Never has the search for truth been so challenging as now despite the seeming unlimited number of sources and search engines available to us. Gone are the days for most of us where a daily local newspaper delivered by a young paper boy could be trusted to keep us informed on the news of the day. Those days are not even in the memory of many of you once the internet exploded us into the “Information Age” and we left encyclopedias, card catalogs, and daily local newspapers on the dusty shelves of history.
I recall those days with fondness despite realizing it would have made searching for professional journal articles much faster when I was working on my professional degree. Even though I use my computer and smartphone daily, I still prefer the feel of a book in my hand when I am reading.
Photo by Vicki Glitter from Pexels
The flood of information at the beginning was something that seemed good and most of us trusted it the way we had trusted our local newspapers and libraries. It was easy to succumb to what we ingested and far too many of us did not check the sources (even if we could have found them) to determine their accuracy. So little by little certainty began to slip away as we typed and clicked our way down rabbit trails. That’s one of the easiest ways to be seduced and diverted from the truth and one the enemy of our souls has been using quite effectively since he began inverting the good God created for his own uses into things more sinister. It was the beginning of evil.
Photo by Josh Sorenson from Pexels
In recent years the device has worked so well that we now hear words like “my truth” and “your truth” versus a certainty of an absolute truth based on universal values previously ascribed to by most human beings. Lost in the cyber world and social media, when we heard, saw, or wanted something our own way we chose to believe we could invent “truth” to suit us. How easily we were deceived.
Why did we succumb so often when in sounder moments we would say we didn’t want to or mean to do so?
Perhaps we failed to know the genetic disposition sown into us when humans first fell into the trap in the Garden of Eden. We have some weaknesses that make us vulnerable. Doubt is a big one and effectively used by those who love us, those who hate us, those who want to sell us something, and those who want to gain power over us. It sets us up far too often to feel powerless. And where does that take us? To trust others too much or not at all or to look to things and people that can make us feel powerful.
If something looks good to us we don’t really want to be denied. Credit card debt confirms that even though it destroys many who use it or debit cards without much thought. A card in our wallet has become the norm. Last week I stopped at our favorite grocery store and discovered the card readers weren’t working. I could only buy my list if I had enough cash or a checkbook with me. I didn’t. Dozens of others didn’t either on that day and left the store with only one or two essential things or nothing at all. We have come to trust our electronic world that much despite warnings of identity theft and all ways we can get into trouble.
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels
If something tastes good to us we are not easily persuaded to deny ourselves whatever morsel it is (even if it is not good for us). Food companies know our weakness so photos and displays of things to eat are made as enticing as possible. Our yen for salty and sweet things mean salt and all forms of sugar are added to nearly everything in amounts that impact our health on every cellular level. Maybe you can resist a delicious ice cream treat, but a large bowl of buttered popcorn or your favorite chocolate will be nearly impossible to resist.
Photo by Ion Ceban from Pexels
And it doesn’t stop there. Neon lights pull us off dark streets into places we ought not to go. Ways to make money quickly like gambling or loans of a type not offered at banks have plenty of victims who yield to the addiction over and over again.
To look at why we succumb to all this we must first look at truth about our own vulnerabilities we would like to deny or are blind to. How hard it is to admit as adults that we still want what we want when we want it! How difficult it is to remind ourselves we live in two worlds; one is physical and another is spiritual. There is not only war happening in the physical world but a continual war raging in the spiritual world. The enemy of our souls would seek to distract us from the spiritual world, to cause us to question its existence, to doubt there is a God who is good, or to believe this enemy can come in many disguises and appear to be something he is not and never has been.
One hope remains and it leads us back to absolute truth and values we once revered, respected and protected. Even a brief view of history will confirm these things and how life proceeds when they are present and how they become when they are absent. We need to learn to be seeking more than comfort and pleasure to reduce our likelihood of succumbing.
“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.” C.S.Lewis
Does that ring true in your understanding or experience? Consider this…
“Truth is the agreement of our ideas with the ideas of God. And yet some people actually imagine that the revelation in God’s Word is not enough to meet our needs.” Jonathan Edwards
Life has been full of twists and turns as well as more than a few upheavals in recent months (even years). Most of us have tried to grapple with it as best we can but it has not been easy. Living in the “Information Age” gives us a deluge of data to help us and yet no certainty that the data is accurate or truth that can guide our decisions. Perhaps it is harder for us because we no longer believe or accept the principle of absolute truth, so doubts assail us on every point. Maybe it is more difficult because of our own tendency to avoid or deny hard realities.
Mankind has a long history of struggling with the truth since we yielded to temptation at the very beginning and considered a lie to possibly be true. The creature who tempted us then passed his image onto us and ever since then our quest for knowledge and discernible truth has been at odds. It so marks our DNA as mortals that even as believers in Christ it is hard to totally defeat it.
