Scammers are everywhere these days. It seems that the more technology advances, the sneakier they get. I spend a lot of time on my computer, so I’ve become a bit of a scam-spotting pro. Still, one day I was in the middle of a writing project when suddenly my entire screen went red with a bold flashing message:
“WARNING! YOUR COMPUTER IS INFECTED. CALL THIS NUMBER IMMEDIATELY OR YOU WILL LOSE ALL YOUR DATA!”
I’ll admit, my heart did skip a beat. For a split second, I almost believed it. But then I took a breath, rolled my eyes, and did what experience has taught me to do. I clicked the little “X” to dismiss the warning and got back to work. Scam defeated.
Unfortunately, not everyone reacts that way. Plenty of people panic, call the number, and before they know it, they’ve handed over their credit card info or social security number to some guy sitting in a dimly lit basement somewhere.
When thinking about this, I realized that sometimes our minds run their own scams. They send messages that sound urgent and believable: “You’re not good enough!” “Everyone’s judging you!” “This will never work!” And before we know it, we’ve fallen for it.
Recently, our nonprofit received a letter from a government agency saying they’d be calling me to ask about one of our staff’s employment status. Simple enough, right? Except my brain didn’t think so. Within minutes, it was in full disaster mode. I started imagining worst-case scenarios: audits, penalties, piles of paperwork. Basically, I turned a routine letter into a full-blown crisis in my head.
Yes, the phone call came. And guess what? The person on the other end was friendly and genuinely helpful. We talked for ten minutes, cleared everything up, and that was it. No drama. No catastrophe. My brain had just run its usual scam, convincing me that something terrible was about to happen when, really, everything was fine.
Our minds can trick us into seeing mountains where there are only molehills. But we don’t have to fall for that. The Bible says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6).
The takeaway? Pause, breathe, check the facts, but ultimately, trust the Lord. He sees the whole picture, calms our fears, and guides us past both the scams of the world and the tricks of our own mind.