Truth

It seems that we are more interested in creating truth than finding it these days. We used to go searching for truth, now we create it on a moments notice. We are more comfortable creating truth than to do the work of discovery. How foolish is that? Truth, by its very nature, cannot be created. If it is created, then that is called lying. Really what it comes down to is this simple phrase, which is abused and pitched in almost any situation, "Well that's your opinion." Or, "That's your truth." What are we communicating when we say this to someone, even to the best of friends? Think on it for a moment.

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Really, what this phrase is uncovering is our need to trust. We have a need to trust in something, in someone. It's unexplainable by science. Science can answer the basic questions: What? How? When? Where? but it lacks the ability to answer the "Why?" In order to do this, it must gravitate towards philosophy. "Why" isn't in the realm of science. You would think, after all of our evolution, and especially after the Enlightenment, that science would have moved us past such a primitive question. We shouldn't have this need to know, this need to discover the why of life.

Why did this happen?
Why do good things happen to bad people and bad people happen to good things? (Think on it for a while)
And, while we're on it, if there is a God, then why does He allow all of this evil to continue?

Ultimately, we ask "why" because our souls desperately crave meaning. We are meaning machines. We ascribe meaning to everything, don't we? Even foolish things. Rabbit's feet. Wearing the same pair of socks throughout the football season for good luck. Growing our hair out for the same reason. Wishing upon a star. Walking under a ladder, breaking a mirror. And on and on. Indeed, we have an insatiable need to believe in something, in someone. The Bible talks about believing in the sense of putting one's trust in something or someone. The need for believing in something, in trusting in something or someone is so great that we will believe just about anything, except of course trust in Jesus Christ. Now that would be outlandish! Are you kidding? Jesus?

But ourselves? We'll trust in ourselves. Never mind the fact that we are inundated with information, overrun by its presense, and yet we struggle to know ourselves more than ever before. But I digress. Isn't that what the question at the beginning is all about? Trust? And it communicates to the person you are speaking with that you do not trust them. When we say, "That's your opinion," what we are communicating is that we do not trust the person from whom the information comes. And maybe more importantly, we are communicating that we trust only ourselves. Thus, our quest for truth most often ends with us. We choose to create it, convinced that no one else can be trusted. Trust and truth are intimately connected, and God, is often found in between. Truth can only be discovered when trust is present in the source of the dissiminator of truth.

Have you ever considered that Jesus did not tell us the truth? No, his claim was far more bold than that. He said, "I am the Truth." Is it possible that Truth is embodied in God? That He is its source--where it is found and present? Could it be that when we search for Truth we are simply searching for God? And maybe, when we find God, we find Truth. Truth and trust. Without one, we cannot have the other. We cannot find truth in something we fundamentally do not trust.

Is it possible that one of the greatest stuggles for people desperate to find God and step into the Kingdom through Jesus Christ is the assertion that God cannot be trusted? Maybe, by ascribing to a version of God that makes Him responsible for every action, thought, desire, and word since the beginning of time has actually crippled people's ability to step into the Kingdom. A God who is the orchestrator of evil and suffering, for most whom I have met that have not stepped into the Kingdom, is a God not worth believing in or trusting. Avoiding the theological debate that could ensue, how can we expect people to step into the Kingdom when they do not trust God? Aren't trust and Truth intimately connected? This is not to say that Truth is not found outside of us. Indeed, it is. But as subjective beings, we are unwilling to find Truth in something or someone we do not trust.

Yet our souls will continue to scour the earth for Truth. Our souls will search for it even when our minds will not. And if you haven't discovered yet, our souls will often embrace what our minds are unwilling to accept. How long will we fight our souls, not realizing that our quest for Truth is really just our soul's craving for God?