The battle can rage because the truth (when accurately discerned) is often not pretty or easy and we would much prefer the denial or the fantasy we or someone else creates for us. Our moral fiber stretches this way and that so that we can grow weary of the struggle and seek to ignore it and accept what is presented without even considering its veracity. Added to that is discovering the someone we believe has not been truthful.
This quote by Aldous Huxley should give us pause. Repeatedly mankind has tried that without good results. Is it because we lost a more perfect world when Eden was marred by mankind’s choice that we keep trying to get back some of what we lost? Do we demonstrate that when we flock to fantasy movies? Is it why most of us (no matter what our age) love visiting Disney World that allows us a few hours or days in a fun-filled place and then feel the letdown of returning to the life we really are living when we return home? Do our dreams of unlimited success have its origins in that as well? Is the struggle more significant because we find so few real-life heroes to look up to?
How much do we value truth as a foundation for decision-making and living?
“Genuine moral and mental health consists not only in telling the truth to others but also in telling the truth to oneself about one’s true interests and motives.”
David C. Downing from Into the Wardrobe
And there it is – the pithy reality we are reluctant to admit – do we tell the truth to ourselves with an uncompromising look at our motives and interests as we interact with others, decisions, and every moment of our daily life?
How good it would be if we could learn this truth spoken by Theodore Roosevelt early in our lives and then have it become a habit. Instead, we are more prone to avoid or deny an unpleasant truth with excuses and long explanations about why we made that choice.
What characters in the stories we read are we most attracted to? The ones who are better than we are or the ones that remind us of ourselves? (Be careful to consider that answer.)
In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the first of the Narnia Chronicles by C.S. Lewis, which characters are you cheering for, and which ones are less likable? Many of you would choose Lucy as a favorite and Edmund as less so. Lucy seems to get it right and lives life more honestly and openly than Edmund from the very outset. Lewis’s skill as a writer gives us much to chew on within his characters.
“Throughout the chronicles, characters cannot experience genuine moral growth until they learn to hear the still, small voice of truth within them, ignoring the inner clamor of evasions and rationalizations.”
David C. Downing from Into the Wardrobe
If we keep tuning out that still, small voice we risk losing the ability to hear it as it grows quieter and quieter. And perhaps that is what has brought us to the messes we face in life on every side now. We may point to others and see this deficit while failing to recognize our own and how our own choices have given power to perpetuating false narratives and advancing darkness and evil. And now we look at the mess and chaos and feel it is overwhelming to consider we can affect any light into it all.
George Washington was not a perfect man, but his words remind us that to gain truth will always require us to take the pains to bring it to light. Since he spoke such words, our task has become more challenging because there are so many layers of shadow and denial, lies and delusions. Our own resolve to make honest choices based on truth has been weakened by not always owning the truth about ourselves and excusing our diminishing values. Our laziness results in us gobbling up data from more sources than ever existed even 10 years ago while not being determined to mine out the truth from the fabrications trying to hide it.
“Every good choice strengthens one’s inner resolve to make another good choice next time, while every bad choice leaves one inclined to further bad choices down the road.”
David C. Downing from Into the Wardrobe
Our character is not shaped in a moment but painstakingly sculpted moment by moment through one choice at a time.
What choice will we make today? Will we be guided by the still small voice within or our own view or version of what is right?
Our answer is significant. We are living in unprecedented times and accountability for our choices will not be avoided indefinitely.
Most of us are familiar with the old adage, ‘things aren’t always what they seem.’ It’s a reminder to us of an important truth − we can be deceived. The problem for us can be that we forget that is somewhat of an Achilles heel in us all since Adam and Eve listened to the serpent in the garden that twisted God’s words.
You may well remember that the serpent (Lucifer) was once an angel in the court of heaven, but he lusted after the power of God. He wanted to usurp that power and he was clever enough to take a third of the angels with him and then God reminded him of his place when he fell from heaven. Deception was woven into the very fabric of his being.
Before that day Adam and Eve listened to the serpent, mankind was made in the image of God and was meant to reflect Him and his character. After the serpent’s seduction of the happy couple, God’s image in them was marred and their character reflected the serpent’s instead of God’s. They were the serpent’s ‘image bearers’ and that cosmic DNA got knit into what God had intended to be unmarred and reflect Him. That cosmic combination got passed down to every generation after them to those of us who live today.
Because our nature is not God’s original intent, we struggle with the same character flaws that the serpent (a former beautiful angel) dealt with and still deals with. That includes a desire for power. We may not always recognize that in ourselves because it isn’t always something we feel. We will see it most easily when we are confined in some way and feel more powerless.
We have a paradoxical connection to power.
