Who Knows?

The bespectacled man was sitting there next to the building. His reddish beard, and green shirt making it difficult to determine at a passing glance, if he was rich, poor, or homeless. His talent, may have been self-taught, who knows. His posture gave the impression he was sitting on the ground. It was his perfect place of business, out of the way of the flowing crowds of people. His wares were set up for display along the walk, while behind them he sat with sketch pad, pencil in hand drawing the faces of people with cartoon like expressions on them. I suppose if I would have had a desire to leave some money with him, he’d have done one for me as well. Enough similarity to the real face to make it recognizable, but enough embellishment to make it hilarious. I don’t know if this was his real job, or if he was some college professor who enjoyed making a little money on the side in exchange for doing something he enjoyed. Either way, he was a master at what he was doing. His talent was to take reality, and slightly alter it to make it a mix of both reality and fiction. He was able to see you, and sketch a picture of you through his perspective. Or at least that is what I took him to be doing as we passed by.

Recently I was listening to a book, written to tell the story of a person who had been through a childhood of suffering, yet found redemption through Jesus Christ. The writer of the book took the details of this person’s life, and put the happenings into story form. The writer then had them check it for accuracy, and approval was given. The thought struck me that the writer may have portrayed the happenings of this persons life, according to what they thought important, rather than from a completely neutral position. If that was the case, then certain key points could be lifted out through the book according to the agenda of the writer. It may not be wrong, nor would the subject of the story disagree with what points the writer lifted out, but it could have been written much different if another person had written the story.

Take an example from the Ukraine – Russia conflict. A bomb falls, a structure is destroyed, people are hurt and dying, and both sides have reporters telling the story. Each one has an agenda to bring down the other, and each may have some truth, and each may twist the truth. In war where missiles are flying and bombs are dropping it is possible that a country may inadvertently hit their own people. It is just as possible that the other side caused the destruction and drums up false evidence to prove the other side did it. There is also the third possibility that it was neither or a combination of both. This is a truth, which is hard to imagine but war is war, and when things of mass destruction are whistling through the air, miscalculations and bad things are sure to happen. In this case scenario, both sides want to portray themselves as telling the truth, and the truth may never be known. Yet, social media and news outlets are out to convince people that what they portray is what really happened.

The world has become accustom to this type of news, and because of it, every man has turned to his own opinions, claiming them as the truth. This type of truth becomes as people perceive things, based on personal interest and selfish desires. The real truth becomes lost in the fray.

People tend to view things through their tinted glasses of their version of truth. They then use the happenings of they see, read, and hear, to build their version of the truth. For some, a little logical thinking would help them debunk the many thoughts and ideas out there, yet for some reason their minds have become taken up with believing things which are almost unbelievable. And they go back again and again to the same news watering hole and come back with the same thirst, and the same flavor of water.

Like the artist, we are all subject to believing an altered view of reality. We tend to believe what lines up with our own core beliefs and our core beliefs are influenced by what we feed on.

 For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee. Proverbs 23:7

This is not a new problem. We have a story in the Good Book, and there Pilot asked the question, “What is truth?” For him he saw a man who was innocent, but a people who had an agenda and wanted Jesus destroyed.

In the New Testament, we have the four gospels; Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. All four of these writers write about the life and death of Jesus. Many have overlapping accounts of the happenings as they observed and heard about them. All four had different view points, different experiences, different temperaments, and wrote accordingly. Their stories do not disagree, but make the picture more complete. That proves truth, and builds credibility.

The truth of God’s word is mixed with faith. Intellect will not figure it out but a firm faith in God’s plan will bring the truth back to reality for us. We do not have to figure out the world’s problems, leave that discussion to the, “comments” section on news articles, we just have to be sure that we know the truth in our hearts. We are all sinners, God is real, the Bible is His Word, Jesus loves us and died that we can be saved. Jesus is coming soon, this world is going to end and we must have the truth of God’s Word in our hearts and His covering of forgiveness on us to be saved.

Most of this old world’s problems will have no bearing on where we spend eternity, but over concern with them can steal our peace and eventually cause us to lose our Salvation.

Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. Zechariah 4:6