we get to navigate those way easier than if we were relying on our own strength or on technology.

Speaker 00:

I'd love to hear how God has moved in your life and any experiences that you might have had where you heard the voice of God and what happened next. As you share your comments about how the Holy Spirit has guided you, it will encourage others. And you would get to be a blessing to other people. So drop your stories in the comments, guys. I want to hear. I want to hear how God's moving in our lives and how he's been faithful to you.

Speaker 00:

Until next time, walk with God. Find the flow of the Spirit. He loves you so much. Talk to you later.

Speaker 00:

If you love this, please give it a like or thumbs up or leave a comment with your thoughts. I love to hear from you and your comments help me to know what topics you'd like to see me cover. For more information on my books and other projects, visit my website at DonaWatson.com or my Sub stack at DonaWatson.substack.com.