The Burden of Carrying Too Much
When Discernment Feels Less Like a Gift and More Like a Weight: How to Live With It Without Becoming Bitter
Okay, here we go. Deep breath.
I sometimes find myself thumbing through the shelves of my own thought library. And if I’m being honest, I keep pulling down the same worn-out volumes. And, more often than I’d like to admit, they’re the negative ones. Why?
It’s pretty simple. The world doesn’t feel like it used to.
Now, before anyone attacks me, I know it was never perfect. It never has been. That’s kind of the whole reason God promises a new Heaven and a new earth. Humanity’s résumé has always been… questionable. But that’s not the point.
Here’s the point:
The world is growing colder, less-loving, and less-caring.
And in this ever-cooling, self-centered age, what unsettles me most is how proudly self-absorption is worn. Me first. My truth. My comfort.
That’s the part that sticks in my throat.
Because wisdom comes with a cost and awareness sometimes isn’t peaceful–it’s weighty. The more clearly you see what’s breaking, the more it presses on your chest. Ecclesiastes was right: increasing knowledge often increases sorrow.
And sometimes, I choose a little ignorance. It’s not that I don’t care, but my mind sometimes needs a breather. A way to preserve some peace. Selfish? Perhaps. Or maybe it’s survival.
There are days I feel like a flamingo with its head in the sand, aware something’s wrong, but intentionally keeping my focus small. Guarding my little patch of quiet while the world hums with depression all around me.
I know I’m not the only one who feels this tension. That’s why I brought some friends along. Together, in our own words, we’ll try to explain how we navigate a cold world through faith, community, and a stubborn refusal to let our hearts harden.
Related Article
Alright, let me be honest for a second. No churchy polish. Just real talk.
Do you ever catch yourself getting a little… cynical?
Here’s what I mean. You’re at the store. You make a purchase. The cashier asks if you want to “round up” for a good cause. And a tiny voice in your head goes, Wait… is this legit?
Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. But if you’re being honest, that little flicker of skepticism shows up more often than we’d like to admit. I know it does for me.
Now, I’m not saying everything is fake or corrupt. But it definitely feels like deception, fraud, and cold-heartedness are way more common than they used to be. When you notice that day after day, it can slowly harden you. And that’s the part that scares me the most.
Because the real question isn’t “Is the world getting colder?”
The real question is this 👉 How do we stay warm in it?
Here are a few things that help me keep my heart from turning into stone:
Writing and sharing on Substack. (Yep, seriously.) Getting thoughts out of your head and into words keeps bitterness from setting up camp.
Staying close to family. Especially the people who truly know you and love you. Those relationships matter more than ever right now.
Letting yourself vent when you need to. Bottling everything up is a fast track to resentment.
Being honest with God. Even when the emotions aren’t pretty. Especially then.
That’s how I try to keep my heart soft in a world that often feels hard. Because I really don’t want to wake up one day and realize I’ve become numb.
And honestly, learning from other believers helps too. Seeing how real people live out their faith in real life is a powerful reminder that kindness and compassion aren’t extinct.
Read more from our guest writers below.
Discernment, for me, feels like what I imagine spider sense feels like.
Not fear. Not anxiety. Just a steady, righteous gut instinct that doesn’t shout but also doesn’t go quiet. There’s no formula to it. No checklist. Just a sense that something matters and needs attention. Spiritually and intellectually, it’s always running in the background, like a filter that never shuts off.
I rely on it heavily as a husband and father.
I once asked my wife, Karen, if she could think of a moment where my discernment clearly spared us from something. She paused and said, “I don’t know, but I do know your discernment has protected us from knowing what it could have been.” That stuck with me.
There are times it feels less like a gift and more like weight. Karen and I have started taking a trip once a year, just the two of us. Every time, my gut tells me we shouldn’t leave the kids. The feeling never really goes away until we’re home again. I don’t think that’s fear. I think that’s my responsibility. When God entrusts you with a family, vigilance comes with the calling.
The hard part is that discernment doesn’t clock out.
I’m always watching. Always processing. Always evaluating. It can be exhausting. I joke that when I taught school, my students told me I reminded them of Batman…Bruce Wayne at home, Batman at school. As my oldest got older and saw more sides of me, that comparison followed me home. Not because anything was wrong, just because discernment doesn’t switch personas easily.
And yet, I carry it because I believe it has kept my family safe more times than I’ll ever know.
