Driving out of my neighborhood each morning for work, I enjoy listening to 90.3 FM on the radio. During my short commute to work I am often welcomed by a nostalgic hymn, Bible reading or prayer. It helps me to recenter my mind before starting my workday. However, within 5 minutes of pulling out of the driveway I am often met with static, crackling, then the collision of another station interrupting my listening. I can barely make out the lyrics or words anymore. The signals are bleeding into each other, creating a chaotic wall of sound.
I was reminded of this regular frustration of mine when I was reading the Bible this week, and how it’s a snapshot of how many of us experience daily life. We try to listen for God’s voice. We want to align our lives with truth, faith, and eternal purpose. But the moment we turn toward that frequency, the world’s station comes roaring in at maximum volume.
Anxiety, fear, and other fleeting emotions, busyness, distraction, competing opinions, our culture’s values, etc… all combine to create a relentless noise that bleeds straight into the signal. We end up caught between two frequencies, unable to hear God clearly because the world keeps breaking through the noise.
“They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.”
1 John 4:5-6
When I reflect on my own experience of competing voices, deception and confusion, I think about the beginning of my faith journey. In 2019 I started attending church and exploring a relationship with Jesus. During this time, I was separated from my previous husband, due to marital issues, feeling discouraged because progress wasn’t happening despite our efforts. In 2020, a women’s self-help book came out, and I was reading it. It was validating all the emotions I had been experiencing in my marriage. I felt justified and empowered. I didn’t realize at the time that what I was absorbing in this book was contradicting what I was learning in church and reading in the Bible. Like the radio giving me mixed signals, which voice do I listen to? The one that feels good, justifies my behavior, rids me of guilt? That’s the one I chose.
“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality…”
2 Peter 2:1-2
At the time the message felt genuinely helpful. It encouraged me to establish healthy boundaries, stop people-pleasing, and care for my own emotional well-being—things that aren’t inherently wrong and areas I really struggled in. But years later, I realized those good ideas had been subtly twisted into something unbiblical. What started as self-care quickly shifted into self-sovereignty. By reframing self-indulgence as freedom, it fed directly into my fleshly desires and caused subtle confusion—leading me toward a gospel focused entirely on self, replacing reliance on God with reliance on self.
The book taught that authority lies within, to follow your heart and internal voice or intuition. In Proverbs 3:5-6, we are told to trust in the Lord with all of our heart and NOT to lean on our own understanding. In Jeremiah 17:9, he warns us that the human heart is deceitful above all things and cannot be trusted.
It also taught that fulfillment is found in honoring your own desires, and is what’s most important, that we should not sacrifice our happiness for others. When the Gospel centers on self-denial and sacrificial love. In Philippians 2:3-4, we’re encouraged to place the interests of others above our own. The Bible directly connects genuine fulfillment, peace, and lasting joy to a relationship with God through Jesus Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Probably what was the most eye opening was when I revisited this book and realized that the author was reframing the story of the Fall, suggesting Eve’s decision to eat the forbidden fruit wasn’t a sin of disobedience, but a brave refusal to stay small or controlled. She encourages women to “eat the apple” and pursue their desires.
In contrast, Genesis 3 presents Eve’s choice as the origin of human sin and separation from God. Scripture frames humanity’s default state not as “caged purity,” but as a fallen nature in need of redemption through Christ. The book also suggested that a marriage that restricts individual truth, growth, or love should be dismantled to build a truer life.
I’m not saying that this book was to blame for my decision to pursue a divorce, but I am saying that I allowed this book to have more influence over my perspective more than the Bible.
In Galatians 5, Paul had been teaching the people in Galatia about Jesus, and then after he left, a group of false teachers arrived teaching contradicting things and confusing them.
“You were running well, who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion in not from Him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump.”
Galatians 5:7-9
Yeast or leaven is often a symbol of a subtle, spreading influence- usually false teaching or sin. Even a small pinch can quietly penetrate and alter a person’s faith, just like altering a loaf of bread.
We tend to assume false teaching is easy to spot, so we let our guard down. But false teachers rarely present themselves as false; they present themselves as life coaches, inspirational authors, and influential voices offering personal growth. They tell us what our flesh naturally wants to hear—that our desires dictate truth.
Funny enough, what just came to my mind after writing that was… Sponge Bob.
In Season 3, Episode 49: “Krab Borg”, after SpongeBob watches a late-night horror movie about robots taking over the world, he becomes completely paranoid. He whispers out of the corner of his mouth.. “keep your eyes peeled…they’re everywhere.”
This SpongeBob clip actually illustrates our exact problem with spiritual discernment—just in reverse.
SpongeBob gets so hyper-aware of a hidden threat that he starts suspecting an ordinary, everyday customer of being a robot in disguise. He’s looking everywhere for a cold, mechanical imposter. But when it comes to false teaching in real life, we usually fall into the opposite trap: we don’t realize “they’re everywhere.”
False teachers don’t walk into our lives wearing warning labels or sounding like villainous robots. As Paul warns in 2 Corinthians 11:14, even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. In our modern culture, false teaching shows up looking relatable, helpful, and completely normal. We aren’t expecting the message that strays from God’s truth to come from someone who seems so warm, polished, and empathetic. But everyday influences quietly shift our focus away from Christ and onto ourselves before we even realize we’ve drifted.
Discerning God’s voice ultimately comes down to this: He will never contradict His own Word. In a world full of static and shifting frequencies, Scripture remains our constant anchor and ultimate filter.
As 2 Timothy 3:16–17 reminds us, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness…”
When we test every message against the truth of the Bible, we can tune out the world’s noise and clearly hear the voice of the One who calls us.
Rebekah is 1 month old! What a journey and learning experience this first month has been! She has blessed us with a few 5 hour stretches of sleeping at night and those cute little smiles while she’s enjoying a full belly of milk. She’s starting to grab hold of our fingers and has realized she has a tongue.
A lesson that I keep learning is that she is the most peaceful and content when I am still, not trying to do many things, but just being present in the moment.
We are currently at 62% supported and continue to look for partners who will commit to ongoing monthly gifts to provide the stability we need to stay focused on the work God has called us to. Would you prayerfully consider joining our team as a monthly financial partner?
We are so grateful for your friendship and prayers for our family and ministry!
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