We know it can be bad if used and abused, but we also respect it and sometimes want at least some of it. When we submit to power whether it is to parents, teachers, clergy, or others, we might assume because of their authority, skill, beauty, knowledge, status, position, etc. that they have integrity. It’s not a big leap to look at this list, compare ourselves to it and decide that person or organization that has these things knows more than we do and will seek to serve us in ways that benefit us. And sometimes that is true, but not always.
Power can blind us to the truth about ourselves and deceive us. A powerful example of that is evident in J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy, Lord of the Rings. The ring has power and even the simplest of hobbits, Frodo Baggins, discovers it can tempt him.
In one scene in the film, Galadriel gives warning about the ring and man’s susceptibility to it:
“In the gathering dark, the will of the ring grows strong. It works hard now to find its way back into the hands of men. Men, who are so easily seduced by its power.”
Once power deceives us, we are ensnared and may not realize how much so until it is too late.
In Tolkien’s epic work, time and again good men, elves, dwarves, or hobbits are drawn to the power of the ring and miss that once they take the ring, it takes them and reshapes them completely.
The strongest example is when we watch Sméagol transformed by the ring into the creature Gollum. His lust for the ring of power (“My Precious”) causes him to destroy himself in molten fire rather than to allow the ring to be destroyed.
When power is misused and abused, the one using it falls prey to deception.
That would be bad enough, but it doesn’t stop there. Often the person doesn’t even recognize he or she is deceived, nor do they see how they move to deceive others. When that step of deceiving others occurs and their goals are thwarted, they then try to use their power to coerce others into giving them what they want.
Dr. Diane Langberg has worked with many persons and organizations about issues of trauma and abuse and the role of power and deception. Hear her wisdom in this:
“Those who abuse power are deceived. Abuse of power requires deadening our ability to discern good and evil.
When self-deception works with temptation, they convince us that something wrong is okay. Then we blame external circumstances for our choices.
As time goes on self-deception functions as a narcotic numbing us to the danger and damage of our choices.
Deadness of our soul will cause us to lose the power to hate evil and remove our taste for good.”
Is all hope lost? Are we doomed?
As Gandalf would say in The Lord of the Rings,
“All we have to do decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
The first decision is to yield to the One whose image we were meant to reflect and then allow Him to reshape us and fight with and for us.
And with that decision, we must recognize the One who is all-powerful, to humble ourselves before Him, and learn from the evidence that came from the lust for power by the serpent that sought to usurp God’s power.
For many people one of their goals in life is success and is something that is valued in most cultures beginning from newborns with developmental skills up through senior adults. The criteria to achieve it varies from culture to culture and person to person. Such criteria are used often to measure us for academic success, occupational success, relational success and more. It can feel like our future and life is hanging in the balance.
Some of the measurements are very subjective and others are objective and involve excelling on various tests and skill sets. This tends to add to stress as we go through the assessment process as we fear failure or being condensed into such a narrow criteria when there is more to us than gets considered. Will we ever be enough?
Photo by Monstera Production from Pexels
It isn’t that such measures aren’t important but as we move through one season into another, we begin to see that some of the measures that most stressed us don’t even come up later in a new season.
When I look back at my academic life from grade school through a professional degree, I often smile at how stressed I was making the required benchmarks. I watched as our children faced the same thing and now our six grandchildren as well. I chuckle over a couple of math courses in high school and a physical science course in college that nearly did me in as I realize the courses were required for one reason or another but I never used that information again.
Maybe the point of them wasn’t always the information itself but what the challenges created in us and how we responded to them.
We all know that honor rolls, trophies, certificates, and degrees are things we are asked to accomplish in order to succeed. When you consider the late nights of study, cramming, faltering, and panic we may experience, are there any other measures we might consider?
While watching a movie a few nights ago one of my favorite actresses (Maggie Smith) spoke a line that has been echoing in my head ever since: “The measure of success is how we handle disappointment.”
Wow!
All along those tests and benchmarks, we experience disappointment and it isn’t something we tend to appreciate as it weighs us down far too often. It can cause us to sometimes give up or throw in the towel, berate ourselves, and develop negative internal messages and mindsets. But the thing is that if we choose to keep moving forward or finding the better path, we succeed in ways we could not have guessed possible.
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison was not the only one who failed often on his way to what the world would call success.
Down through history in all areas of life we discover many who experienced disappointment but how they handled it made all the difference. I see many in biblical stories as well as other areas.
Abraham and Sarah wanted a child, had been promised one, but years passed with no child and yet Abraham believed God in the midst of the disappointment when an angel appeared in his old age to affirm the promise would be fulfilled. Hannah, wife of Elkanah, also longed for a child but continued to seek God and was ultimately blessed with Samuel whom she dedicated back to God.