That’s where Ecclesiastes 1:18 rings painfully true: “For with much wisdom is much sorrow; as knowledge increases, grief increases.” The more aware you are—spiritually and culturally—the more you see the brokenness. The more you notice drift. The more you feel the ache of decisions people make that lead them away from Christ.
This is where the phrase ignorance is bliss starts to make sense.
When people say that, they don’t mean stupidity. They mean peace of mind. I sometimes tell Karen I wish I could be a kid again, not because I was dumb, but because I was unaware. The world was smaller then. Simpler.
There’s a difference between ignorance and choosing where to place your attention. I don’t watch much news anymore. If something matters, I’ll hear about it and research it myself. I’m not oblivious. I’m intentional. I’d rather fill my time with family than constant noise. In that sense, ignorance really can be bliss.
Discernment doesn’t mean consuming everything. It means stewarding what you allow to shape you.
As a father, I teach my kids to listen to the Holy Spirit. Especially my boys, who will one day be husbands and fathers themselves. Especially my daughters, as they learn to navigate people and relationships. When we make decisions, I always point back to God. These aren’t just Dad’s rules. They’re faith-led choices, and sometimes I don’t like them either.
Discernment, I’ve learned, works in stages. Protection, guidance, and warning usually come before a decision. Encouragement often comes after. It comes when we see what God spared us from or carried us through. Even when the outcome is hard, faith reminds us that God sees the whole picture.
It also shapes my writing.
More often than people realize, I write things that never get published. They just don’t feel right to share. My stories pass through the same filter everything else does: Is this what God wants me to say right now? Awareness without obedience is just noise.
I think of those old PSA commercials that ended with, “The more you know…” or the GI Joe line, “Knowing is half the battle.” Awareness matters, but awareness also means recognizing the spiritual battles around us. Without hope in Christ, that kind of knowledge would crush us. With Him, it grounds us. In this world, but not of it.
My job, especially with my kids, is to be calm. I may be dissecting a situation internally, but if I stay steady, they usually do too. Jesus said, “Take heart. I have overcome the world.” That’s the anchor.
My guard is always up, but not in a bitter way. I’m vigilant. God entrusted me with my family, and I take that responsibility seriously.
Discernment has ultimately taught me this: not everything I sense is God speaking, but everything I face should be viewed through the question, “What does God want me to do right now?”
And sometimes, living faithfully means seeing clearly…and choosing peace anyway.
As society becomes increasingly saturated with information and negativity, maintaining a Christ-centered perspective requires intentional choices to filter what we allow into our hearts and minds, so that we may continue to love others as God commands rather than becoming overwhelmed or hardened by the world’s troubles.
Considering this, I ponder what life was like 26 years ago as I entered motherhood, how I lived in a world that was centered around the Lord and my family. In this journey, I lacked knowledge of much of what was happening around me. I personally avoided much that others were bombarded with daily, such as talk shows, the daily news, even sports and the latest popular singers. In this, my world was a little less heavy. I can recall moments when someone would ask, “what do you think about….” and I was left without response because I had no knowledge of the matter, let alone an opinion. For me, ignorance was truly bliss, I had my own internal battles that I was fighting, and I did not have the room to carry the weight of a fallen world. Therefore, not knowing about a family murdered, a Hollywood divorce, or who was winning the season in any particular sport, allowed me to enjoy my time with my children rather than let my thoughts be dictated by the fear of swine flu, bird flu, or any other matter that was out of my control.
Fast forward to the present time, in a world of social media or even the Christian radio station and suddenly it seems like what was once so easily avoidable is now overflowing with knowledge topics that can seem overwhelming. On my drive to work, as I listen to the radio (no, I do not have Bluetooth), I hear news updates about politics, murder, child abuse, and other topics that heavily burden my soul. The surge of negative news is not enlightening to me, therefore, I have to remind myself that it is okay to turn the radio down, to unfollow certain people or pages on social media, and to choose to focus on “whatsoever things are pure,” (Philippians 4:8). Navigating the modern world is not an easy feat, especially when one works for a secular company and with clients who come from varied walks of life.
As our understanding of the brokenness in the world grows, our hearts can begin to harden; instead of seeing the world as a mission field, we may start to view it as a battlefield. For instance, when faced with hostility or cynicism, it is easy to see others as adversaries rather than as people in need of grace. In such moments, Believers may find themselves preparing to defend their position rather than extending love to the lost and hurting. As a child of God, I recognize how easily I—and others—can be drawn away from our calling (Mark 16:15). To stay anchored, I choose to equip myself with the Word and practical reminders that refocus my heart on what matters most to the Lord: loving those He came to save (Matthew 22:39; Luke 19:10). For example, I start each day by reading a passage from the Gospels and writing down one way I can show love to someone I encounter, it is loving others through faith filled knowledge that I am equipped to maintain a soft heart for the world.
