Finding truth
This week I've been thinking about truth. Spurred by a fantastic church discussion, a bunch of thoughts have rattled around in my mind over the last few days.
What is truth? Is it absolute? Is it relative?
Ultimately we'll each come to a conclusion based on our own lived experience. For me, I've had major shifts in perspectives over my life that influence how I approach truth.
I used to think I had it all. I knew everything. I had the truth, and I had conviction in my belief. Then I began to second-guess what I knew based on new information that came in. At first I was resistant; changing my mind meant admitting error.
Truth was absolute, and because I knew the right facts, I was without question correct. And boy did I share my views with hubris and gusto.
But the more I changed, the more I realized that it's a good thing to say we've been wrong, to grow in our understanding, and to be more compassionate as a result.
If I was so certain about a truth one day, but then learned information that changed how I saw things, could I be as certain the next?
As I grow older this has led toward looking for a single unifying belief that explains everything else. Yes, I know, that's scary.
Looking over the stories in the Bible we see example after example of God guiding His children and revealing who He was over time. Adam and Eve had a direct relationship with God, unmarred by sin, as close as we could imagine, with a direct connection and invitation to walk in the evening alongside their Creator. And yet they allowed an incorrect view of God to cloud their vision.
Let's take the heroes of the faith, as outlined in Hebrews 11. God's people had a perspective on His character, and followed that (or failed) in lives we read about on the sacred pages of the Bible. These people inspire us, but they also did not get everything right.
God used them anyway.
David was a man after God's own heart—David, of all people. He had so many things wrong, and caused hurt and division and sinned deeply. And yet, he caught that glimpse, that vision of who God is, and he responded to God's calling on his life.
The disciples didn't get the full picture, even when Jesus spelled it out to them for three straight years. Only Mary got it, and prepared for Jesus' death at the shock and disgust of the men around her.
Saul in the New Testament thought he had everything right, until God reached out, and he became converted.
As a church we believe deeply in finding the facts of the matter, and digging in until we know every piece and detail by heart. Truth matters to us. Part of that may be a reaction to getting the events of 1844 so wrong. We don't want to mess up again. We want to dot our i's and cross our t's.
But, in the pursuit of truth, we can miss the entire message that God is seeking to share.
I heard a sermon recently that I'm going to badly paraphrase:
We try to do in our hearts the things that we cannot do (cleanse and redeem and turn from sin), and Jesus is waiting to jump in and do those for us. On the other hand, we often refuse to do the things we can do (surrender, listen to that still small voice), and expect God to work in our lives anyway.
So is truth absolute? Yes.
But I only have a partial view of it at all times. I don't understand the context of everything that God said to the believers before me. I don't know how everything came together, and I see through a mirror dimly how I'm supposed to believe and think in this messy world today.
I can't possibly know it all. Even in heaven I expect a billion years to go by while I still try to grasp the infinite with a finite mind. And that has me excited.
I'm not God, so I can't know everything; but I can have faith that He does know it all, and will guide us each step of the way.
Now, for that single, dangerous, unifying theory of everything. I believe that God is a God of non-coercive love; full stop. There are many stories and people I've met that attempt to disabuse me of this notion. But I cling to it, hold to it with my whole heart, and use that belief as a litmus test against anything that comes up against it.
If I'm wrong—I can live with that. I'd rather approach life from this perspective and build around it, than to live the life where I thought I had everything right, and used judgment and condemnation as my tools to coerce others into my perspective.
Does that mean truth doesn't matter? I believe it does matter, and is important; and it's crucial to search for it and understand how everything fits together. I just don't think I can see the whole picture this side of heaven.
So when I'm feeling discouraged, or uncertain, I cling to the things that hold without question. Love conquers all.