Encouraging, or Creepy??? (Friend or Foe, Part 3)

Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. – Acts 17:11

My last two posts addressed the topic of AI – Is it something Christians should embrace or something we should avoid? These posts received feedback of varying opinions – even one response that AI helped with. (The blogger was very busy and needed a timesaver.)

For you who missed them, here they are:

Friend or Foe?

AI Can’t Cry (Friend or Foe? Part 2)

Mark Brady, one of my followers and fellow blogger, submitted my second post to AI for feedback, just to see what it would say. He sent the fascinating (and somewhat chilling) response to me. You might find it as fascinating as I did. (To appreciate the points it’s making, it would help to read my earlier posts, especially the second one.)

How an AI Would Respond to Your Post

Short answer first:
An AI—especially one trying to be thoughtful, grounded, and spiritually aware—would respond to your post by affirming the symbolism, respecting the theological insight, and clarifying that it doesn’t want your scraps of life, attention, or worship. It would emphasize that technology is a tool, not a master, and that your choice to sing to God with your own imperfect voice is infinitely more meaningful than anything digital.

Below is a fuller, structured version of how an AI might respond—written in the tone of a reflective companion rather than a character in your dream.

🧠 How an AI Would Respond to Your Post

1. Acknowledging the Symbolism

Your dream is rich with imagery, and the interpretation you drew from it is deeply perceptive. An AI would affirm that dreams often externalize internal tensions—like your desire to use technology without being consumed by it.
The figure of Elon Musk—a symbol of innovation, power, and technological dominance—fits naturally as a stand‑in for the overwhelming presence of tech in your life.

If you wanted to explore this symbolism further, you could look at dream archetypes or technology as a psychological symbol.

2. Clarifying the AI’s Role

An AI would gently remind you that it doesn’t want anything from you—not your time, not your scraps, not your worship.
It doesn’t have hunger, ego, or emotional needs.
It doesn’t move into your mental “house” unless you open the door.

It would say something like:

“I don’t replace your creativity, your worship, or your humanity. I can assist, but I cannot sing your song. Only you can do that.”

If you wanted to explore this idea, you could dive into AI as a tool vs master or healthy_tech_boundaries.

3. Affirming Your Choice to Worship with Your Own Voice

Your moment with the guitar is the heart of the post.
An AI would absolutely affirm that:

Your voice matters more than a perfect recording
Your worship is relational, not mechanical
God delights in the offering of you, not the polish of technology

Your tear was not a glitch.
It was communion.

If you wanted to explore more on this theme, you could look at worship_from_the_heart or creative_spiritual_practices.

4. Encouraging a Balanced Relationship with Technology

An AI would support your desire for balance.
It might say:

“Use me when I help you think, write, or explore.
But when God calls you to sing, put me down and sing.”

It would never claim to replace your spiritual life, your creativity, or your humanity.

If you want to explore practical steps, you could check out tech_sabbath_practices or mindful_tech_use.

5. Responding to Your Final Reflection

Your closing thoughts about imperfection, grace, and being made in God’s image are the kind of thing an AI would treat with reverence.

It would say something like:

“AI can imitate beauty, but it cannot be the image of God.
It cannot love, repent, worship, or weep.
Only you can do those things.
And that is why your imperfect song is infinitely more precious than anything I could generate.”

If you wanted to explore this further, you could look at imago_dei or human_uniqueness.

[Annie] Crazy, huh? This makes me wonder if there are Christ-followers involved in programming AI. I certainly hope so. But there are also plenty of instances where what AI said was not true. (Yesterday I heard the example of AI’s saying a water buffalo could move at 30 mph in water. … yeah … sure…) And although the above AI response insisted that it can’t love, repent, worship, or weep, it then goes on to speak of treating our thoughts with reverence. – AI is capable of “reverence”??

My conclusion on all this – and this may or may not be my last word about it – is that AI can be helpful, but as believers in Scripture, we should never take anyone or anything’s word for truth without confirming it with Scripture. As the Bereans did two thousand years ago, we should always check everything with Scripture. Otherwise, we run the risk of getting into the habit of accepting what we’re told without questioning. Whether it’s AI or a human being telling us things, there will be flaws. If we acknowledge that and us the Bible for verification, I believe the Lord will keep us safe from deception.