Eccl 1v18
For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
Growing up, this was an enigma verse. How could wisdom bring grief and knowledge bring sorrow? Everywhere I looked, in everything I learned, knowledge meant power.
The power to make choices free of others’ control. The power to live freely. The power to be myself.
Later on, the power to be the person Jesus created me to be.
Growing up powerless in an abusive household, I thought knowledge was the key to freedom. All I needed was the right knowledge.
Looking back, I can’t help but chuckle at that. I was a walking contradiction of worldly and naive, the perfect mix of not enough wisdom and too much pride. Satan tried many times to take advantage of that. He had deceived me into joining my high school’s Gay/Straight Alliance (GSA) club. I thought I was honestly fighting on the side of right.
While I did need more knowledge, that wasn’t the key to freedom or power. It was the key to a soul filled with sorrow everywhere I look.
Like others, I grew up thoroughly immersed in shows like “Full House”, “Are You Afraid Of The Dark”, and “Little House On The Prairie” and movies like Silence Of The Lambs, Lethal Weapon, and Rose Red. My favorite actors were Bob Sagot, the Olson twins, Anthony Hopkins, Brad Pitt, and the Gilbert sisters. I read the books to the movies, as well. The authors I liked best were V. C. Andrews, Stephen King, Iris Johansen, and Anne Rice.
As I learned about the evils behind those shows, movies, books, and more, the Illusions I grew up with shattered. The cast and crew behind the shows and films were involved in terrible abuse toward children. Authors were indoctrinating their audiences, not just entertaining them. Learning about the evils forced me to see the world as it really is. It’s ugly, broken, and following after Satan, going downhill in a hand-basket on wheels. The more I found out, the more certain I was that I couldn’t share my old-time favorites with my children – I couldn’t pass down “Full House” or (when they were older) Stephen King’s books. It still hurts that so many of my happy moments of childhood are going to die with me.
Instead of TV, we play games like Boggle, Rummy, and Catan. Instead of whatever books we could get our hands on, we mainly read the Bible, with the rare other books. Public school was out, so I scrambled to learn how to unschool. When we needed remedies, my family turned to herbals when we were able, and kept away from doctors as much as possible. Since we couldn’t go to church buildings, we decided to do Bible studies as a family.
All that time, I felt like I was drowning in the sea of overwhelm. All I knew about any of these were what everybody knows, plus a tidbit here and there. In my early 20s, the only “herbal” remedy I knew was a spoonful of sugar, soaked in lemon juice, add whiskey. I had no idea how to use my kids’ interests to deepen their learning. When it came to the Bible, I didn’t have memories to lean on for cues about how to teach Jesus to young kids. I just knew I couldn’t do it alone. Jesus was with me, every step of the way. I learned about master tonic and how to do life with intentional teaching moments. When I started getting scared, I gave Him my fears; in exchange, He gave me Peace and Courage to keep going. He still does this today, although I need it less frequently.
That said, there are times when I have to stop. When I notice my attitude is getting too cynical or if I feel (unholy) hatred creeping into my heart, it’s time to put up a stop sign. It’s time to rest in Jesus. This is when I read my Bible more, pray more, and meditate on His Word more. I try to see whether there’s a connection I haven’t yet made as the Bible sinks into my soul. I confess my sins to Him and ask forgiveness.
Sometimes, the stopping point is just a pause; sometimes, it’s permanent. It’s a safety valve, keeping my heart from being hardened like Pharaoh’s. Resting in Jesus is like Psalm 23 – much needed relaxation and a reprieve from the world in God’s arms.
Final Thoughts
My fellow Christians. Please. Do not let your hearts be troubled. I know everything is hard right now. I get it. But, it doesn't matter what we go through on this Earth. Because, in the end? It will all be worth it.
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Call to Repentance
If you’ve been trying to earn your way into heaven, it’s time to stop striving and start surrendering. Today can be the day everything changes.
The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 6:2, “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”
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Thanks for letting me collab with y'all! Reading different perspectives on the same topic is both refreshing and eye-opening.
I’ve really enjoyed collaborating here recently. Thanks!!