Someone (unknown) said, “The greatest underdeveloped territory in the world may lie under your hat.” It’s a funny saying. But it’s about a not-so-funny, and prevalent, truth: Ignorance is dangerous.
Someone else (King Solomon) said, “Excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body” (Ecclesiastes 12:12). This truth is illustrated every time a college student takes a break before pursuing a graduate degree.
So the truth is that our minds come into this world a blank slate and we must choose carefully what we pursue.
One book says: “The goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Timothy 1:5). What a noble cause. In fact, everyone knows that love is the noblest cause.
God is here and God helps.
When Xerxes, king of Persia, invaded Greece he built a pontoon bridge across the Hellespont River, but the bridge was immediately destroyed by a storm. Xerxes became very angry and commanded that the river be whipped with three hundred lashes, and a pair of fetters be thrown into the river, and the river be branded with a hot branding iron, and they were to say, “Bitter water, our master thus punishes you….” (Herodotus, The Histories, 7.35)
How ridiculous! There is a proverb, “He who is slow to anger has great understanding, But he who is quick-tempered exalts folly” (Proverbs 14:29). Can we find a better illustration of this truth than Xerxes?
This also illustrates that it’s really easy to see this folly in others. But if we’re being honest, we might just see it in some things that we have done.
But we can overcome!
God is here and God helps.
During the Revolutionary War a man wrote: “The further we enter…independence, our prospects will expand and brighten, and a complete Republic will soon complete our happiness.” (1)
I’ll repeat the last part: “a complete Republic will…complete our happiness.”
Ask yourself: When you look around this Republic, do you see “complete happiness”?
Long beforehand, someone else (the apostle John) had written: “I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.” (3 John 4)
Yet another (the apostle Paul) wrote: “Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit.” (Philippians 2:2)
Now this is the good stuff — “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness”! (Galatians 5:22) And any person can have it, no matter the state of the Republic.
God is here and God helps.
A young man worked in a store where Sam was a customer. Sam was a fun customer — everyone at the store got along well with him.
This is a true story.
After a few years, someone heard the young man calling Sam, “Sambo,” which is how he had referred to him the whole time.
When the young man was informed better, he felt terrible. And when he apologized to Sam, he asked Sam why he had never said anything. Sam, full of grace, replied, “I knew you didn’t know and didn’t mean anything bad.”
In a famous passage about love, it says that love “believes all things” and “hopes all things” (see 1 Corinthians 13:4-7). The point is that, generally speaking, we are to assume the best, not the worst, of others. Sam lived this. And there was peace.
It’s not always easy, but we can work at it.
God is here and God helps.
Simon Lake was one of the first successful submariners. Once, he was caught in a storm that caused over 100 ships to sink, and he remembered in the book Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne, that Captain Nemo survived a storm by submerging his vessel; Simon Lake did the same thing and rode out the storm unharmed. Later, Lake would write, “Jules Verne was the director-general of my life.”
Life is a storm. This year is especially rough. And it’s only getting rougher.
If only a “Director-General” had written us a book!
But wait. Consider what one book says: “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.” (2 Peter 1:3)
We do have guidance!
God is here and God helps.
A father told his young daughter, “When they were handing out brains, I thought they said ‘trains,’ and I said ‘No thank you.’” The little girl then asked (and this really happened), “Is that true Daddy?”
That’s hilarious!
What is not a joke is raising children. Raising children is challenging!
But the rewards —from their first hug to their first word to their first day of school to the first time they choose what is right on their own— what wonderful rewards!
One parent (King Solomon?) wrote: “If your heart is wise, My own heart also will be glad” (Proverbs 23:15) and that parents of well-behaved and wise children will “greatly rejoice” (verse 24).
The same parent also wrote, “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.” (Proverbs 1:8)
God is here and God helps.
A famous economist (Thomas Sowell) wrote, “Experts may indeed have far more knowledge than the average amount of knowledge among individuals in the general population but the total amount of knowledge among millions of people in the general population vastly exceeds the total knowledge that any group of experts can assemble.” (1)
The author hints at a certain…tension. And mistakes will happen: Leaders will make mistakes; experts will make mistakes; and we also will make mistakes. And, sometimes, some very bad things follow! But really, this is just life — this is one thing that we all know.
The winds blow strongly this year; but we don’t have to be blown away by them.
A man (the apostle Paul) who understood the ups and downs of life wrote: “We have as our ambition...to be pleasing to [God]” (2 Corinthians 5:9). This is what life is about!
God is here and God helps.
(1) Basic Economics (2011), pp. 186-187
After Boris Yeltsin visited America, he told Soviets of our supermarkets having "aisle after aisle" "stacked" “with every conceivable type of food…and household item, each in dozen varieties” — a “cornucopia of goods beyond the imagination.” And while all of this amazed him, it also “depressed” and “pained” him. And his description of the riches "stunned" his audiences. (1)
Imagine if humans could see the "cornucopia" of spiritual blessings that are all around us! One book (Ephesians chapter one) speaks of…
These are available to everyone — no matter where or when they live.
God is here and God helps.
(1) As quoted by Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics (2011), pp. 18-19.
David Berlinski is a famous mathematician, biologist, philosopher. He writes (1):
And get this: Berlinski is an agnostic — he doesn’t even believe in a god!
The simple point is: If you’re unsatisfied with the answers you’ve heard from science, you’re not alone.
God is here and God helps.
(1) The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions (2009)
Listen to this poem:
“It matters not what you do;
Make a nation or a shoe;
For he who does an honest thing,
In God's pure sight is ranked a king.”
(By John Parnell.)
While the poem is about career choices, let’s observe four things the poet knows:
First, honesty matters.
Second, everyone should be honest.
Third, everyone should always be honest.
Finally, being honest —with God, with others, and with yourself— is valuable.
A society struggling with dishonesty is nothing new: Long ago and far away, someone (the prophet Isaiah) observed, “No one sues righteously and no one pleads honestly.” (Isaiah 59:4)
You may think this sounds familiar, but be honest: Do you yourself need be more honest?
God is here and God helps.
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