Be Careful, Little Mind: Discernment in a Season of Deception
“O be careful little eyes what you see
O be careful little eyes what you see
For the Father up above
Is looking down in love
So, be careful little eyes what you see”
We’re not so big for our britches now that we can’t learn from old Sunday School songs.
These songs are full of good skills to guard your heart. They are masterful at helping little ones learn the truth of Scripture. The truth doesn’t expire when you outgrow the felt board.
This song hits a critical area of the Christian life: who do we pay attention to?
Especially when there is much to be gained when we’re deceived?
Discernment in this upcoming election season in the United States is a non-negotiable.
The influencer forces designed to elicit a response from you are already out in full force. And they’re well-paid to get the details of that persuasion correct to benefit their patrons.
All the marbles are in play in the next few months. And all the grabby hands will do what they must to be the last one holding them in a tight fist.
And behind every one of those grabby hands is the same strategy that’s been running since Eden.
None of this is new.
Satan has always used partial truth to provoke a response. He did it in the garden and in the wilderness with Jesus.
And he’s doing it now, through a screen, on your lunch break, while you’re too busy and too tired to notice.
The delivery system has changed but the strategy hasn’t.
- Twist the truth just enough.
- Wrap it in something familiar.
- Make it feel urgent.
- Get you to act before you think.
- Get you to react before you pray.
Your outrage is someone else’s ROI. Every time you feel that rush of righteous anger from a headline, a clip, or a post, know that someone probably got paid for that.
Your emotional response is a line item in someone’s budget. They tested it and optimized it. When it was ready, they deployed it.
And it worked, because it felt to you like conviction. That’s the counterfeit with this particular iteration.
Outrage feels like conviction.
It feels like you’re standing for something. It feels righteous.
But the fruit of the Spirit and the fruit of manipulation look very different when you slow down long enough to examine them.
The enemy is counting on you being too busy to slow down.
The Host-es with the Mostest
Those same influencers throwing themselves on the marble pile are also some of the ones you trust the most. That’s become clear in the past few years in particular.
Deception always carries with it a measure of truth. A solid truth, a “proven” truth, if you will. The deception lies in the twists and turns of that truth.
That’s what makes it dangerous. If deception were obvious, it wouldn’t work.
The influencers spouting “obvious” nonsense tend to stand out. We call them clowns but we watch or listen to them anyway and say they’re crazy for what they believe.
But what about those we feel like we know? Those who we follow their real-life activities as if they sit with us at the same potluck table at church every week?
That deception works because it shows up in someone you’ve already wrapped your heart around. It feels familiar and safe because it acknowledges all the areas you want to be validated.
And it seemingly asks all the right questions: how could this happen, that’s not fair, and who will pay for this?
The serpent in the garden didn’t show up looking like a threat. He showed up asking a question.
The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?” — Genesis 3:1
With that question, Eve shot straight to the bottom of the click-bait funnel.
Satan was so slick in his positioning that she didn’t even consider the premise of the question.
God didn’t say they couldn’t eat from any tree. He gave them every tree in the garden, including the tree of life, which would have sustained their bodies for eternity.
One boundary in an entire garden of abundance, and Satan flipped it to sound like God was keeping them from something.
Once you’re responding to the wrong premise, the outcome is just a matter of time. That’s how outrage content works too.
What is discernment anyway?
Discernment is that sharp pull inside you that tells you something is off.
You won’t be able to explain it right away, and you may not have a footnoted argument ready. But you’ll just know that something isn’t sitting right, and you won’t be able to shake it.
If you’re a Christian, that pull is the Holy Spirit doing what Jesus promised He would do. When the truth of God’s Word is buried deeply in your own spirit, the Holy Spirit brings it to your mind when it’s being twisted.
You can’t train yourself into this response. You receive it.
Your job is to stay close enough to God, and deep enough in His Word, that the Spirit has something to work through.
“Let those who are wise understand these things. Let those with discernment listen carefully…”
Hosea 14:9 NLT
You don’t have to worry about figuring out who’s who and what’s what on your own.
The more you lean in to God, and his Word — every day — the more the deception will stand out to you.
It will flash like a billboard in Times Square.
You can’t know what comes against the Word of God, unless you know the Word of God.
And this is where that Sunday School song earns its keep. Because it doesn’t just say “be careful.”
It walks through every single way the enemy gets in.
Eyes, Ears, Tongue, Hands, Feet, Heart, Mind
“O be careful little eyes what you see…”
What are you choosing to watch, consume, click on, scroll through? Every piece of content you take in is either reinforcing truth or slowly bending it. The algorithm doesn’t care about your soul. It cares about your attention.
And the enemy always loves to go after what you look at first.
“O be careful little ears what you hear…”
Who do you listen to? What voices are you letting in? Who are you letting speak into your life on repeat? The talking head and the podcaster probably get the first fruits of your day. What are you absorbing from them without questioning?
The serpent’s first move was to get Eve to simply listen.
“O be careful little tongue what you say…”
What are you repeating? What are you amplifying? When you share that post, repost that hot take, pass on that salacious story along with an “I-knew-it-didn’t-add-up,” you’re putting your name on it.
You become part of the distribution chain.
Are you distributing truth? Or have you become a mouthpiece for someone else’s agenda without realizing it?
“O be careful little hands what you do…”
What are you acting on? Outrage is designed to move you before you think. It’s designed to get your hands moving, sharing, and reacting before your spirit has had a chance to check it.
Satan wants your hands busy before your knees hit the ground.
“O be careful little feet where you go…”
Where are you going? Who are you following? What rooms are you walking into? Some environments are meant to reinforce a narrative. You’ll feel that when you walk or log in. The question is whether you’ll stay.
What do you want to be a part of that would honor God?
“O be careful little heart whom you trust…”
Who do you trust? This is the one that costs the most, because trust is so very personal. You can’t trust without having the humility to give up some control.
The people with the most influence over you are the ones you’ve given permission to speak into your life. This includes whoever comes in through your devices.
That access is sacred. Guard it for yourself and your children.
“O be careful little mind what you think…”
What are the thoughts you entertain without examination? What gets you hook, line, and sinker with every headline?
Your assumptions take you places faster than your flawed human reason can intervene. Are your thoughts shaped by the Word of God, or by the last persuasive thing you consumed?
The end game
Don’t think this deception is about a particular party winning the election. It’s deeper than NGOs, military power, corruption, family values, and even money.
It’s about keeping you, as the very image bearer of God, living in fear of the future and keenly aware of the darkness all around you.
Because if you’re focused on that, then you’ll miss what God is doing in your own life, and in your family and community.
And my guess is that He’s placed you in some amazing places with people you can impact sitting just to the right and left of you.
So don’t think you’re white-knuckling your way through just an election season.
The marbles here are for eternity. They always have been, and they still are.
It’s important for you to know you have a Father in Heaven who sees you, loves you, gave His Son for you, and has given you His Holy Spirit to lead you into all truth.
The enemy’s strategy is ancient. But your Father’s love has always been since before time. And the Spirit He gave you has been exposing the counterfeit game since the beginning.
The very best strategy is to lean in and stay in God’s Word every day.
Let it get buried so deep in your heart and spirit, that when someone twists it even a little, you’ll feel it before you even know what to call it.
Because that pull you feel is Him. And nothing takes Him by surprise.
