sacred strokes

Last night, Aaron and I had Game 2 of the NBA Finals on TV. I was in the kitchen, and couldn’t hear the game super well, or see it at all, when suddenly, I heard loud chanting, double syllables being repeated with an emphasized long “E” sound in the first syllable. That’s all I could hear, and at first I thought I heard “Cleve-Land, Cleve-Land!” A split second later, though, I remembered that this game was being played at the Warriors’ stadium, not in Ohio, home of the Cleveland Cavs. So… what the heck? I asked Aaron, “Are they actually cheering for Cleveland in there?!” And before he could even answer, I realized I had heard completely wrong – they were screaming the typical “De-Fense, De-Fense!” So… add that to my long list of randomly misheard words. But for a few seconds there, I really thought I was hearing “Cleveland.”

Here’s the thing – I hear what I hear. But that doesn’t mean that it is what was actually said. There are times when I am listening to someone speak but hear part of the sentence wrong, so I ask to clarify and, sure enough, I misheard one of the words, or the intended sentiment behind them. I wouldn’t be lying to repeat what I “heard” them say, but it also wouldn’t be the truth as to what they actually said or meant. And, even then, it wouldn’t make the repeated statement true in many cases. Which is interesting to me…

Mainly, it drives home the importance of questioning when something doesn’t make sense the way I heard it based on what I know, and going back to clarify the statement to ensure I understand what is really being stated. After ensuring that I understand what is really being said, and asking more questions even, I can then determine whether I “agree” with it or not. Communication and psychology interest me a great deal but there sure is a lot to it.

Of course we all know that just because we heard something does not make it true. And as Christians, we are people of truth. This is the case in regard to spreading the Truth of the gospel, about Jesus dying and being raised for the sake of our eternal well-being, but also in regard to speaking the truth about other things, as well. Telling the truth slowly builds credibility whereas lying immediately tears it down. I think of telling the truth as laying bricks to build a wall of trust, one by one, but a lie is like a wrecking ball knocking down many bricks with just one blow. With different perspectives and “well that’s what I heard/saw/thought” statements, we can all justify some of our half-truths/partial-truths/subjective statements. I wonder how many times we are actually spreading flat-out falsehood without even realizing it. Because we didn’t take the time to check the source, compare to what we already “know,” consider whether we actually stand by what we are saying rather than being an in-and-out type cog in the wheel of rumors, conspiracy or just selective and flattering falsehood. And, naturally, adding in our own two-cents and take on the matter.

When you listen to a sermon, when you read a particularly jarring news story, when you are told something not so great about a close friend, when you peruse an article on the internet… how do you personally gauge what is true? You gauge through comparison, of course. You line it up to what you already know or perceive to be true. And how do we know what is true? Christians know that every piece of God’s Word is real truth. And I mean real truth in the sense that we can’t dispute it. It’s our standard – it’s our map – it’s our measuring rod. It’s truth that remains no matter our perspective or opinion. And it will remain long after we are gone. It can help us move from “that’s what I heard to be true” to “that’s what I believe and know to be true.”

2 Timothy 4:3-4 tells us “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”

We all have preferences, and we all have things we wish to be true. Maybe we even believe some of those things out of the great temptation we have to bend the “truth” to suit our own personal desires and agendas. Or to feel more comfortable about ourselves or our opinions and thoughts which we know aren’t particularly pleasant, or are full-on sinful. It’s classic justification. And the best justification for Christian folks? Scripture of course! I can think of many times where scripture is taken out of context to suit personal agendas that, in the end, may be centered on someone’s ideals but are not actually centered on Jesus, or perhaps even the intent of those particular verses at all.

I’m sure that I have used scripture in the past according to how I personally interpret it, rather than what God may have actually meant. I know that particular verses can speak differently to different folks, or at different stages along their journey and that nothing is wrong with that. But when it crosses to manipulation, to twisting something and declaring “well, that’s what it says!” with no further dialogue with someone, we are often distorting scripture to fit our purposes, not the Lord’s. To argue rather than to draw ourselves and others closer to Jesus. And often, I think, we are drawing conclusions based on our own interpretation, our individual “decoding” of the message, before we really delve in and ensure that we have a fair understanding of what is actually “encoded” into the message. (Communication 101 terms right there.) I think we sometimes cling to our initial or current take on a verse, or someone else’s which we heard, and run with it rather than spending more time in the Source. Reading God’s Word and asking Him questions, allowing His Spirit to open our eyes and our ears to really grasp what He’s saying to us.

I wonder how often we allow ourselves to explore the things we hear about God, about others, about ourselves, about the world around us, and consider what is actually true. Trying to set aside our inherent bias, the genetic/environmental factors that affect our perceptions of this world, our differences in mental wiring, the lack of additional information… what is the unshakeable truth on which we would stake everything? I think about how, not long ago, everyone could “honestly” say that the earth is flat, with edges you could fall off and the whole shebang. That was “truth” until proven otherwise. And even then, folks were judged and condemned for a while for saying any different. They believed what they had been told, and were closed off to the possibility that perhaps what they had “known” for so long was actually not true. Whereas today, it sadly seems that the acceptance of the idea of “relative truth” is growing. (You know, “Your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth.” If truth changes between persons, it is not Truth. It is perspective, sure, but not truth. Right?)

In Isaiah 7, the regions of Aram and Ephraim became allied and King Ahaz of Judah became shaken, “as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind.” Aram and Ephraim were plotting the demise of Judah, saying they would invade, tear it apart, divide it among themselves and appoint their own ruler over it. But the prophet Isaiah was commanded by the Lord to tell King Ahaz that their threats would be unfulfilled. He told King Ahaz that it would not happen and, in verse 9, that “If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.” (Gosh, I love that verse!)

Although King Ahaz heard and cowered at these threats, they were merely human boasts, human plans which the Lord did not allow to come to fruition. We can choose to stand by, to believe, to consider as truth all the things we hear day in and day out, allowing them to strike fear in our hearts, disable our service to the Lord and to others, drain the joy out of our souls – or we can stand in our faith. In the best and greatest and truest truth there is. God’s Word is truth that can never be disproven. It can easily be misunderstood, misinterpreted and mishandled, but never proven false. So we have to do our best to understand His truth to our core.

I could keep thinking and writing about this, the idea of truth and our limited knowledge of this world and beyond, but it will tangent off more than it already has. I suppose the main message is this: just because you hear something or even think something does not make it true. I think we have much less awareness of what is really true than we know or claim. What is true is God’s Word. He speaks the truth to us, but we have to be open to hearing what He is actually saying, which is the tricky part. How do we drop all of our preferences, preconceptions, the facts that are really selective tidbits to fit our already formed opinions, and all the questionable things we tell ourselves for whatever emotional or social needs we have unfulfilled in our lives?

I think the first step is to acknowledge how lacking we are in regard to self-awareness, how subjective a people we really are, and how much we need some objective truth in our lives. God’s truth, the gospel truth, the truth that is revealed through divine revelation as we read the Bible, seek our Maker, and explore His creation. He communicates to us in many ways, but we often don’t hear Him or can entirely misunderstand what He is saying. We can unwittingly shape His message to meet our own stories, rather than the other way around. We need to pray for openness, with a willing heart to change if needed, and to be appropriate communicators of God’s awesome story. We have been trusted to share some great news, but we have to make sure best we can that we’re getting it right.

What are you hearing from the Lord today? And, perhaps more importantly, how are you ensuring that what you are “hearing” is what He is actually saying?

Isaiah 40:8, HLC