Psalm 7:1-2 "O Lord my God, in thee do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers, and deliver me, lest like a lion they rend me, dragging me away with none to rescue."

David, of course, had many human pursuers, enemies who were "out to get him," Saul being the first. But we have pursuers, as well, very insidious and totally relentless ones. We might not feel as though we are being pursued, but that only plays to our enemy's advantage. We are born into this world belonging to Satan, and snatched away from him by baptism. From that moment until we die, he and the principalities and powers under his control, never stop pursuing us, trying to get us back, so we can be dragged away with none to rescue us. It is so important to remember this, not because we should feel helpless, hopeless, or despairing, but because it makes us realize how much we need God; it makes us turn to Him as our refuge, the only place safe from this pursuit.

The other day I was trying to explain to someone my strong concerns about artificial intelligence (which I have written about before in What Idols Are We Trusting Instead of God? (Tech Is One)). One thing I said is that, in service of its masters (corporations, law enforcement, politicians, the medical industry, and anyone else willing and able to employ it), AI is "thinking" about us all the time. It does not have to rest and it cannot be distracted. Our every individual click, look, interaction, trip, location, photograph, text chain, social media post, etc. is or can be logged, evaluated, stored, and exploited for some purpose. And AI has no morality, it only has the rules written into it by the people programming it; fallen, fallible, corruptible people just like everyone else. God's law is written into the hearts of human beings, but not into the algorithms of artificial intelligence, God in not in the machine. So I see AI as both an allegory and a perfect playground for the devil. It watches us relentlessly, and we unwittingly but willingly give it so much information about ourselves, information that is often used to lead us into sin or the near occasions thereof. AI is being used to sell to us, manipulate us, and use us, not to get us to heaven, and the devil and his minions are right there with it.

This is an example of how we are pursued by our enemy, even when we might not sense it. We cannot do much about AI, or the fact that Satan is the prince of this world, but we can and should acknowledge that we are being pursued relentlessly by entities that do not have our ultimate good at heart, and take refuge in the One who does. He will save us, in fact, He already has!