Our world is so enamored by appearance that real value in things or people often gets overlooked at best and rejected at worst. The culture of “Advertisement” has fooled us and stolen the perception of what’s most valuable.
In the last article on living in fear, I talked about the fact that men and women struggle with fear in various forms, but it all goes back to creation when man walked away from a trusted relationship with their Creator and bought into the lies of Satan, thus making fear a cornerstone of his deception. All too often we try to deal with the effects of fear and not the root cause. If you haven’t read the first installment on this subject please read that first.
Over the last 100 years or so, our lives have been so shaped by the huge technological advancements that we can start to believe man has figured out the universe pretty well and we don’t need God anymore.
This “belief” in our own intelligence and the power of huge super computers has made our culture believe that a belief in a supernatural creator is obsolete, and only for the weak-minded amongst us. That is until you pull back the “green curtain” like in the wizard of Oz.
I grew up watching the Wizard of Oz every year. It was in color, as few movies on tv were. In the movie there seems to be this “powerful” wizard that knew everything and could do anything. The problem was, he couldn’t. He was just a smart guy with a lot of fancy gadgets the “wowed” people.
I did a google search on people sticking their head in the sand, relating to ignoring facts in life, and came up with some interesting facts that I wasn’t aware of.
The idea of a person sticking their head in the sand has to do with that person ignoring obvious facts or refusing to accept advice, hoping that simply denying the existence of a problem will make it go away.
This popular metaphor is believed to have originated with observations of ostriches that appear to bury their heads in the sand to avoid predators. Some people think this behavior results from the fact that ostriches are so stupid that they believe burying their heads will make them invisible to predators. In other words, if they can’t see the predators, then the predators can’t see them.
Listening to different news outlets talk about the same events can be down right disturbing. No matter whether its sports, politics or the accident in your neighborhood, facts matter. But what if the person or persons we listen to who are reporting an event have a bias? Take the NFL & North Korea.
The real truth is that everyone has bias on multiple topics, news people included. Bias is shaped by the information we receive and how that information is communicated. The human soul processes that information and our previous bias helps us come to conclusions. So if my previous experience identified “Red” as dangerous, I am easily moved to see danger every time I see red no matter what someone might say to me afterword.
While reading the scripture this morning, a passage stood out, and I’m wondering how many of us often pass over such verses to quickly because we think it’s just a bridge between ideas. Maybe the Lord has something to say to us this morning that we just might miss as just being filler, when it’s far more than we realize. Here is the verse that caught my attention:
John 16:12
“Oh, there is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now.”
This passage is from the message Jesus is sharing with his disciples just before He is arrested and crucified. The context is he is trying to communicate events that will take place in the future, and the importance of the Holy Spirit’s help in our personal lives. He is communicating that with the help of the Holy Spirit we can meet the challenges of each and every day, and without his help, we are unable to handle the load.
The information we are exposed to shapes our thinking and action, whether we like it or not. Our minds are created to process huge amounts of information and develop the ethics we end up with. But what if the information we acquire is either distorted or presented with a bias that we can’t detect on the surface? You know the answer…a distorted view or reality.
If the foundation of our thinking was corrupt or bias at an early stage of our development, we incorporated those distortions into our perception of reality, all the while believing our way of thinking was how life is. I’m still trying to correct those imbedded distortions in my life at the age of 65. Some things are hard to get out of our lives even when we know they’re false.
I am amazed at how few people today can’t or won’t use their God-given ability to think through problems honestly.
We use to teach in our schools, how to think clearly and rationally, to solve life’s problems. The ability of reason to solve problems is not something that comes naturally, but must be taught. I fear that in both k-12 and college and universities, students are taught “What” to think instead of how to think.
Today kids and adults are told they “Deserve” certain rights in life. That life should automatically be fair and make us happy. If you are awake you know by experience that’s a lie!
I want to pose this question today –
“How are we to know the difference between what we have been told, what is the real truth and what is a lie about this election” ?
Once someone is accused of either doing something or not doing something we start to form our opinion. Most times we think our judgement about a person or situation is the correct one and anyone who disagrees with us is an idiot. Amazing how people of the same faith, reading the same book, come up with such different opinions & life styles.
