Go Away with Your Cookies

I can't believe practically every time you go to a site for the first time they ask you if you want cookies. I didn't even know what they were for years. I still don't completely understand what they are. All I know is if you look up something online you get ads for it on your social media every time you open it up. Sometimes I think the Internet can actually read your mind, and if some people have their way, that will be the next advancement in AI. It's getting so you can't look anything up, you can't listen to anything or watch anything without ads popping up every few seconds. They tell you if you don't sign up for cookies it will make your online experience worse. I don't believe that. All they obviously mean by that is they won't know as much about what you like. I don't care. I'm not accepting cookies anymore. The Internet already knows too much about me. You know how they give you a choice, all cookies or necessary cookies only (customized cookies), I have clicked on that one for years. I'm going to start saying no now. I've had it with cookies. The whole Internet experience is just getting too weird, especially with AI. I'm so sick of it, it literally makes me want to throw up just thinking about it. I am glad I can write stuff online and some people might like it, that part I like. I like being able to enjoy entertainment on social media, but it's just getting altogether too invasive. I am very happy about my screen time going down to four hours this week. I still want to get it down to two. I worked on music this afternoon for about an hour because tomorrow I sing. Most of the month I forget how much I can enjoy music. I don't work on music every day. I usually only work on it the weekend before I sing. I need to spend more time with music, learning more about it, singing, playing, working on songs, and maybe writing songs again. Life can become a grind sometimes, and before you know it, you aren't even enjoying life anymore, and that is not the way God intended for us to live our lives. Today, during the music part of our worship service I heard the still, small voice of the Lord telling me, "Whom the Son sets free is free indeed." I have since looked it up but I didn't immediately know where it appears in the Bible. And he spoke to me about "the cry inside, the one you try to hide," and I was listening and I was hearing, and that was all I needed to know. He was telling me he hears and he sees and he is working things out. And then my pastor spoke the things God had been speaking to him for us about being courageous, and if you read the Bible at all, you know how many times this occurs. He took us especially to 2 Corinthians 6:3-11. We must not be deceived and fall into compromise with the world, because it is God we need to please, not our peers, not the world, and not ourselves. All we need is in his Word and in his Spirit. Remember, Jesus IS the Truth, we don't have to ever be ashamed of that. I used to spend more time doing word studies and I have been afraid I was backsliding in my heart, and I still believe we need to be vigilant and if we detect sin in our heart we need to be honest with God about it and let him remove it so we can be pure for the light of the Lord to shine through us so that others can see, but it is also important to remember that we have been set free from sin and we are not to allow the things of this world to entrap us again. The enemy can't enslave us but we can enslave ourselves if we yield to his devices, and one of the ways he tries to weaken us is in our addictions to the things of this world, so I just want to say no to the lies and yes to the truth. Well, I got a little off the topic of cookies, but do you see the metaphor here? It's like all the devices of the enemy are like, "Here, do you want more lies, do you want more enslavement to the things of this world, do you want more of what the world offers to make you happy?" And I say no, I don't want more of what the world is wanting me to embrace, and I hear God saying, "Or do you want to be free?" And I say yes, I want to be free. Because we are free indeed, we are a new creation, we are not of this world, we are of the Kingdom of God because of Jesus, and it's okay if Wordpress will only say this is about faith, Jesus and Christianity, because that is what it's about for me anyway. As the road gets rockier, let's let the Lord do what he does to makes us strong and courageous. "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen" (2 Corinthians 13:14).