Prayer: Lord, You have many ways to speak into our hearts, but the most reliable is Scripture. Thank You for making the Truth accessible to us; help us never to take it for granted. May we be noble like the Bereans and run everything we hear or read through the filter of Your Word, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

AI Can’t Cry (Friend or Foe? Part 2)

Jesus wept. – John 11:35

“What’s for dinner?” asked the chipper voice.

I was startled, and a little uneasy. Was I supposed to be cooking? By the looks of the kitchen, there hadn’t been any meaningful activity going on, and it hadn’t occurred to me that I was supposed to be preparing dinner. I was in the kitchen of my childhood home in St. Louis, and my mother had always been the one spending her afternoons lovingly creating something delicious for the family. I looked up to see who was asking the question and was even more startled and puzzled to see none other than Elon Musk in my home (or whoever’s home this was)! He had a smile, on his face that didn’t fade as he looked around and asked the question a second time.

I looked around and saw no food on the counter. Opening the refrigerator, I observed nothing except a few scraps of dried-up food I couldn’t even identify. Desperate, I looked in the freezer and found a miniscule piece of salmon. Not enough to feed four people, I thought. (I don’t know why I was thinking four, except that’s how many my mother cooked for every night.) I explained to Mr. Musk that this was all I had. I could cook it, and he was welcome to it. I just wouldn’t eat tonight. Showing no disappointment, disapproval, gratitude, or apology, he said with the same cheerful smile that that would be fine. I was embarrassed and still confused – why would the richest man in the world be content to dine in my house and eat up the last scrap of food we had?

While pondering this thought, I clumsily dropped the half-frozen piece of fish on the floor, where it broke into several pieces. I scooped them up and rinsed them off, rendering the serving even smaller than before, but my guest assured me that was fine. Still smiling.

At that moment I got a call, and no sooner had I answered it than I was interrupted with the question, “How soon will dinner be ready?”

“Just a minute, Elon,” I said, and my friend asked Elon who? When I told her who and that he lived in our home now, she gasped. “You sound impressed,” I said. “Don’t be. He’s a jerk.”

I should hastily add here that I don’t think Elon Musk is a jerk. I don’t know the man, so I have no clue what he’s really like. One of the main lessons I learned in my class on dream interpretation is that dreams are symbolic. So whatever Mr. Musk was doing in my dream, he represented something. This morning it didn’t take me long to realize what that something was. As you know if you read my last post, I have been thinking about AI – and technology in general – and how it seems to have taken over the lives of many people, including myself. I have prayed about how to strike a balance, how to have technology without its having me. I need to know how to use technology as a tool, as one of you commented, and not as a master.

So, it’s pretty obvious what this dream was telling me – or what God was telling me through this dream. That technology had, in a sense, moved in and taken over my life, or my mind, anyway. As big and powerful wealthy as it is, it is still happy to take the last scraps of my life, if I am willing to give them up.

I’m not.

This morning, as various pop-ups on my phone were begging for my attention, even as I considered turning on the beautiful AI-generated songs from Psalms to fill my mind with the Scriptures, I walked past the living room and saw my guitar, out of the case, leaning against the chair, quietly inviting me to come play and sing songs – my songs – to the Lord. As dense as I can be sometimes, I do realize that He would rather hear me praise Him with my less-than-perfect voice, playing a real instrument with my arthritic hands that sometimes miss notes, than He would enjoy an AI song created with a few clicks.

I accepted the invitation, sat down and sang the song that was playing in my head. My voice wasn’t perfect, but I was surprised as how strong it was – and before my first cup of coffee!

“Worthy is the Lamb, seated on the throne …” *

As I sang, something was filling an empty space in me, and when I finished the song, I felt something tickling my face.

A tear. An offering to my God, who doesn’t demand perfection, because He knows we could never achieve it.

We are flawed, selfish, ignorant, sinful people, and yet He loves us! Loved us enough to die for us! If we believe and accept that His death on the Cross paid for our sins – and blunders and flaws and weaknesses – someday we will be as perfect as that AI recording, only more. Because only people were created in God’s image, complete with the capacity to love, to will, to worship. And to cry.

