Spiritual Discernment lesson follows a scam attempt.
Having just hung up from yet another unsolicited sales call from a questionable source I was intrigued to consider that Anna Bowness-Park experienced a lesson in exercising spiritual discernment from a near scam. In her August 16th article in the Times Colonist, Anna shares the details, the inspiration that followed and the application of that ability to discern spiritually- something we each can exercise and benefit from. The beginning of the article is below but you must click the link to read the entire article.
A mishap with my cell phone recently set me thinking more deeply about spiritual discernment and how it can help us to examine the thoughts and suggestions that come to us – are they true or false – and where are they leading us?
When I began having trouble with my phone, I searched the internet to find the tech support contact number for my phone provider and called.The guy sounded just like the usual cheery tech support person, and asked exactly the same questions. He told me he was checking my phone out. Then he asked me to hold while he talked to his supervisor. He came back and told me that my phone and my entire home system had been hacked and was compromised. For a minute or two I was quite alarmed. He said that my phone provider worked with a security software company that could help me. It would cost hundreds of dollars to pay this company to fix my system.
That’s when my moment of discernment hit. I knew it was a lie. It sounded like my provider’s tech support, but it was not. Having turned to this company for help before, I knew they would never tell me that I needed to pay a third party to these things. I hung up. When I finally reached my real phone tech support team, they expertly fixed the problem in less than 5 minutes – at no cost. Then we talked about this very sophisticated scam. Remember, in this case, I had assumed the number I got from my internet search was accurate and called them, so in a sense my guard was down. I had been misled – for a few moments.
On any given day, many of us receive a scam call or email that tells us something frightening. Most of us have learned to discern these scams and hang up or press delete. But in what other areas of our lives do we let our guard down and fail to ask good spiritual questions like: “Am I being careful to discern where these frightening messages are coming from and whether they can be trusted? What do I know is actually true because of my past experience?
I’m very used to turning to and feeling God’s presence and guidance on a daily basis.