Joseph, delight and favorite of his father, Jacob, was disappointed when his family didn’t believe in the dreams he kept having. His brothers’ decision to sell him into slavery could have caused him to give up on the gift of his dreams from God but he didn’t despite the hard path in an Egyptian prison. His dreams there led him to the court of Pharoah and when he interpreted this leader’s dreams, he saved that country and his family from a terrible famine.
The disciples of Jesus were expecting a king and a kingdom on earth rather than the path Jesus took. Their response to that disappointment varied and some were more obvious than others. Peter betrayed Jesus and then wept and repented and was given grace and leadership in the birthing of the church. Judas betrayed Jesus which resulted in his trial and crucifixion and when Judas realized his failure, he hanged himself.
Handling disappointment is never easy but we always have a choice. That choice leads to success when we trust in the One who created us. He knows the story we are in the midst of that is not yet at an end. And guess what? He measures success differently and in the only way that ultimately matters.
“When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.” Corrie ten Boom
Each of us seems to be more and more time conscious these days. I think it relates to the fast-paced overly busy schedules we keep where we struggle to arrive on time and get home before midnight too many days.
We can all thank Thomas Edison for some of that. Before he created the filament for incandescent light bulbs in the late 1800’s, our ancestors’ days were much more related to the rhythm of sunlight and darkness as it changed through the seasons. After his invention, we stretched our working and playing farther into the night until we now seem to no longer recognize the sleep and wake cycles had a purpose for our good and health.
When we are young we tend to feel as if time is passing slowly and we are eager to push it forward for all we want to do or be, but as we get older and see how quickly we are using it up we are more likely to want it to move forward at a slower pace.
With those as a backdrop I have been reflecting on the statement of a pastor from Mexico a few weeks ago who spoke of the Lord coming soon. Yes, I have heard that many times over the years and if we are reading the New Testament carefully, we see Paul’s letters speaking of it. That can leave us quite uncertain about the meaning of the word “soon” in relation to His return.
It was when the pastor used a soccer game analogy and said we are in the last three minutes of the game that my attention was arrested. I have little knowledge of soccer so it was likely not as clear an illustration for me as it might be for others, but it still left a definite impression about the possible meaning of “soon”. If I broaden the idea out to cover other sports I know less well, it becomes clear it means near the end. I know the final minutes of a game often determine the outcome.
I went to a high school where football was king. High school students there first played it in 1891. Prior to the current playoff system that began in 1972, the team won the state championship 23 times. The teams were also recognized as the AP National Champions 9 times between 1935 and 1961 (the most in the nation). Since 1891, more than 10.5 million fans have watched the games of this team.
Every Friday night during football season the whole town would show up at the stadium decked in team colors with lots of enthusiasm to cheer on the team to victory. As a student on such a day, the excitement began with a parade downtown at lunchtime led by our marching swing band and cheerleaders. The idea of losing was not an option in anyone’s mind. We went to games at home and away cheering on the team and I saw more than a few games that came down to the final minute or two of the game to determine the winner.
I loved every minute of it! I first learned the game of football as a grade schooler sitting beside my dad for each game. When I was finally able to sit in the student cheering section, it was an electric experience! I knew every cheer and song and most of the plays happening on the field.
The analogy the pastor was talking about was far more significant and one that often seems to get less attention and fanfare in most of our lives than our favorite sports team. Yes, we know Jesus will return and as we see the world unraveling in every corner of the globe we perhaps think of it a bit more often, but is it a truth that spurs us to respond to the time we have differently?
Photo by Pixabay from Pexels
The truth about Friday night football in my town was not just about watching or playing the game. It was also about preparing for the season as well as each game itself. It affected nearly every choice that was made so we would be in the optimal condition to play and win. It was the spirit and the traditions handed down generation after generation that included a certainty about what we believed about the game and ourselves. We knew we were winners, but nothing was taken for granted or left to chance. It was something that everyone felt a part of and prepared for, not just the players on the field. We all got ready.
As I reflect on those exciting fun times over what could seem like a silly game to most, I wonder where I am (where we all are) if we are in the last three minutes of the game before the Lord returns. Am I living each day with the end in mind as Stephen Covey might ask?
So often I have felt the reminder as I read about the story of the wise and foolish virginsJesus tells us in Matthew 25. The parable clearly speaks of preparation for a sure end that has an unknown time stamped on it.
Maybe we handle the anticipation about the last three minutes of the game differently because there is no specific time stamp we know and because we have heard “soon” for a long time. Perhaps that has dulled our senses and lulled us to sleep. Sure, we think of it when we face the death of someone close to us or hear a diagnosis of our own that suggests our own days are numbered, but what about the big picture? What about the unseen world we are living in the midst of that has an eternal reality stamped on it?
One thing seems certain. It is closer today than yesterday.
Even though we do not know the exact time, J.R.R. Tolkien’s words spoken by Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring reverberate in my heart, mind, and spirit:
“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”