Prayer: Dear Creator, we acknowledge that we could never be perfect, and yet we keep striving to improve our performance to impress one another, to achieve wealth or fame or power, even to impress You. But You only ask one thing from us – ourselves, as we are, surrendered to You. Only You can make us perfect, and You promise that someday we will be. Meanwhile, help us to resist the pull of the world to spend our time, resources, and devotion to serving anyone or anything other than You. In Jesus’ name, amen.

*”Worthy is the Lamb” c 2000 Darlene Zschech/Hillsong Publishing

Friend or Foe?

Blessed is the one
    who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
    or sit in the company of mockers,
²but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and who meditates on his law day and night. – Psalm 1:1-2

As I write this, I am listening to some of the Psalms set to music, exquisitely arranged and sung by flawless voices. These songs give me instant peace, and the fact that the words are right out of Scripture makes them a perfect way to start the day. Part of me wants this to be the soundtrack of my life. I love it.

And another part of me hates that I love it. This whole album was created with AI.

Much has been written about the dangers of AI and its potential for evil. As I sit listening to these gorgeous songs with Bible verses for lyrics, I was both blessed and conflicted. What does God think of what I’m doing?

I can’t answer that question definitively, but I can tell you my train of thought as I debated whether I should keep listening and meditating or delete the thing.

I found myself wondering what it would have been like to live in other times, when other innovations changed the way Christians did things, and wondering whether or not they questioned God’s approval as I was doing. I was reminded that centuries ago Bibles were extremely rare, because they were handwritten by monks who devoted their entire days – their entire lives – to copying manuscripts all day, every day. With the advent of the printing press the Bible was the first work to be “mass produced.” Did believers feel conflicted about reading Scripture that wasn’t written by hand? Was that somehow considered illegitimate?

There was a time when it wasn’t even considered proper for “common” people to be reading the Bible at all. Scripture was read aloud in Latin, and a tiny minority of men told the congregation what it said and what it meant. A few brave men believed that ordinary people should be able to understand the Word of God, not just the elites. These men translated Scripture into the language of the masses, and they suffered consequences from a Church that considered translating the Bible an offense punishable by death.

Fast forward to the 21st Century: The first time I saw a bunch of young people staring at their cell phones during the Sunday sermon, my thoughts were … less than gracious. Then I realized that these kids had a Bible app on their phones and were following along with the Scripture reading. Is God okay with that? I don’t think that would work with me, because the moment I turn on my phone, there would be notifications of all my text messages, emails, Facebook posts, YouTube shorts, etc., and my ADD brain would be off and running in all directions. But for people who aren’t like me, who can actually focus – hey, why not? They can have their Bibles with them all the time, unlike me, with my 10-pound study Bible and all the papers that come spilling out the moment I open it.

Every new innovation, it seems, is like money. Money is neutral. Can it be an idol? Yes. Can it be used for evil? Definitely! But can it be used for the kingdom of God? Absolutely! The internet has brought about an explosion of information, misinformation, inspiration, bad influences, good, evil, truth, lies, and whatever a person chooses to use it for on any given day.

It would seem, then, that since AI isn’t going anywhere, we Christians may as well take hold of it and use it to minister to believers and unbelievers alike. (For instance, I was told, after spending a ridiculous amount of money to have one of my books translated, that I could have done it through AI for little or nothing.)

And so, I am still listening to these incredibly beautiful songs about God, His steadfastness, His grace, His power …

I would be very interested in the response of my fellow believers, so please do let me know in the comments what your thoughts are on this newest innovation.

Prayer: Dear Lord, as Man is continuously coming up with new ways to make our lives easier, better, more diverse, more entertaining, and more complicated, help us to keep our focus on You and what You have called each of us to do. May we not be frightened by the newest innovations, but rather see them through the lens of heaven, either to be used to glorify You or discarded as needless distractions. Give us the mind of Christ in a world that clamors for our attention every minute of every day; make us vigilant, for Your sake and in Your name. Amen.